1. THE GARDEN PARTY
BY : KATHERINE MANSFIELD

2. Author Biography
Katherine Mansfield was born Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp to a
wealthy family in Wellington, New Zealand, on October 14, 1888. She
was educated in London, deciding early on that she wanted to be a
writer. She studied music, wrote for the school newspaper, and read
the works of Oscar Wilde and other English writers of the early
twentieth century. After three years in London she returned to New
Zealand, where her parents expected her to find a suitable husband
and lead the life of a well-bred woman. However, Mansfield was
rebellious, adventurous, and more enamored of the artistic
community than of polite society.
Katherine Mansfield
Mansfield began publishing stories in Australian magazines in 1907,
and shortly thereafter returned to London. A brief affair left her
pregnant and she consented to marry a man, George Bowden, whom
she had known a mere three weeks and who was not the father of
her child. She dressed in black for the wedding and left him before
the night was over. Upon receiving word of the scandal and spurred
on by rumors that her daughter had also been involved with several
women, Mansfield's mother immediately sailed to London and
placed her daughter in a spa in Germany, far away from the
Bohemian artists' community of London. During her time in
Germany, Mansfield suffered a miscarriage and was disinherited.
After returning to London,

3. • Mansfield continued to write and conduct various love
affairs.
• In 1911, Mansfield published her first volume of stories, In
a German Pension, most of which had been written during
her stay at the German spa. That same year she met John
Middleton Murry, the editor of a literary magazine.
Although they lived together on and off for many years, her
other affairs continued. Together Mansfield and Murry
published a small journal, the Blue Review, which folded
after only three issues. However, the experience led to
friendships with members of the literary community of the
day, including D. H. Lawrence and Frieda von Richthofen
Weekly. In 1918 Mansfield was granted a divorce from
Bowden, and she and Murry married.

4. Synopsis
• "The Garden Party", written by Katherine Mansfield, is the
story of an upper-class British family who is throwing a
party for friends. It is a warm, summer day while the family
makes preparations, by cooking food and setting up a
location for the marquee and band. While preparing, the
family hears about a tragic accident which occurred in the
poor part of the neighbourhood, at the bottom of the hill. A
young man was thrown from a horse, and killed, leaving
behind his wife and five children. The one daughter, Laura,
is upset about the news and wants to cancel the entire party.
Her family thinks she is overreacting, and doesn't believe
the death should affect them because their house is at the
top of the hill and is separated from the lower-class
families.

5. 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.

6. Themes
• Class consciousness. Laura feels a certain sense of kinship with the
workers and again with the Scotts. Her mother thinks it would
embarrass them to receive flowers. An omniscient narrator also
explains that as children Laura, Jose, Meg and Laurie were not
allowed to go near the poor's dwellings, which spoil their vista.
• Illusion versus reality. Laura is stuck in a world of high class
housing, food, family and garden parties. She then discovers her
neighbour from a lower class has died and she clicks back to reality
upon discovering death.
• Sensitivity and insensitivity Death and Life. The writer masterfully
handles the theme of death and life in the short story. The
realization of Laura that life is simply marvellous shows death of
human being in a positive light. Death and life co-exist together and
death seems to Laura merely a sound sleep far away from troubles
in human life.

7. Setting
• 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.

8. Literary devices
• metaphor – only the blue was veiled with a
haze of light gold.
• Personafication – they were like trees you
imagined growing on a desert island, proud,
solitary.. Etc.
• Simile – she felt just like a work-girl.
• Onomatopoeia – “tuk-tuk-tuk,” clucked cook
like an agitated hen.

9. Formal garden design with rectangular middle with
small shrub borders and grass in the centre.

10. GROUP MEMBERS
• SHAHIRAH
• NISHA
• CHARLENE
• VAISHINI
• KARISMA
• FAIRUZ
• MADIHAH