The Garden Party

 

Ellen 

 

The theme of life and death

 

In the garden party there is a contrast between life and death. Mansfield tends to exaggerate the setting, characters in order to strongly portray her theme. She describes the Sheridan’s garden and house with immaculate beauty and this can be an image of heavenly life. Whereas the villagers live in constant shadow and ‘knots’ of people stood at the gate.

Laura is exposed to death for the first time in her life and in a way she becomes emotionally maturer. This contrast of life and death helps with the development of Laura as she begins to question what life is? She sees the lower class, work man on his death men “All is well said that sleeping face…I am content.” It was amazing that such a closed minded young lady such as Laura was able to question all her values and views. She has been brought up in a materialistic world with everything around her, which is beautiful and then is forced to accept death. She begins to realise that one day she will die, and starts to wonder if she is making the most of the important things in life.  

 

 

 

Vanessa

 

 

Appreciate the little, and simple things

 

In the Garden Party a theme is ‘appreciation of little and simple things’. When arranging the party the Sheridan family are worrying so much about such extravagant things, minor details that don’t really matter. For example Mrs Sheridan is very worried about the flags on the sandwiches and expects the cook to as well. But we see that the cook doesn’t really think that they are important, and understands that she is just putting more importance on to a little minor detail. Again when Laura is admiring the garden, she thinks that the roses are the only flowers that anyone would want to see at a garden party and is amazed when the workman notices the lavender and picks it up to smell it. At the end of the story we see Laura recognise this as she understands that although she has spent so much time on the minor details of life, really one day she will die and these things that she has spent so much time on are not really that important.

 

Quotes relating to this theme are:

‘roses are the only flowers that impress people at garden-parties’

‘caring for the smell of lavender’

‘pacify cook…. I’m terrified of her this morning’

‘the cook, who did not look at all terrifying’

 

 

 

Sarah

 

 

The theme of death in “The Garden Party”

Laura is unlike the rest of her family; she is able to view the life beyond her own class. She had been protected all her life from betrayal, poverty and death, which she gets to experience by the end of the story. Laura’s experience with death leads for her to change her outlook on life. The song that Jose sings is about death but she does not seem to understand what it is about. She smiles at the end of the song not recognising the sadness in the song. …Hope comes to die. A dream a wa-kening. This line of the song displays how Laura saw the man- giving into a dream. When Laura sees the dead man she realises that in death everyone is the same in death, she sees past all the class structures, frocks, & garden parties. When Laura says, “forgive my hat” it shows the reader that she admits to wearing fancy clothes and expensive hats but we can tell that she also realises that life is more than that. She realises that her hat is inappropriate; it brags how wealthy she is. It is everything that Laura is; it represents her narrow-minded upbringing and how she was taught to treat others such as the lower class. When Laura says, “isn’t life” we can understand that she has had an experience which she has learnt an understanding of the “lower class”, she has come to realise that people aren’t so different after all.

 

 

 Carley

 

 

Death

 

A major theme in “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield is that of death. Laura Sheridan is quite unlike her snobbish upper class family and throughout the short story we see her values developed and questioned when she encounters death.

 

Laura has been brought up to value material things and disregard the lower class. These morals have been passed down by her parents and she is expected to follow suit. However, when Laura sees the dead man lying in the dark shack she realises how harsh life in the lower class can be. Also that superficial things such as a party should not matter as much as they do.

 

When Laura says “forgive my hat” we can see that her values have been deeply affected by her experience with the dead man. What she really means is that she has realised how narrow-minded her upbringing was and she is sorry for how she and her family have treated the lower class.

 

The death of the villager awakens a feeling of freedom in Laura. She marvels at the dead man’s face; at how peaceful he looks, and she starts to appreciate that the man is now free of the superficial world in which Laura lives. As if he is in a happier place now where parties and flowers don’t matter.

 

 

 JODIE AND ROCHELLE

 

 

THEME OF “DEATH” IN THE GARDEN PARTY BY KATHERINE MANSFIELD

 

• When Laura is first informed of Mr Scott’s death she was shocked and felt obliged to postpone the garden party in order to respect the family. She doesn’t understand why her sister and mother aren’t affected by the death and don’t seem to care.
• “Mother isn’t that terribly heartless of us?” Laura makes this statement because her mother refuses to take her seriously and by doing so she hopes to change her mothers opinion.
• After she discusses the matter with her mother and finds out that she doesn’t agree with Laura wanting to cancel the party. Laura decides, “If Laurie agreed with the others it was bound to be right.” This feeling is due to the fact that Laura has grown up in a sheltered environment and has never experienced death, she wants to understand it but is also influenced by the actions and opinions of her family.
• Jose sings before the garden party is held. It’s ironic how she can sing a song about death and a weary life when she cannot-could not, even remotely relate to ever being in the position of the dead villagers family. She is singing about something that she doesn’t understand, something she can’t feel. This is due to the fact that she has also been sheltered from things such as death throughout her life by her upper-class family. At the end of the song Jose appears to show no sympathy or compassion, because she has none. She is singing a song about death but cannot understand how painful and sad it really is. If anybody in the text should be singing the song it should be the dead mans wife.

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!

 

 

TONY

 

 

 

Life and death

Another common theme in “The Garden Party” is life and death. There is a contrast between the Sheridan’s house (or the garden party) and the village below where the man had recently died. This contrast is shown through the colours e.g. Canna lilies, karaka trees, a bright/happy setting and the white gates etc… which compared to the village that they look down on that is described quite morbidly with hazy chimney smoke, shady characters, mourning people and budget housing. The life and death theme is also made notable when Laura visits the family of the dead man and is revealed to the harsh reality of death because in her “world” she is protected from this and shows how naïve girl gains maturity.

 

Heaven vs. hell
By Chris Brewer

A major theme in ‘The garden party’ is that of heaven versus hell.  This
is a symbolic idea that sets a contrast between the two worlds; being that
of heaven and hell. The lower class appear to dwell in a setting that has
a symbolic affiliation with ‘hell’, whereas the upper class Sheridan
family appears to live in an atmosphere where everything shines and gleams
eg the Canna lilies, karaka trees. (Heaven - like).

The Sheridan’s garden is portrayed as a type of ‘garden of Eden’. The
plants, trees and flowers become personified: “bowed down as though they
had been visited by archangels.” This personification is used to show that
even the flowers have their place. This can be contrasted with the dull,
dieing garden at the lower class peoples house, as their garden is a way
out of place. None of the features in the lower class village are
personified because the village is lifeless. (Gardens don’t belong in hell
– out of place).

Everything beyond the broad road is set in darkness and shadows. The lower
class people are referred to as creatures, not humans, and are seen as a
‘dark’ race of people. Laura, on the other hand is angelic, bathed in
light, “she shone”. All the imagery in the lower class village is dark and
it is as if Laura is entering an underworld when she crosses over the
broad road. When Laura sees the deceased, Mr Scott, this backs up the idea
of the lower class living in an underworld (hell).

 

 

JAMIE

 

Major Themes

A major theme from ‘The Garden Party’ is the theme of life and death. The Sheridan’s garden is like a beautiful, bright place where the people resemble birds bowing down observe the roses. This all contrasts, however, to the dark, dismal home of the dead worker. It is a place of sadness, of mourning, of death. When Laura enters the home of the dead man, she is greeted first by a dark crowd of mourners, and then by an old hag of a lady. This is a complete contrast from the beautiful residents of the Sheridan’s garden party. Mansfield gives this dark and light contrast to show portray the theme of life and death, and how easily life can be taken away from us.