The Garden Party

“Oh, how extraordinarily nice workmen were, she thought. Why couldn’t she have workmen for her friends rather than the silly boys she danced with and who came to Sunday night supper? She would get on much better with men like these.”

As Laura observes one of the workmen enjoying the scent of a lavender sprig, her inner monologue shows her grappling with class distinction. Because Laura is from a well-to-do family, the “silly boys” she references are most likely of her same social strata. However, Laura does not seem to mind the class differences between herself and the workmen, as she is interested in the workmen’s personalities.

“It’s all the fault, she decided, […] of these absurd class distinctions. Well, for her part, she didn’t feel them. Not a bit, not an atom... And now there came the chock-chock of wooden hammers.”

As Laura still considers the workmen, she concludes that class distinctions are not important to her. This immediately distinguishes her from her family members who are more concerned with life inside the gates of their home than outside. As she continues to ponder this, she is called back inside the house for a phone call; this moment symbolizes that while she errs to the side of egalitarianism, her upbringing calls her back to her duties, to which she responds quickly and favorably.

“She was still, listening. All the doors in the house seemed to be open. The house was alive with soft, quick steps and running voices. 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. But the air! If you stopped to notice, was the air always like this? 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. Darling little spots. Especially the one on the inkpot lid. It was quite warm. A warm little silver star. She could have kissed it.”

In the hustle and bustle of the day, this is one of the few moments where Laura removes herself from the preparations in order to observe and listen. Mansfield’s description of the house invokes pleasant and energized visuals, with a tone of lightness and joy, by using personification and metaphor.

“‘But I thought you said you didn’t mean to interfere,’ said Laura. […] She put her arm round her mother’s neck and gently, very gently, she bit her mother’s ear. ‘My darling child, you wouldn’t like a logical mother, would you?’”

Upon the canna lilies’ delivery, Laura questions why Mrs. Sheridan ordered flowers after relinquishing her role as the hostess. Her mother’s playful response suggests her awareness that the children are most likely incapable of heading a large event. Laura and her siblings are still in the liminal state between adolescence and adulthood, and Mrs. Sheridan knows it.

“The piano burst out so passionately that Jose’s face changed. She clasped her hands. She looked mournfully and enigmatically at her mother and Laura as they came in.

This Life is Wee-ary,

A Tear—a Sigh.

A Love that Chan-ges,

This Life is Wee-ary,

A Tear—a Sigh.

A Love that Chan-ges,

And then… Good-bye!

But at the word ‘Good-bye,’ and although the piano sounded more desperate than ever, her face broke into a brilliant, dreadfully unsympathetic smile. ‘Aren’t I in good voice, mummy?’ she beamed.”

Jose’s song plays into the theme of life and death. While Jose is in good spirits, she suddenly adopts a mournful and passionate persona as she sings about the sad and changing nature of life. Jose’s adolescence has protected her from the woes of adulthood, and based on her transformation back into a smiling and happy countenance, the reader can assume that she herself has not experienced any of the weariness depicted in the song.

“Of course Laura and Jose were far too grown-up to really care about such things. All the same, they couldn’t help agreeing that the puffs looked very attractive. […] Oh, impossible. Fancy cream puffs so soon after breakfast. The very idea made one shudder. All the same, two minutes later Jose and Laura were licking their fingers with the absorbed inward look that only comes from whipped cream.”

In their desire to eat a cream puff, Laura and her sibling demonstrate their liminal position between adolescence and adulthood. While this dessert is synonymous with adolescence for the sisters, they can’t resist, and they ultimately both eat one. This passage also shows how the third-person narrator wavers between objectivity and adopting the protagonist’s perspective; when the narration says “Oh, impossible,” this expresses Laura’s (and likely both girls’) subjective evaluation of the situation.

“‘Jose!’ she said, horrified, ‘however are we going to stop everything?’ ‘Stop everything, Laura!’ cried Jose in astonishment. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Stop the garden-party, of course.’ Why did Jose pretend? But Jose was still more amazed. ‘Stop the garden-party? My dear Laura, don’t be so absurd. Of course we can’t do anything of the kind. Nobody expects us to. Don’t be so extravagant.’”

