Research Information System
17th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH, CHINA TO ADRIATIC, Van, Turkey, 5 - 07 December 2025, pp.247-248, (Summary Text)
Stories that touch upon social, cultural and economic conditions of the society they lived in can be considered
a mirror, as they also reveal the unseen face of the period. Katherine Mansfield’s short story The Garden Party
also reflects aspects of the period; at the very beginning, for instance, one can observe a joy of life and peace
provided by the upper class’s garden space and party preparations. Nonetheless, underlying these aesthetic
beauties lies moral decay and self-centeredness, which are the subjects of social criticism. Mansfield initiates
the story enchanting readers by attempting to hide class divisions and inequalities through the beauty of lillies,
music and the air. The emphasis on beauty in the descriptions renders the upper class indifferent and insensitive
to the negative conditions experienced by the lower class. The flawless garden party arranged by Sheridan
family can be observed as a metaphor of society blinded by its pursuit of aesthetic purposes. The garden is
narrated as the green space that sorrounds all four sides of the house in the story, also as a symbol for a line
dividing classes strictly. Throwing a party without regard for the lower class’s mourning after a man’s death
is the reflection of moral decay, also a symbol of modernist humanism. Mansfield, through the story, conveys
upper class’s preoccupation with aesthetics and beauty gradually alienate them from conscience and render
blind. Laura’s rebellion against her family and encourage respect for mourning, as emphatizing deeply with
working class’s suffering as if it were her own, reflect the foundation of moral consciousness and awakening.
Taking all these into consideration, this study confirms how upper class prioritizes aesthetic by escaping from
responsibility and cannot develop empathy. Inspiring characters to have concience confict in their inner world
and approahing the story with a modernist humanist standpoint, Mansfield aims to cultivate awakening for the
power of environmental awareness to heal moral blindness.