'’'The Garden Party’' is a remarkably rich and innovative work that incorporates Mansfield's defining themes: New Zealand, childhood, adulthood, social class, class conflict, innocence, and experience.” . Kathrine Mansfield’s adult life was unconventional. The Garden Party harkens back to her youth and childhood in Wellington, New Zealand. The protagonist, Laura is a young lady growing up in a wealthy family in New Zealand. While not strictly autobiographic in nature, Laura could well be how Katherine Mansfield saw herself at that age. She is helping her family to prepare for a garden party to take place in the afternoon. In the morning, she learns of a death in one of the poorer households that form a cluster down the slope and across the lane leading away from her home. The issues of the carefree life of a wealthy family is set against the reality of death in a working man’s home when Laura takes a basket of food to the new widow. And views the strangely beautiful body of her husband who appears asleep at first. Some readers feel let down by what they feel is an anticlimactic ending, because they do not take in context to its author’s life. This story was published in 1822; Katherine Mansfield died in January, 2023 at the young age of 34. Considering her own ill health, writing about youth in New Zeeland and the beauty in death of someone young was part of Katherine Mansfield’s coming to terms with her own demise.
The play opens with the action in progress. The day is “perfect” the weather “ideal” the sky clear “without a cloud” . The gardeners worked hard on their preparations and it shows in freshly mown lawns, sprinkled with daisies, and swept until they seemly shone. The roses were especially fine; described as blossoming overnight by the hundreds, the “bushes down as though they had been visited by archangels.” . Before breakfast is finished the workers come with the marquee and Laura is assigned the task of supervising its placement. She proves herself to be girlishly introspective, delighting in turns with the pleasure of eating outside, embarrassed into shyness at her attempt at sophistication and immediately ready to set that all aside because of the honest smiles of the workmen. She wonders in turn about propriety, what the workers are thinking, then sets that all aside when one appreciates the scent of lavender from a plant he passes. She compares the nice workmen to the callow boys who come for supper and wishes she could have workmen as friends but knows it is prevented by established class differences. Then, while eating her bread and butter in big bites thinks, she feels “just like a work-girl.” All this, and more tumble through her mind in just the first three pages. Then there is the phone, her father and brother Laurie, a friend, a hat, a piano, and a momentary pause to appreciate a ray of sun resting on a silver ink pot. One cannot help but think that Kathleen, for that was the name Katherine’s parents gave her was like that at that age. Her life filled with family and flowers rolling out before her like that fresh green lawn. The florist arrives with lilies trays of them that her mother ordered because she decided that “for once in my life I shall have enough canna lilies.” . The action rolls on, the piano again, her sister sings about a weary life with a tear and sigh that seems out of place coming from a girl in that household. But, they set that aside for the cook, more preparations, cream puffs early in the morning and, it all stops for Laura when the baker’s deliveryman divulges the news about a carter who was killed just that morning, a young man who left behind a young wife; now a widow and five children. Laura feels for the widow and empathizes how she would feel hearing a party going on up on the hill while her husband lies dead in the parlor. Her sister Jose is unsympathetic, progressing from that to annoyed and harsh. Her mother is the same, and more.
Once again, it is a matter of class differences, the cluster of laborers’ cottages is considered to be an eyesore, to close and not a place Laura and her siblings were permitted to visit as children. When Laura and Laurie deemed themselves to be grown up they did visit and found it sordid.”But still one must go everywhere; one must see everything. So through they went.” . Laura’s mother distracts Laura from thinking about that other reality down the hill. with a hat and the party preparations, then the party itself goes on.
Knowing Katherine’s life, it is easy to see the parallels; the frenetic energy, the moments of introspection, then moving on again. Katherine’s own life was like that, the childhood virtually identical to Laura’s own. Katherine’s sordid encounters were much greater, and across the ocean in London. Knowing from early on, that she wanted to be a writer she traveled to London and became involved with the Bohemian lifestyle there at the time. It gave great love, great passion and great disappointments.. Bertrand Russell admired her mind, and would not have been indifferent to exploring her body as well. Virginia Woolf said she was the only writer she was jealous of. When D.H. Lawrenence wrote Women in Love, he used her as the model. All this energy expended took its toll. Katherine contracted tuberculosis and died less than a year after publishing The Garden Party. As she had been suffering from it with steadily declining health she must have had her own thoughts of life and death while she was writing this story. The death of the young carter then in this story would have served her as one way to come to terms with her own impending doom.
The ending is an enigmatic exchange between Laura and her brother
Laurie put his arm round her shoulder. "Don't cry," he said in his warm, loving voice. "Was it awful?"
"No," sobbed Laura. "It was simply marvelous. But Laurie--" She stopped, she looked at her brother. "Isn't life," she stammered, "isn't life--" But what life was she couldn't explain. No matter. He quite understood.
“Isn't it, darling?" said Laurie. .
Works Cited
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e-Notes. "The Garden Party." 2013. e-Notes. 1 6 2013 <http://www.enotes.com/garden-party>.
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Mansfield, Katherine. "The Garden Party." 1922. east of the web. 01 06 2013 <http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/GardPart.shtml>.
