How to Read Literature Like a Professor: Chapter 27 Summary & Analysis

This chapter consists of the short story “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield. The story opens to a description of gorgeous summer weather, with hundreds of flowers blooming—a “perfect day for a garden party.” Four men put up a marquee, helped by the “artistic” Laura, whose mother Meg remains at the breakfast table with her freshly washed hair in a turban.

Laura attempts to speak to the men in an authoritative way, but doesn’t quite manage it, and they respond to her in an informal manner, eventually choosing the location of the marquee themselves. One of the workmen pauses, bends down and smells a sprig of lavender, and Laura wishes that the men she knows were more like him. In her mind, she blames “these absurd class distinctions.” She feels that the workmen behave more naturally and wishes she herself was free of “stupid conventions.”

The telephone rings for Laura, and she runs into the house to get it. Here, she encounters her father and her brother, Laurie, whom she squeezes with excitement over the coming garden party. On the phone, Laura invites her friend Kitty to lunch. After hanging up, she pauses and listens to the noises of the house, which she feels is vibrant and “alive,” and feels overwhelmed with affection for it.

The doorbell rings; it is the florist. Suddenly the house is filled with enormous pink lilies, which seem “almost frighteningly alive.” Laura thinks they must have been ordered by mistake, but it turns out it was the doing of her mother, Mrs. Sheridan. On learning this, Laura throws her arms around her mother and gently bites her ear.

In the living room, Meg, Jose, and Hans are ordering the servants to move furniture around. The narrator claims that Jose loved being bossy with the servants, and “they loved obeying her.” Jose plays a few notes on the piano and sings a song that begins “This life is weary, a tear––a sigh,” reveling in the sound of her own voice. Mrs. Sheridan asks Laura to help her copy out the names of the guests, and she asks Jose to “pacify cook,” saying that she is “terrified of her this morning.”

Once these tasks are done, the cream puffs are delivered. The narrator describes Laura and Jose as being “too grown-up to really care about such things,” but notes that they are delighted anyway. Despite knowing they shouldn’t, both girls eat a cream puff. Suddenly, the man who delivered the cream puffs informs the girls that there was an accident, and a man was killed. It was a local man who was thrown out of his horse-and-cart when the horse was frightened by a steam engine.

Laura, horrified, wonders how they will cancel the garden party, but Jose is shocked by the idea. The narrator describes the “disgusting and sordid” cottages where the dead man lived. Although they are near to the Sheridan’s house, the inhabitants are all very poor and the Sheridan girls are forbidden from going there. Still, Laura is horrified to think of how the dead man’s mother will feel knowing that a garden party is taking place on the same day her son has died. Although Jose claims to be sympathetic, she is clearly frustrated and tells Laura she’s being “sentimental.”

Laura goes to tell her mother about the dead man. She hopes that her mother will react differently to Jose, but Mrs. Sheridan also considers it absurd that they would stop the party. She tells Laura that “people like that don’t expect sacrifices from us.” She gives Laura a hat to wear, and although she still feels uneasy about the accident, Laura decides to put off thinking about it until later and admires herself in the mirror.

After lunch, Laura decides to tell her brother Laurie about the accident, hoping he will react differently. Before she does, however, he pays her a compliment on her hat, and Laurie decides not to say anything. Soon the guests arrive and move about the Sheridans’ garden “like bright birds.” They all compliment Laura on her hat and tell her she looks beautiful.

Once the party is over, Laura’s father mentions the man who died, and says that he had a wife and six children. Mrs. Sheridan decides to make up a basket of the leftover food to send to the grieving widow, but Laura is unsure if this is a good idea. She instructs Laura to take the basket to the man’s cottage, at first including lilies—“people of that class are so impressed by arum lilies”—before deciding against it when Jose points out they would ruin Laura’s dress.

As Laura walks toward the cottages, she feels disconnected from the reality of the man’s death; instead, she cannot stop thinking about the wonderful garden party. She walks quickly through the crowds of people and arrives nervously at the house of the dead man. A woman answers the door, and insists that Laura comes in, even as Laura expresses reluctance. Mrs. Scott, the widow, is sitting by the fire, and at one point turns to Laura to reveal a red face distorted and swollen from tears.

Laura tries to leave, but the woman who answered the door—who is Mrs. Scott’s sister—insists that she see the dead man’s body. Upon seeing it, Laura thinks that he looks serene and happy, far away from earthly activities like garden parties. She lets out a sob and rushes out into the street, where she encounters Laurie. He comforts her, and she tries to express her feelings to him, saying “Isn’t life… isn’t life—.” However, she is unable to say anything more, and the story ends with Laurie saying “Isn’t it, darling?”

With the story over, Foster provides some biographical information on Katherine Mansfield. Originally from New Zealand, she married an Englishman and spent her adult life in England, where she was a friend of D.H. Lawrence. She died young of tuberculosis, and published “The Garden Party” the year before her death.

Foster encourages the reader to read carefully, employing the strategies that have been laid out thus far in the book. He then quotes from the reactions of students of his who also read the story. Most began by noticing the class tensions between the rich family throwing the garden party and the poor family who live in the cottages. A history major points out that the central dilemma of the story is whether or not to have the party, and that the way the characters react reveal the “indifference of the dominant class of people to the suffering of others.” Laura’s feelings are ambivalent; she hopes Laurie will provide her with an answer, but finds that “there are no answers, just shared perceptions of reality.”

Foster then includes the reaction of another student, who argues that the story is about the way that people “insulate themselves” from others, and explains how this theme is portrayed through different symbols. The prevalence of birds, for example, suggests that the Sheridans perceive themselves as existing on a higher plane, gazing down at the lower classes with an elitist attitude. Laura is like a baby bird being taught to fly by her mother; she is not yet fully mature, but her trip to the cottages symbolizes her first independent “flight” away from home. However, the result is that she learns to inhabit the “loftier perspective” of her family, dismissing her earlier concerns.

Foster explains that although this is not exactly how he would interpret the story, it is an excellent analysis. He argues it is important to note that the responses above focus on the “phenomena” of the story, meaning the things that actually happen. While there is nothing wrong with this, readers also need to pay attention to the “noumenal level of the story, its spiritual or essential level of being.”

While the responses thus far have focused on the “party” element of the story’s title, Foster prefers to consider the previous word: garden. He points out that the weather is described as perfect, and that the overall impression of the garden is more ethereal than earthly. He also advises the reader to pay close attention to the descriptions of food, and to the hat Laura wears, which is symbolic of her mother’s power. Note also the description of Laura’s journey to the cottages, which is filled with imagery of darkness and smoke. Foster argues that this represents a descent into hell, and that Laura is a version of the Greek mythic character Persephone.

To support his claim, Foster points out that Persephone’s mother is Demeter, the Greek goddess of agriculture and fertility. Mrs. Sheridan’s associations with the garden, flowers, and food certainly make her a good Demeter figure. Meanwhile, note the fact that the Persephone myth explores the state of being on the cusp of female adulthood, and the associated knowledge of the realities of the world, including sex and death. The story thus explores this moment of initiation—the departure from childhood innocence into adulthood—in the context of class tensions and familial dynamics.