Preview

The Garden Party Analysis

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
3908 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Garden Party Analysis
THE GARDEN-PARTY
"The Garden Party" is a 1922 short story by Katherine Mansfield. It was first published in the Saturday Westminster Gazette on 4 February 1922, then in the Weekly Westminster Gazette on 18 February 1922. It later appeared in The Garden Party: and Other Stories.[1] Its luxurious setting is based on Mansfield's childhood home at Tinakori Road, Wellington.
Plot summary
The Sheridan family is preparing to host a garden party. Laura is supposed to be in charge but has trouble with the workers who appear to know better, and her mother (Mrs. Sheridan) has ordered lilies to be delivered for the party without Laura's approval. Her sister Jose tests the piano, and then sings a song in case she is asked to do so again later. After the furniture is rearranged, they learn that their working-class neighbor Mr. Scott has died. While Laura believes the party should be called off, neither Jose nor their mother agree. The party is a success, and later Mrs. Sheridan decides it would be good to bring a basket full of leftovers to the Scotts' house. She summons Laura to do so. Laura is shown into the poor neighbors' house by Mrs. Scott's sister, then sees the widow and her late husband's corpse. She is enamored of the young man, finding him beautiful and compelling, and when she leaves to find her brother waiting for her she is unable to complete the sentence, "Isn't life..."
Characters in "The Garden Party" • Mrs. Sheridan, Mr. Sheridan's wife and mother of Laura, Laurie, Meg, and, Jose. She is in charge of the household on a daily-basis. Mrs Sheridan lives with her husband and her six children in a homestead in a wealthy neighborhood. Her personality can be described as superficial which shows in her manner to care for clothes and exterior features only. Instead of being warm hearted and concerned about others, she is only worried about herself and her own property and prestige. Mrs Sheridan appreciates luxury greatly and enjoys abundance, thus she cannot

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Mrs. Turner Cutting the Grass, written by Carol Shields, illustrates the story of senior women referred to as Mrs. Turner and escorts the reader on a journey throughout much of her life. On this voyage, Carol Shields allows the reader the ability to delve into Mrs. Turners’ past and experience the critical events within her life which ultimately helped to shape her as a person. From beginning to end, Carol Shields gives the reader a god-like viewpoint of the story, presenting different perspectives and perceptions of Mrs. Turner held by various side characters. These interpretations of Mrs. Turner, from the various side characters, help to provide the reader with additional information about her as an individual. Ultimately, with this information,…

    • 165 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Instead of being a film that is gloomy and sad, the film has the remaining family members preparing a feast and arguing over where to bury the body. We don’t ever feel sad that the character is dead in the first place. We just laugh at the way they go about putting her to rest. They set the story up so that we focus less on the death and more about the bickering between family members. One of the characters also pokes fun at certain aspects of religion, which is always a very controversial topic in movies.…

    • 843 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    “Marco Rubio, a frothy focused-grouped concoction whose main qualifications to be president consists of a nice smile and an easy wit, has been mocking Trump as a con man.” This is an Ad Hominem within an Ad hominem. The author attacks Marco Rubio by making fun of him and his qualifications to be president. At the same time we see Marco Rubio has attacked Trump by mocking him as a con man.…

    • 356 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    "Ideas and the way those ideas are presented are what makes a poets' work distinctive. Choose 2 poems from 1 poet and describe how they show the distinctive characteristics of this poets' work.…

    • 1349 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    The whole setting in the dining-room was to celebrate the engagement of Sheila and Gerald, Sheila is a very playful and joyful character at the start of the play but as she gradually discovers through the interrogation of her family and how it effected Eva Smith, her personality changes!…

    • 1361 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Analysis of "The House"

    • 782 Words
    • 4 Pages

    “The House” by Kim Krupp Pepe is a selection about a girl and her memories of her old house as a child. The main idea is that she is grown up and will never experience the same memories as she once had, but she also cherishes her memories of the house that she once lived in as a child. For example, in the last paragraph, she states that “Now I’m always kind of torn between being sad because I feel like a child and yet knowing I am not and can never be again. Another part of me feels happy for having a place where all my past is stored and secreted away.”…

    • 782 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    through the lens of each author with a set of specific historiographical questions as a guide. This…

    • 1443 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Archetype: the Garden

