Mansfield uses her story, “The Garden Party,” as a tool to express her feelings about the chasm between social classes.  In her story, she eloquently presents the differences between the upper and lower classes.  The two parties are as drastically different as night and day.

Mansfield starts the story off in the early morning right after breakfast.  It’s a fresh day in the “early summer” and the household is busy planning for a garden party.  The morning is perfect and the characters and setting almost surreal.  Mansfield allows us to experience life as the upper class characters experience it.  It is bright and cheerful, just like the spring day.  The sweets and lilies and servants keep life happy for Laura and her family.  Mansfield’s season choice of early summer puts us in a certain mindset of life beginning, of excitement, and of readiness.  We experience the “daisy plants” and “roses” growing in the garden and the “blue [sky]…veiled with a haze of light gold,” and Mansfield plays on our own memories of new days and summer happiness.  We are pulled into the surrealism of the scene, ready to accept this way of life as standard, nothing less than normal.

As the story progresses, we get to know Laura.  We accept her readiness to help.  She claims to “love having to arrange things” (and in the end we see that she actually may arrange things “better than anyone else” as she believes she can.)   We relate to her love of exotic things.  She can hardly bear covering the exquisite “karakas” that remind her so much of a “desert island.”  We begin to touch on her naivety.  She blushes and flusters when she must actually start to arrange the party things.  But then she falls into step.  She finds that she quite likes the workmen.  She even wonders why couldn’t she “have workmen for her friends rather than the silly boys she danced with?”  Why would she want to trade her friends in for workmen!  She must be very naïve!  She pretends for a while to be a “work girl,” admiring the “chock-chock of wooden hammers” while also admiring the workmen.  But then the phone brings her back from her day dream and she goes back to normalcy. 

Our little world of cream puffs and band music is momentarily shaken.  The house gets news that a man has died!  Laura automatically wants to call off the party.  She doesn’t want to bother the “poor woman” with a band.  Laura is distraught.  A party!  With a man dead!  But then her family reminds her that he was simply a “drunk”—a worker who met his end.  A nice distraction comes in the form of a hat from her mother.  She takes the trinket from her mother and puts on a happier face.  She is now distracted. And then she puts on her hat and goes to the party and forgets the whole business.  The party is over and Laura expresses her happiness at being with “people who are all happy, to press hands, press cheeks, smile into eyes.”

As night falls, Laura remembers the man—the man who lived in the pitiful little “cottages.”  She suggests that she could take the food left over from the garden party to the widow and her children.  As Laura steps into the night she leaves her world and enters another.  One that is scary and horrifying but also “wonderful.”  She encounters “dark people” at the house but doesn’t register anything specific about them.  She sees Mrs. Scott, the widow and leaves her basket of food.  Then she is ends up in the room with the dead man and she realizes that her life is not the only life.  She sees him “sleeping,” “dreaming.”  He is “happy.”  Perhaps Laura realizes that this man lived his life and earned his food and took care of his family.  He worked, he worked himself to death, as Laura has never really done.  She finally sees that life is not parties and hats and pretty, expensive flowers.  It is so much more.  Her ending words—“isn’t life”—express her new knowledge of the world and also her lack of explanation.  She sees more than her existence.  The surreal life she knew crumbles but she isn’t as horrified as her family would guess; she is “[marveled].”

Mansfield uses many elements to present her case.  She enchants the reader with beauty and season and extravagance.  Then she allows the reader to come back to reality, just as Laura comes into reality.  Mansfield probably reaches a much broader audience of Roaring Twenties readers, obsessed with new products of industry and of transportation and of leisure, with this handsome story than she possibly could have if she had simply spoken her troubled feelings or preached her agitation.  Perhaps her readers will pick up on Laura’s big heart as she reacts to a man’s death and offers the band a drink and shares food with those in need.  Perhaps her readers will snap into reality just as Laura did and realize that life isn’t all daisies and roses.  It is something more—something to be shared and cherished and lived.  Hopefully Laura won’t forget this when she goes back to her home, to her family.  She apologized for her silly hat, her extravagant dress, after all, but she was all too willing to go on back with her brother.                               

