Assignment VII

1. What does this story signify?
Mansfield's The Garden Party explains the meaning of life to different people. It begins with her and her family whose biggest concern is getting the marquee set up and having everything ready for the dinner party. The story then switches to another family down the road. This family has just lost a father and husband. Their biggest concern is just getting through a loss.

2. How does it signify?
Through the story the main character, Laura, seems to be confused on how to deal with certain situations. In the beginning, she can barely speak to the working men because of how nervous she is. After meeting them she is astounded at how kind they are. She brings this up to different members of the family throughout the story. When the garden party is about to begin, Laura finds out that a man just down the road has died. She is hit so hard by sadness she immediately decides the party cannot go on. Of course there cannot be a party when the family down the road is mourning for a lost loved one. She then again has her mind changed after talking with her mother and then seeing how beautiful she looks in the hat she plans to wear. Laura has now gone from material things being of most importance to true feelings and then back to materialism. Towards the end of the story she must go back and visit the family down the road to take them a meal. While there, she seems a man asleep. She says to herself that this man isn't worried about where a marquee will go, how the flowers will look, and what hat he will wear, in fact she apologizes for even wearing a hat. Laura sees how content this man is and realizes that all the things she has been worried about all day will never bring her happiness. Even after her very successful dinner party, she cannot stop bringing up how marvelous her visit to neighbors house was, the house with no marquee, flowers, hats, or dozens of people.

I was a little off from what the last student stated. I saw the difference in the rich family and poor family, but didn't catch on the the flight aspect until she introduced it. In future "cases," I think I need to look closer at the words used to describe actions. This seems to be the way the last student came up with her main idea and details to support it.

Comparing Laura to Persephone brings a completely new depth to the story, even deeper than the 3rd writer's response. Just as the author has repeated over and over, that means that this work is not an original, it reflects another earlier work. Also, instead of simply social classes being revealed, life and death are now in the picture and seem to reflect Persephone's story almost exactly, but with the work of the writer it is nearly hidden.