.......Laura then recommends a corner of the tennis court. Although a band will be playing on the court, she says, there will still be room for the marquee. Another man suggests placing the marquee against the karaka trees. Laura dislikes the idea of hiding the broad leaves and yellow fruit of the karakas, but the workmen are already heading toward them with the staves and rolls of canvas. She is impressed that one workman stops to smell lavender. Too bad the boys who come calling for her aren’t as sensitive as he is, she thinks. She muses that she would get along well with these simple workmen and wouldn’t let class distinctions get in the way.

The time is early summer in a year in the first decade of the 20th Century. The story unfolds at the estate of a well-to-do upper-class family on Tinakori Road in Wellington, New Zaeland (which was the real-life locale where author Katherine Mansfield lived beginning in 1898), at the nearby home of a poor lower-class family, and on the road between the two dwellings. Mansfield, grew up in Wellington, attended school there, furthered her education in England in 1903, returned to Wellington in 1906, and returned to England while still under age twenty to pursue a writing career. Her father, a prosperous banker, supported her move with a generous financial allotment.

Characters

Laura Sheridan: Pretty teenager who undergoes a conflict on the day of a garden party.
Laurie Sheridan: Laura's brother. Laurie could be a nickname for Laurence.
Meg, Jose: Sisters of Laura and Laurie.
Mrs. Sheridan: Class-conscious mother of the Sheridan children.
Mr. Sheridan: Husband of Mrs. Sheridan and father of the Sheridan children.
Mr. Scott: Cart driver killed in an accident. His family lives in a settlement of commoners down the road from the Sheridan home.
Em: Grieving widow of the cart driver.
Woman in Black: Sister of Em.
Kitty Maintland: Friend of Laura.
Florist: Person who delivers lilies to the Sheridan home before the garden party.
Man From Godber's: Man from a bakery who delivers pastries to the Sheridan home. While making the delivery, he reports the death of Mr. Scott and describes how he was killed.
Cook: The cook in the Sheridan home.
Sadie, Hans: Servants.
Four Workmen: Men who set up the marquee for the garden party.
Gardener: Worker who arose at dawn to cut the grass on the Sheridan estate.

Type of Work and Year of Publication

“The Garden Party” is a short story that was first published in the Westminister Gazette in February 1922. In May of the same year, it was published by Alfred J. Knopf, Inc., as part of a collection entitled The Garden Party and Other Stories.

Narration

Mansfield wrote "The Garden Party" in limited third-person point of view. It is limited in that the author presents the thoughts of Laura only. The personality and outlook of the other characters reveal themselves only through what they say and do.

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Growth

.......On the grounds of the Sheridan home, beautiful flowers grow. One of them is Laura, a pretty teenager rooted in the traditions of her privileged family. Whether she flourishes depends on whether she can accept and understand the world beyond the Sheridan family’s garden paradise. Two developments, one minor and one major, suggest that Laura can do so and thereby grow into a mature adult. These are as follows:

.......When four workmen enter the grounds to set up the marquee for the garden party, Laura approves of their smiling faces. But after she suggests placing the marquee on the lily lawn, a workman rejects the idea, saying that she should the marquee “where it’ll give you a bang slap in the eye.” Laura then wonders whether it is respectful of a laborer to speak to a girl of her upbringing in the crude language of the common people. However, Laura ends up approving of the men even though they are the ones who choose the location for the marquee–against the karaka trees. Thus, though failing to supervise the men with authority, Laura learns to overlook class distinctions in dealing with the outside world.

The Second

.......News of the fatal accident prompts Laura to suggest cancellation of the garden party out of respect for the grieving family. However, upon seeing how smart she looks in the hat her mother gives her, she agrees with her mother and Jose that it would be absurd to call off the party. After the festivities end and the family members gather in the marquee for coffee, Mr. Sheridan broaches the subject of the fatal accident, saying how horrible it must be for the wife and children to cope. The family goes silent. Laura thinks, “Really it was very tactless of father . . . ,” but does not finish her thought. Her mother then decides to send a basket of uneaten sandwiches and pastries down to the Scotts. Whether she sincerely wants to help–or simply wishes to get rid of the leftovers or assuage a feeling of guilt about the Scotts–is arguable. At any rate, Laura agrees to take the basket. After walking down the hill from her home, she crosses a wide road and enters the the environs of the common folk. Here, Laura faces a severe test:

.......Mr. and Mrs. Sheridan tend to isolate their children from the harsh reality of the mundane, workaday world. Entry to the estate is open only to the upper-class acquaintances of the family–the guests at the garden party, for example, or the friends of Laura, such as Kitty Maitland and the “silly boys . . . who came to Sunday night supper.” Mansfield compares the Sheridan children to the exotic karakas–“trees you imagined growing on a desert island, proud, solitary, lifting their leaves and fruits to the sun in a kind of silent splendour. Must they be hidden . . . ?” When Laura and Laurie were small children, they were confined to a "desert island" (the Sheridan estate), and their parents refused to allow them to visit the “disgusting and sordid” settlement of common folk down the road. When they were older and eager to break out of their isolation, “Laura and Laurie on their prowls sometimes walked through” the settlement. “They came out with a shudder. But still one must go everywhere; one must see everything.”

Transition

.......Laura struggles toward young adulthood, trying hard to think and act maturely but sometimes behaving capriciously. However, when she crosses the “broad road” at the bottom of the hill with a basket of food for the Scotts, she also crosses into the first stage of adulthood. When she sees the body of Mr. Scott–who has made the ultimate transition–she begins to understand the meaning of life and death in a world in which all human beings share a common humanity and class distinctions are nonexistent.