Personal Critique 

I think I got pretty close to the significance of Mansfield’s story.  I detected the clash between social structures and the “blinders” blocking the family’s world, as Foster did.  But I did, unfortunately miss out on the bird theme.  I noticed the surreal environment, but I didn’t see the importance of the mother as Foster did.  I did notice how important the hat was, how it seemed to transform Laura from distraught to ready to mingle with extreme speed, but I missed the fact that it was from her mother, that it was bringing some of her mother with it.  It seems to have brought some of her mother’s blinding abilities, actually.  I didn’t quite pick up on the going to hell thing.  I kind of like to avoid thinking of something so terrible, I would rather think of her simply “leaving her world and going to another.”  But now I realize I should have seen that it wasn’t simply another world, but hell.  Ouch.  I picked up on the growing up less innocent part of Laurie, but not the destined to go back to her mother and act just the same illustration.  I think I did pretty well with this essay.  I did well on a detail analysis, like I would have done for Language and Composition.  But, I did not do so well on connecting the story to other works of literature, like I will do next year.  So, in other words, I dropped the bomb.  Better brush up on my mythology!

            Harry Potter is a fictional sensation sweeping the nation… actually, it’s encompassing the entire globe. Some love the novel; these fans will stand in line for hours dressed in pointy hats and round glasses just to get their hands on the newest book as soon as possible (please don’t ask me how I know).  Others hate it; they also will occupy long hours camped-out in front of the local Barnes & Noble.  But, they are boycotting the book and all things Harry, claiming the novel to be terribly wicked.  “Potter Fever,” regardless of your feelings toward the novel, is undeniable.  I’ve often wondered what makes the Potter series so intriguing, so readable.  Why do so many people relate to this book?  And then I came across the “Yes, She’s a Christ Figure, Too” chapter in Foster’s How to Read Literature like a Professor, I thought to myself, “Christ figure… Who represents a Christ figure?”  And then it dawned on me.  Harry Potter.  “Wait,” you say, “He’s a wizard, a boy wizard who goes to school and plays fictional sports and gets into all kinds of magical trouble.”  He can’t be a Christ figure.  No long beard.  No white, billowing robe.  He isn’t even a carpenter!  But actually, he can be a Christ figure.  Let’s think back to the story.  Throughout the books, Harry fills almost every single one of Foster’s “You Might Be a Christ Figure” qualifications.  He has a close group of friends.  He even builds an “army” in one book to fight the evils threatening wizarding society and carry on all things good.  Harry teaches his followers, I mean friends, his ways.  Not quite ways to live a good and straight live, like Jesus taught his followers, but important all the same.  He’s often shown experiencing all types of physical and mental harm and torture.  Harry may not walk on water and isn’t often thought of with his arms outstretched, but he does use humble forms of transportation.  Young Harry isn’t aloud to use the same ways of transportation the older, qualified wizards use, so he is forced to travel in a more humble matter.  He even manages to change water into wine in one of his “transformation” classes.  One major theme in the book is Harry’s acceptance of those the wizarding community believes to be lower life forms.  A major teaching of Jesus is acceptance of those others ridicule.  Much of Harry’s life is lost to the wizarding world, just like much of Jesus’ life is lost to us today.  Harry even experiences a fall from public grace, much like the one Jesus experienced during his life.  He goes from being famous, respected, even adored, to being hated and scorned, written and talked badly about.  Throughout most of the last Potter book Harry is noted to be in hiding, wandering through varies fields and meadows and forests, through the wilderness.  At one point, Harry’s closest friend even completely turns his back on him.  Sounds a little like a familiar bible story, doesn’t it?  Markings on the hand are also a very serious symbol associated with Jesus Christ.  In one of the books, Harry’s hands are forever marked with a nasty brand—a brand which represented his failure to succumb to societal views and his determination to save those around him from evil and death.  Harry was marked at a very young age with a lightening bolt-shaped scar.  Jesus didn’t have a funny scar on his forehead.  But he was destined from the day he was born to be the one who would save his people from certain demise.  And so was Harry.  From the day he got that peculiar marking on his forehead he was destined to fulfill a standing prophecy and save the wizarding community from the horrible evils of the “Dark Lord.”  Like Jesus Christ, Harry must come to terms with his predestined arrangement.  Perhaps he wasn’t quite as graceful as Christ in his gratification, but in the end he resolves to do the right thing and sacrifice himself for the well being of others (even those within his world who ridiculed and hated him).  He walks bravely, but shakily towards certain death.  And then he’s down.  He’s done.  The wizarding world is saved, but Harry Potter is dead (and hoards of dedicated fans are left heartbroken and teary-eyed).  But then, just when it seems that the great Harry Potter is lost forever, he rises again and is alive.  Resurrection, anyone?  Harry isn’t 33 years old or good with children and his celibacy isn’t exactly a huge issue (all associations of a Christ figure), but his story is very closely related to the Christ story.  Now I understand its readability.  Rowling took a story that many people across the world hold dear and believe to be true, one that countless others have at least heard, and created an extremely creative best seller.  I bet she goes to bed with an ironic chuckle every night thinking of all those people who refuse to read a single one of her books, books that actually contain a figure of the savior they believe it offends, all without a hint of irony.  So, decide for yourself is Harry Potter a simple parody, an adaptation of  a classic piece of literature or is it Rowling’s idea of a parable, created to help a new generation understand and connect to our own salvation?   

