The Garden Party Analysis

Developing an understanding of both yourself and the world can often times be a difficult task, but through an exploration of Gray’s and Mansfield’s texts ‘The Meatworks’, and ‘Diptych’, ‘The Garden Party’, the audience is able to reach an understanding of such matters effectively. In particular, Gray is able to use his methodology to convey to an audience the ideas that are presented in the aforementioned poems such that the they are able to undergo a transformative experience through the investigation of various types of discovery, a process deliberately achieved by Gray. These stylings are also evident in Mansfield’s modernist text, influenced by her isolated context, she is able to communicate to an audience a similar perception of her

This process is evident in Gray’s ‘Diptych’ and most prominently portrayed by the character of the father, in particular with the conversation regarding books “(...‘Nothing whingeing. Nothing by New York Jews, or by women, other than Jane Austen, nothing ‘spiritual’ and from the Russian.)” While most of ‘Diptych’ is centred around the persona’s own personal rediscovery, this quotation contrasts with much of the rest of the poem, proposing an insight into the life of both Gray’s own personal father as well as his proposition into a traditional Australian father figure. This character is embodied by casual racism as well as disingenuous, self-proclaimed literary knowledge. This quotation also provides an insight into the wider environment that an Australian would find themselves in, especially during Gray’s context. This is particularly evident in the accumulation that he uses to create direct comparisons between his judgements, that is, women, Russians and New York Jews. This insight into the zeitgeist draws a renewal of perception as the persona goes on a deliberate and slow rediscovery to achieve

This is particularly evident as she discusses the death of the man, “What did garden-parties and baskets and lace frocks matter to him? He was far from all those things.” The use of rhetorical questioning, a motif which is prominent throughout the length of the story, as well as accumulation to emphasise the needless nature of the ordeal allows an audience an insight into the renewed perception which the persona has formed. The lexical chain present, pertaining to higher class luxuries, symbolises the same juxtaposition in culture that is evident in Gray’s works. Thus, the same meaning can be drawn, that of an insight into the culture surrounding oneself and the impact on a wider world, through the persona’s introspective shift of perception and hence causing an appreciation from the audience of a broadening of the understanding of the wider