Beginning with the longer two stories, ‘At the Bay’ and the titular ‘The Garden Party’ sets the tone for this collection. Mansfield deals with a wide variety of themes that ranges from family relationships, life and death, love and the coming of age through quiet musings and monologues. Underlying themes for this selection of stories are social and class issues. Mansfield selects characters who are outsiders to explore social predicaments.
There is the strained young father (‘At the Bay) and a young girl’s dilemma of continuing a garden party after a poor man is run over down the street (‘The Garden Party’). There are the elderly spinster daughters who are finally attempting to make their own way in the world after their domineering father dies (‘The Daughters of the Late Colonel’) and a young man hoping to propose to a girl in a class above his (‘Mr and Mrs Dove’). Then there is the heart wrenching monologue of a maid’s hard life (‘Life of Ma Parker’), a young wife’s obsession in becoming part of the new bourgeois class (‘Marriage a la Mode’) and an elderly patriarch who is being emotionally shunned by his family after providing them with wealth (‘An Ideal Family’).
Each story is so vividly drawn and it is amazing that Mansfield manages to deftly create each character in such a small amount of space. Each story explores the way of life mainly set in one moment of a character’s day. This volume is a wonderful introduction to Mansfield’s work and something you can pick up and put down again easily. Perfect for musing on your thoughts after each story.
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
Mansfield, projecting her middle-class upbringing, delineates the story of a privileged family receiving a doll house, its arrival tainted somewhat by the chemical odour it emits and the repetition of “smell of paint” foreshadowing its toxicity and the alienation it shall cause. The children show the doll house to all but the Kelveys, who are exile because of their lowly socio-economic status. Their desolation is elucidated through the aggregation of the various occupations of the townspeople, allowing the author to juxtapose the “judge’s children” to the “store-keeper’s children”, thereby establishing their position at the foot of the social ladder. While such exclusion is evident in “Feliks Skrzynecki” as the poet’s father is mocked by a clerk, the basis of the exclusion varies. While Skrzynecki is because of his cultural background, the Kelveys’ isolation stems from their financial and subsequent social shortcomings. Ultimately, the Kelveys embrace their position of being perennial outsiders and their acceptance of their identity intensifies the bond between them, as is depicted through the hyperbole, “went through life holding each other”. The Doll’s House thus opens our eyes to the difficulty of belonging when at a severe economic disadvantage, an issue mirrored in the…
- 998 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
When it comes to scenes of scintillating sexual proclivity, author Susan Eglington has got the knack. And with her newest release, She's Got the Jack, the fourth installment in her erotically charged romance series, The Kate and Robert Chronicles, she once again brings readers to the pinnacle of lust, exposed within a narrative, that challenges the sensibilities as well as continues the provocative love story of sexually-adventurous, married couple Robert and Kate Beckham. Encompassing the common and not so common experiences of a married couple Author Eglington forwards this robust tale which candidly explores and fantasizes on marriage, sexuality, and human nature. Told from the perspective of central character, Kate Beckham, this time the story takes Kate and controlling husband Robert deeper into unexplored territory as Kate's eccentric, tough and loving uncle Jack comes into their lives bearing many surprises including a psychic wife, strange drinks and life changing revelations.…
- 548 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
Unit 3 Talk in Life and Literature 9.00 am to 11.00 am Thursday 24 June 2010…
- 3063 Words
- 13 Pages
Powerful Essays -
Arthur Birling, a prosperous manufacturer, was holding a family dinner party in either to celebrate his daughter’s (Sheila’s) engagement to a rich man’s son named Gerald. Into this cozy scene intrudes the harsh figure of a police inspector investigating the suicide of a young working-class woman. Under interrogation, it seems like Sheila, Mr. Birling, and Gerald all played a part in this young girl’s life.…
- 517 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
The women in some of O’Connor’s short stories do not “deserve sympathy for synthesizing aspects of both gender roles” as some critics say, because they are not trying to balance their lifestyles to survive; rather they are manipulating their surroundings to gain an advantage in life. Mrs. Shortley uses her friendship with Mrs. McIntyre to refresh her self-esteem just as the peacock uses its colors and spots to gain attention and affection. The old woman uses her daughter’s handicap as a crutch for her age as Mr. Shiftlet uses other’s trust to silhouette his broken body and soul. The grandmother takes advantage of her old age and uses it as an excuse for attention as the Misfit uses his mysteriousness as an excuse for crime. These women’s tools in fighting their expected roles in life are voice and stature for Mrs. Shortley, pity and grief for the old woman, and attention for the grandmother.…
- 1740 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
