Criticism In Katherine Mansfield's The Garden Party

In Katherine Mansfield’s short story called “The Garden Party,” Laura the main character is preparing a lavish garden party when she hears of the death of a man who lives just below them. He is from the lower class but Laura still believes the party must be stopped because of how insensitive it is this man’s family. She tells her sister, Jose, that they need to stop the party and her sister replies amazed at Laura’s suggestion, “Stop the garden-party? My dear Laura, don’t be absurd. Of course we can’t do anything of the kind… Don’t be so extravagant” (228). Laura continues to insist that it is very insensitive to the man’s mourning family. She finishes by saying, “And just think of what the band would sound like to that poor woman,” her sister

She first shows this through the young children in her short story, “The Doll’s house.” The Burnell children come from a high class family. They receive as a present a magnificent doll house. The eldest child, Isabel, tells her sisters Lottie and Kezia, that she is going to be the one who brings a couple girls every day to see the doll house. After a while, everyone has seen the marvelous doll house except the Kelvey sisters. The Kelvey sisters come from a lower class family while everyone else in their school comes from higher class families. In addition to the Kelveys being from a lower class, the whereabouts of their father are also unknown. All the girls look down on the Kelveys and no one even thinks of showing them the doll house because they are from a lower class. One day during lunch, a girl named Lena goes and tries to make fun of the Kelveys in front of the entire grade. She asks one of the Kelvey sisters, Lil, if she plans on being a servant when she grows up and instead of Lil responding, she just gives her regular smile and stays silent. Lena cannot stand the silence and the laughter in the background aimed at her so she says spitefully, “Yah, yer father’s in prison!” (209). What she says is so bold that, “The little girls rushed away in a body, deeply, deeply excited, wild with joy. Someone found a long rope, and they began skipping. And never did they skip so high, run in and out so fast, or do such daring things as on that morning” (209). The girls instead of trying to argue or reprimand Lena for what she says, instead feel a certain loftiness to themselves. By Lena putting down the Kelveys, all the other girls feel greater than the Kelveys. This inspires them to act more boldly than ever before while playing jump rope. The reader might say the reason Lena and the other children put the Kelveys down to feel better