The Garden Party

The Garden Party

by Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield's short story "The Garden Party" opens with frantic preparations being made for an afternoon garden party. The main character, Laura, is an idealistic and sensitive young girl. She is surrounded by her more conventional family: her sister, Jose, who, as the narrator tells us, "loved giving orders to servants"; her mother, Mrs. Sheridan, a shallow old woman whose world consists of having enough canna lilies; her father, a businessman; and her brother, Laurie, to whom she feels most similar in feeling and ideals. As many critics have remarked, Mansfield's prose depicts an almost dreamlike world.