When Laura learns of the man’s death, her immediate reaction is to turn to Jose and ask how they will proceed in canceling the party. In this situation, Jose is an antagonist to Laura’s instinct: She insists that canceling the party would be an “extravagant” act. The use of “extravagant” here is an ironic use by Mansfield; Jose considers neither their lavish property nor their elaborate garden party to be extravagant; what seems “extravagant” to her, instead, is the suggestion of an act of empathy. This conversation is the first open disagreement in the story (i.e., inciting incident), and from this point, the plot becomes rising action.

“When the Sheridans were little they were forbidden to set foot there because of the revolting language and of what they might catch. But since they were grown up, Laura and Laurie on their prowls sometimes walked through. It was disgusting and sordid. They came out with a shudder. But still one must go everywhere; one must see everything. So through they went.”

For the Sheridan children, class distinctions were ingrained in them from an early age, and their worldview retains this perspective. However, Laura and her brother Laurie choose not to stay behind the gates but to explore the outside world. The last sentence has a double meaning and signifies the inevitability of moving through the stages of life.

“‘And just think of what the band would sound like to that poor woman,’ said Laura. ‘Oh, Laura!’ Jose began to be seriously annoyed. ‘If you’re going to stop a band playing every time some one has an accident, you’ll lead a very strenuous life.’”

When Jose and Laura differ in their attitudes toward the band, it symbolizes a key difference in their characters. For Laura, the band represents the party’s happiness and lightness, and, with her sympathetic nature, she is concerned for how the grieving widow might feel if she hears the music. In contrast, Jose sees the festivities’ continuation as a fact of life—a fact justified by the Sheridans’ higher class standing over the widow.

“They were 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.”

Mansfield uses a simile to describe the arriving guests. Although Mr. Scott’s death as well as the Sheridans’ indifference to it has created an inner struggle for Laura, the party not only continues but does so cheerfully. The scene’s grandness and effervescence set the stage for a drastic contrast against the outside world filled with poverty and grief.

“And the perfect afternoon slowly ripened, slowly faded, slowly its petals closed.”

Despite the short story’s title, the actual event of the party receives little time in the narrative. The majority of the party is summarized by this metaphor of a blooming-then-withering flower. This metaphor connects to the theme of life and death and conveys the fragile state of life.

“‘It was a horrible affair all the same,’ said Mr. Sheridan. ‘The chap was married too. Lived just below in the lane, and leaves a wife and half a dozen kiddies, so they say.’ An awkward little silence fell. Mrs. Sheridan fidgeted with her cup. Really, it was very tactless of father... Suddenly she looked up. There on the table were all those sandwiches, cakes, puffs, all uneaten, all going to be wasted. She had one of her brilliant ideas.”

This is the only time in which the third-person narration momentarily leaves Laura and shifts to another character: Mrs. Sheridan. For the first time, the reader hears her inner monologue, which immediately precedes her sending Laura beyond behind the gates into the new reality of poverty and death.

“There lay a young man, fast asleep—sleeping so soundly, so deeply, that he was far, far away from them both. Oh, so remote, so peaceful. He was dreaming. Never wake him up again. His head was sunk in the pillow, his eyes were closed; they were blind under the closed eyelids. He was given up to his dream. What did garden-parties and baskets and lace frocks matter to him? He was far from all those things. He was wonderful, beautiful. While they were laughing and while the band was playing, this marvel had come to the lane. Happy... happy... All is well, said that sleeping face. This is just as it should be. I am content.”

Laura’s encounter with death is counterintuitively positive. The metaphor of sleep conveys that Mr. Scott is beyond superficial concerns of class distinctions; this indifference is “beautiful” to Laura. The band again symbolizes the continuity of life, but rather than mourn how he is missing of the music, Laura believes “all is well.”