In his novel, the author takes us on a momentous journey which sees the protagonist, a naive young boy, Leo Colston; lose his childhood innocence as a result of his involvement in a forbidden love affair between the sister of his aristocratic friend and a farmer on the estate they manage. The forthcoming tragedies wholly depend on the social constraints of those days. This setting is therefore of great significance to the enjoyment of the novel. As the story continues, Leo becomes drawn deeper and deeper into their dangerous game of dishonesty and desire, until his role brings him to a shocking and premature revelation awakening him into the secrets of the adult world and the evocation of the boundaries of Edwardian society.…
- 975 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
So first up is “The Bouquet”; I sympathized mainly for the young girl named Sophie. Society’s faults stunted her growth as an individual, and kept her from bonding with those she desired relations. The whole culture surrounding her took away most of the attributes that make oneself human- such as love, happiness, and human connection.…
- 1028 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
The short story cycle Olive Kitteridge, written by Elizabeth Strout, showcases the lives of multiple residents of the small town Cosby in Maine, whilst keeping Olive Kitteridge as the main protagonist by featuring her in each story. In this complete collection of short stories, the author writes in a fashion that allows the story to have a deeper meaning once it is studied by reading between the lines. In the analysis of A Different Road, the symbols that appear tell a great deal about the true meaning of the short story, which is how Olive’s marriage was changed permanently after the robbery of the hospital. The symbols which were deemed important are the road, the setting of a hospital and the exposure of Olive’s robe. All three of them are significant elements, that when analysed, permit a better understanding of the story.…
- 853 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
Dorothy Canfield not only depicts this story in a very vivid manner, she was able to captivate the readers, drawing them closer with every written line. She managed express certain tones in the story that gave us a deeper look into to Ann story’s life. Readers were able to put themselves in her shoes through out the whole story. This gave the story a tone which expresses, hardship, perseverance and commitment .…
- 665 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
Her stories are full of detail and small, albeit significant, incidents in her characters' lives. In an often-quoted letter published in The Letters of Katherine Mansfield, she says of “Miss Brill“: "I chose the rise and fall of every paragraph to fit her, and to fit her on that day at that moment.” Katherine Fullbrook notes in her biography titled simply Katherine Mansfield that “while the surface of her stories often flash with sparkling detail, the underlying tones are sombre, threatening, and register the danger in the most innocent seeming aspects of life.”…
- 1613 Words
- 7 Pages
Better Essays -
Bausch, Richard and Cassill, Ronald Verlin. The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. New York: W. W. Norton, 1986. Print.…
- 819 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
The Roles of Three Women Social norms and expectations have transformed greatly in the past hundred years or so. This is evident in the writings of Gilman, Hurston, Faulkner, and Chopin. Each tale has a connection to the last, creating a range of similarities between different decades. Even if a story is written from a different culture or written during a different time period by a different social class, their stories are all linked in some way, shape, or form. All of these short stories share the boundaries women were not allowed to cross.…
- 1828 Words
- 8 Pages
Good Essays -
In the short stories “To Room Nineteen” by Doris Lessing and “Death By Landscape” by Margaret Atwood, two women find themselves isolated from the world and the people around them. This paper will compare and contrast each story to show that although both female protagonists are isolated by their circumstances, their individual responses to their circumstances are very different.…
- 703 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
This booklet covers the first six stories (‘Dead Men’s Path’ to ‘The Tall Woman and Her Short Husband).…
- 5735 Words
- 23 Pages
Powerful Essays -
the modern short story form with her innovative literary style. In such influential stories as "The Garden Party," "Bliss," and "Prelude," Mansfield perfected her meticulous craft, examining the human condition in restrained and deceptively everyday prose. Her avowed intention was to intensify "the so-called small things so that everything is significant." In "The Garden Party," for example, the description of sunbeams playing on an inkwell is the kind of detailed observation that lends an almost hallucinatory visual acuity to this celebrated tale. In her attention to the "the so-called small things," Mansfield was in the forefront of those writers who treated ordinary life rather than momentous events, and, according to H. E. Bates, many followed her "in squeezing the significance out of the apparently commonplace, trivial behavior of their fellow men." Working on the fringes of British Modernism, Mansfield developed the use of stream-of-consciousness technique, earning the admiration—and rivalry—of a contemporary, Virginia Woolf. Like Woolf, Mansfield emphasized the importance of incident over conventional narrative, and thus, in "The Garden Party" Laura's impressions dictate the shape of a story drawn from Mansfield's own childhood memories.…
- 905 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays