1. by Katherine Mansfield
“The Garden Party”
by Katherine Mansfield

2. A “theme” can be defined as a “comment about life” that an author expresses in a story. It is through the theme that most of us can relate to a story.
Every Essay 2 probably will explain
a character or characters
a conflict
a resolution

3. Choose one character from the story and tell us what you think about that character. What facts from the story cause you to see the character in this way?
Benson says, Laura from “The Garden Party”, came off as a sympathetic person to me. Everyone else wanted to continue on with the party as if nothing had happened. Laura on the other hand thought they should cancel the party. “But we can’t possibly have a garden-party with a man dead just outside the front gate.”

4. Choose one character from the story and tell us what you think about that character. What facts from the story cause you to see the character in this way?
Purple Pineapples say, Laura is seen as an artistic girl who lives within a very wealthy family and loves arranging things. Laura is the main character within this story and throughout she proves that she doesn’t have the same moral values despite her upbringing as past ways of thinking.

5. Choose one character from the story and tell us what you think about that character. What facts from the story cause you to see the character in this way?
Interpretor says, Laura is a confident and observant person. In the beginning of the story Laura states she likes to arrange things, because “she always felt she could do it so much better than anybody else”. The line “His smile was so easy, so friendly, that Laura recovered. What nice eyes he had, small, but such a dark blue!” shows how observant Laura is.

6. What types of conflict--person versus person, society, self, nature, and God/fate—do you think are in the story, and how are the conflicts shown?
English says, I would say both person versus person and person versus society are both conflicts that occur in this story. Person versus person is shown when Laura tries to cancel the party, but her siblings and mother will not let her and they believe the idea of doing that is absurd. The author writes “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." This shows how Laura is having conflict with others. Another conflict would be with person versus society because there is clearly a divided between the upper and lower class and how each are viewed.

7. What types of conflict--person versus person, society, self, nature, and God/fate—do you think are in the story, and how are the conflicts shown?
Benson says, Person versus person for Laura. She kept feeling almost guilty for having the garden party, although the others told her she was being absurd. Laura started to second guess herself. “Is mother right? She thought.” “Am I being extravagant?”

8. Identify at least one thing in the story that you think might be symbolic. What might this symbolism contribute to the story?
Keep it on the D L says, After they have the party, they take the leftover food to their neighbor’s house, which is the one that died. They are poor, to the rich it is just food, but to them it meant a lot because they thought of them and payed respect to the person that died. Another symbolic event is the hats. The hat is the one thing that changed Laura’s mind to continue the party and when she was arriving to the neighbor’s house, she saw that the people around were poorer so she took her hat off. You can tell she has a lot of respect and wants to make sure everyone is treated and feels the same.

9. A “theme” can be defined as a “comment about life” that an author expresses in a story. What does this story seem to be telling us about life?
1999 ft. Me says, I think this story is telling us that there is more to life than material things such as money and flowers and fancy crème puffs. It’s trying to remind us of the value of life itself, as well as the companionship of family and friends. No matter how big your house is, or how many extravagant parties you have, we’ll all end up in the same sized grave. I believe the underlying theme is that life is precious, and we should stay humble.

10. Another Thing to Consider
"No," sobbed Laura. "It was simply marvellous. 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.

11. Another Thing to Consider
Laura obviously is overwhelmed with emotions and seems to realize something important at the end of the story. What does she realize?

12. A final thought . . .
Excellent work!