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The Perception Of Life In Katherine Mansfield's The Garden Party

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Children have always had a mystical way of viewing the world in which they see the most genuine beauty in everything around them while the people who have come of age struggled to see that exact same beauty they once saw. The naiveness of children is something envied by those who have been subjected to life’s many trials, but being relieved of the naïve also opened doors for these adults to form a new perception of the world around them. Katherine Mansfield’s “The Garden Party” shows that retaining an innocent view of life is impossible once one comes of age. Mansfield does an excellent job of portraying the sheltered life of Laura Sheridan through the relationships she has with her family and the environment around her. Laura’s wistful views of her surroundings are shown in the story when she describes the, “Little faint winds playing chase, in at the topes of the windows, out at the doors. And there were two tiny spots of sun, one on the inkpot, one on the silver photograph frame, playing too (Mansfield).” Mansfield’s use of personification of the wind and the sun rays helps to create the innocent and child-like views of Laura as she lives her sheltered life with her family. A little further on in the story, while the family is still in the prepping stages for the garden party, Laura becomes entranced by the cream puff delicacies that arrive in the kitchen for the party. Laura describes her and her sister Jose as being, “far too grown-up to really care about such things [the cream puffs] …show more content…

While the beauty around Laura was tainted briefly by the outside world’s trials, Laura realized in the end that she could move past the naïve elements of her life and use them to understand the world around her that she was not subjected to. Despite losing the ability to only see things as whimsical as one comes of age, it is possible to remember the wonder one once

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