    • 1150 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Garden is a mythological archetype that is well known as one of the famous four archetypes. The Garden is a representation of peace and sanctuary, because of its holy essence. This archetype has been portrayed for many years as a place of sanctuary and solitude for the fact that there was a place needed for people of all kinds to live in peace. The word paradise is also used most commonly to describe the setting of The Garden, it is most commonly known as a place where there are no worries and in modern English it is mostly known as a paradise. The Garden is also usually portrayed as a safe haven usually created by God, or a higher being.…

    • 1150 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Lorraine In The Pain Tree

    • 1445 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Lorraine recalls that she and Larissa were best friends. She thought that they were compatible; they were similar and that is why the two got along so well. However, Senior points out scenes and some thoughts by Lorraine that prove that Larissa and Lorraine were two very different people. After Lorraine failed to put the nail in the pain tree, Larissa said, “Maybe people like you don’t need the pain tree” (Senior 317). Larissa always saw the separation, even in the past. Lorraine, however, was caught off guard when she was younger because she never really gave much thought as to how she was much more privileged in comparison to Larissa. To Lorraine as a child, everyone was equal. In response to Larissa’s words, Lorraine said, “It was the only time I felt uncomfortable with her” (Senior 317). She was so uncomfortable because this was the very first time Lorraine truly understood that she and Larissa were different. As Lorraine got older, she began to realize who she was in relation to Larissa and the others like her. Lorraine began to realize that her friendship with Larissa was not what she remembered it to be. Larissa cared for Lorraine and the two had good times but it was Larissa’s job to make Lorraine happy. After the job, she moved on like the others before her. Lorraine understood now: “The women like Larissa would always be one step ahead, rooms like this serving…

    • 1445 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Worried about her sister, Josephine pounds on Mrs. Mallard’s door, begging entry. But Louise, says she is all right and tells her to go away only to resume her celebration about the wondrous future before her. Finally Mrs. Mallard leaves her room and rejoins her sister to return downstairs where Richards still waits. On their way down the stairs, they hear the front door open and see Mr. Mallard walk in. He had been no where near the accident scene. Richards quickly moves in front of Brently to prevent Mrs.…

    • 396 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The first story i’m choosing to refer to is ‘Between the pool and the Gardenias’. In this story it shows how the main character Marie found a baby and took the baby in as her own. We learned that she had multiple miscarriages and also works as a maid. Later on in the story we found out that the baby was actually deceased and that she was just hallucinating thinking the baby was real . I believe that in this story women are portrayed as a source of children and that is all they are really good for in those people's eyes. I think that women are also portrayed as weak minded people.I believe people fear these women because of the stereotypes they have for people like her, people that have had miscarriages the amount that she did. I also think…

    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Monkey Garden Analysis

    • 1258 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Growing up is something every individual has to encounter. It’s an unstoppable and unwanted part of life. In the “Monkey Garden” Esperanza deals with her realization that she is growing up. The overall theme is growing up. This is hinted and foreshadowed throughout the story. Sandra Cisneros’ use of symbolism depicts Esperanza’s feelings of grief toward the unstoppable reality that she is growing up…

    • 1258 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the essay “Stranger in the Village” written by James Baldwin in 1953 from Notes of A Native Son, the author mainly describes the idea of racism from both black and white people perspectives and how it affects to the America society as well as throughout the whole world. This essay was written during the time of Jim Crow Law and the onset of the Civil Right War; hence, it mostly implies the idea of racism in the US. The grief, pain, frustration and devastation that black people had to endure were so great that they had to choose between standing up to fight for their own rights or just staying the same as low life people as they had been. The whites also had to struggle a battle in their mind which they…

    • 1282 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Krik? Krak! contains nine stories and an epilogue. Although the stories take place in Port-au-Prince or Ville Rose, Haiti, or New York, they do not overlap. The only exception is “Between the Pool and the Gardenias,” which mentions women from earlier stories. All the stories are all about Haitian women trying to understand their relationships to their families and to Haiti. The epilogue, “Women Like Us,” suggests that these women are related. The epilogue’s unnamed narrator, possibly Danticat herself, notices her similarity to her mother and female ancestors. These women cook to express sorrow, but the narrator chooses to write. Her mother doesn’t approve because Haitian writers are often killed. However, the narrator’s female ancestors are united in death, and she uses stories to keep their history alive..…

    • 2938 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    analysis of Dinner Party

    • 666 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The text under analysis is named The Dinner Party, written by Nicholas Monsarrat. Monsarrat is a British novelist known for his sea stories and his novels, The Tribe That Lost Its Head and its sequel, Richer Than All His Tribe.…

    • 666 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays

Related Topics