The Garden Party

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Using the setting of a garden party, Mansfield explores the idea of class consciousness from the perspective of a well-to-do family.

• How is Laura’s awareness of her class different from her family’s? (topic sentence)
• Find three examples in which Laura exhibits an understanding of class consciousness.
• How does Laura’s journey of self-awareness throughout the story speak to the larger theme of Class Distinction and Class Consciousness?

2. As a coming-of-age story, “The Garden Party” presents the ability to exhibit empathy toward others as a marker of adulthood.

• For Laura, how does empathy relate to maturity? (topic sentence)
• Identify at least three moments when Laura shows empathy, and explore how this development helps propel her to the next stage of life.
• Compare and contrast Laura’s empathy to that of her family, particularly as it relates to the theme of Adolescents Playing at Adulthood.

3. Broadly, Mansfield’s story comments on The Relationship Between Life and Death.

• Which motifs does Mansfield use to symbolically represent life and death in the story? (topic sentence)
• Identify two examples of her use of these symbols in the story.
• How does Laura’s transition to adulthood connect with The Relationship Between Life and Death?

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. Mrs. Sheridan pops the beautiful “black hat trimmed with gold daisies” on Laura to stop her daughter’s sympathetic tendencies toward her widowed neighbor. What makes Laura’s hat appropriate for a garden party but not in the face of death? How does Laura’s evolving attitude toward her hat reflect the theme of Class Distinctions and Class Consciousness? Use text evidence to support your conclusions.

2. Mansfield’s stories are known for featuring the concept of epiphany, a transfiguring moment when a character experiences a sudden realization that irrevocably alters their vision of the world and of themselves. In this story, Laura has an epiphany at the widow’s home and is subsequently unable to put her changed view of life into words for her brother. What do you think changes in the way Laura sees the world, and how does the story prepare her for this epiphany? Why might the author have chosen to leave Laura’s post-epiphany revelation unspoken? In your answer, cite specific examples from the text.

3. Laura Sheridan finds delight in nearly everything she encounters in the story, from the weather and the workmen putting up the marquee to the lilies and cream puffs. How does her joy in the details surrounding the party compare to the beauty she finds in viewing the dead man? How do these comparisons support the theme of The Relationship Between Life and Death? Use text evidence to support your response.