Starless nights.  Damp, stone castles.  Ornate, dusty coffins. Bats. Fangs. Blood. Damsels in distress.  These are all images we associate with the vampire story.  We think of a classic silent scream, a red-satin cape, and dark, crimson lips when we conjure vampire tale memories.  Vampires invoke fear in our hearts and formulas in our minds. Moving past associations and cliches, at the core of any good vampire driven plot there are always certain striking similarities, a common blueprint.  First, there’s Dracula, or a Dracula figure.  Dracula must be alluring, almost sensual.  He is able to pull those he meets into his circle, in spite of his dangerous composition—perhaps without any realization of danger.  Usually, there’s a virgin.  An innocent who, once acquired, makes Dracula stronger, more brutal, traditionally younger.  The vampire plot can be a simple one and is undeniably common.  But a vampire story doesn’t always mean a vampire—a fanged, blood-sucking, white-faced fiend—is involved.  The vampire story can take any form, as long as it fits the basic equation.  Let’s take a look at Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.  Daisy Buchanan: stunning face; ringing, supernatural voice; beautiful, elegant ball gowns; mother; wife; hostess; object of desire.  So, The Great Gatsby, vampire plot, Daisy Buchanan, young, beautiful woman.  Daisy must be the damsel in distress right? Wrong.  She’s the vampire.  Perhaps it is unexpected, but Gatsby is a classic example of a vampire story.  You have Daisy.  She is beautiful, seductive—just like a traditional vampire.  She doesn’t suck blood from the necks of innocently weak virgins, but she does tend to generally hurt, crush, or suck the life out of those she meets—just like a traditional vampire.  Then there’s poor Mr. Gatsby, who was so taken in by Daisy and her way of life that he created his entire existence to please her.  Daisy stole Gatsby’s entire being.  Gatsby is the virgin; well, perhaps he isn’t exactly a spitting image of virginal morality with his continuous partying, spending, adultery, lying, and such, but still, Gatsby is the virgin.  He is weaker than his Dracula-like counterpart because of his lack of confidence—self-consciousness brought on by a “poor” upbringing in a poverty-stricken home.  His weakness goes way back to the days when he was a young, hopping Mr. Gatz.  In the end, the loss of life associated with Daisy does not make her stronger, or younger.  It actually doesn’t seem to affect her at all.  She simply goes on with her unsoiled life of beautiful parties, loveless marriages, and vain friendships.  Daisy doesn’t grow younger or more astonishing, but her path of death and destruction does make her little bubble of simulated perfection stronger.  So, The Great Gatsby is, ultimately, a vampire story.  Simple enough.  But Fitzgerald doesn’t stop there.  His vampire story doubles as an arresting commentary on America and the American Dream’s vampiresque actions.  Daisy is the vampire, but she represents a greater vampire—American society.  Gatsby is the innocent, but he represents a bigger innocent—the American.  Gatsby’s rise and fall is directly parallel to the rise and fall of countless Americans lured in by the vampire that is the American Dream.