Climax

The climax occurs when Laura enters the Scott home and sees the grieving wife and the corpse.

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.......In "A Garden Party" the world of the Sheridans is bright, shining, and heavenly. The world of the Scotts, on the other hand, is dark, gloomy, and cimmerian. Besides contrasting the two worlds, the imagery also reflects the conflicting moods of Laura as she perceives life around her.
.......Mansfield opens the story with descriptions of the weather–perfect, with a cloudless sky and a golden haze. She follows with a description of the garden, something of a demi-paradise where the grass “seemed to shine” and the rose bushes, heavy with budding flowers, “bowed down as though they had been visited by archangels.” The workmen set up the marquee against the karaka trees–“so lovely, with their broad, gleaming leaves, and their clusters of yellow fruit. They were like trees you imagined growing on a desert island, proud, solitary, lifting their leaves and fruits to the sun in a kind of silent splendour.” Then a florist arrives with a “blaze of lilies.”
.......Mansfield darkens her imagery when first referring to the cottages of the common folk living down the hill from the Sheridans: "They were little mean dwellings painted a chocolate brown." She then mixes light and dark imagery when she writes that "The very smoke coming out of their chimneys was poverty-stricken. Little rags and shreds of smoke, so unlike the great silvery plumes that uncurled from the Sheridans' chimneys."
.......When Laura is in conflict over whether it is right to hold the garden party when a family down the road is grieving, she goes to her room wearing a fashionable hat her mother gave her, a hat whose hues reflect the conflict. Upon entering her room, the narrator says, "the first thing she saw was this charming girl in the mirror, in her black hat trimmed with gold daisies, and a long black velvet ribbon."
.......When the guests arrive for the party, they are "like bright birds that had alighted in the Sheridans' garden for this one afternoon, on their way to–where? Ah, what happiness it is to be with people who all are happy, to press hands, press cheeks, smile into eyes."
After the party, the imagery darkens, although there are a few glimmers of light. Following are examples:

The lane began, smoky and dark. Women in shawls and men's tweed caps hurried by. Men hung over the palings; the children played in the doorways. A low hum came from the mean little cottages. In some of them there was a flicker of light, and a shadow, crab-like, moved across the window

Then the door opened. A little woman in black showed in the gloom.

The little woman in the gloomy passage seemed not to have heard her.

She found herself in a wretched little low kitchen, lighted by a smoky lamp.

Mansfield frequently uses personification (a type of metaphor) and onomatopoeia to animate her prose. Following are examples:

They were like trees you imagined growing on a desert island, proud, solitary, lifting their leaves and fruits to the sun in a kind of silent splendour.
Proud personfies the karaka trees.

The green baize door that led to the kitchen regions swung open and shut with a muffled thud. And now there came a long, chuckling absurd sound. It was the heavy piano being moved on its stiff castors.
Onomatopoeia: muffled thud and chuckling.

Little faint winds were playing chase, in at the tops of the windows, out at the doors. And there were two tiny spots of sun, one on the inkpot, one on a silver photograph frame, playing too.
Playing personifies winds and spots of sun.

"Tuk-tuk-tuk," clucked cook like an agitated hen.
Onomatopoeia: tuk and clucked.

The very smoke coming out of their chimneys was poverty-stricken.
Poverty-stricken personifies smoke.

The following may be interpreted as symbols in “The Garden Party:”

Karaka Trees, Desert Island, Marquee: The narrator says that the karakas “were like trees you imagined growing on a desert island, proud, solitary, lifting their leaves and fruits to the sun in a kind of silent splendour. Must they be hidden by a marquee?” The Sheridan children, of course, are somewhat isolated on their parents’ estate, protected from the outside world. Therefore, the trees would be the children, the desert island the Sheridan estate, and the marquee the overprotection of the parents.
The Lilies: They may represent the purity, innocence, and vulnerability of Laura, who “crouched down as if to warm herself at that blaze of lilies; she felt they were in her fingers, on her lips, growing in her breast.”
Laura’s Hat: When Laura asks her mother to call off the garden party out of respect for the grieving Scotts, Mrs. Sheridan places a fashionable hat she had bought for herself on Laura’s head. “The hat is yours,” she says. “It’s much too young for me. I have never seen you look such a picture.” Then she tells Laura that the party will go on as scheduled, saying, “People like that don't expect sacrifices from us. And it's not very sympathetic to spoil everybody's enjoyment as you're doing now." Laura then goes to her room, disconcerted. However, as soon as she looks in her mirror and sees how chic she looks in the new hat, she thinks that perhaps her mother was right about the party and decides not to bother herself about the Scotts until after the party is over. The hat, thus, appears to symbolize Mrs. Sheridan's worldview–including her class-consciousness–which she has now passed on to Laura.
The Hill: The Sheridan estate is on a hill, suggesting that they are of good birth and high social standing.
The Road Down the Hill: This appears to represent Laura’s journey toward maturity–and the outer world from which she has been protected by her parents.
The Wide Road: At the bottom of the hill is a wide road across which is the settlement of common people. It appears to represent the class barriers between them and the Sheridans.
The Garden: Throughout the story, the garden appears to represent the growth of the Sheridan children as well as a kind of Eden in which their parents confine them.

Study Questions and Essay Topics

1. If Laura had finished her question at the end of the story, what would it say?
2. What passages in the story suggest that Laura is on her way to becoming more mature?
3. Should the Sheridans have called off the garden party, as Laura suggested?
4. In an informative essay, write a psychological profile of Laura.
5. To what extent does the story reflect the author's experiences as a teenager?
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