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Way back I mentioned that Joyce s Ulysses makes heavy use of Homer s tale of long-suffering
Odysseus wending his way home from Troy. You may recall that I also mentioned that, except for the
title, there are almost no textual cues to suggest that these Homeric parallels are at work in the novel.
That s a pretty big level of signification to hang on one word, even a very prominent one. Well, if you
can do that with the title of an immense novel, why not with a little story? The Garden Party. Now all
the student respondents worked with it, too, chiefly with its last word. Me, I like the middle one. I like
looking at gardens and thinking about them. For years I ve lived next to one of the great agricultural
universities, and its campus is a giant garden filled with a number of spectacular smaller gardens. Every
one of those gardens, and every garden that s ever been, is on some level an imperfect copy of
another garden, the paradise in which our first parents lived. So when I see a garden in a story or
poem, the first thing I do is to see how well it fits that Edenic template, and I must admit that in
Mansfield s story, the fit is also imperfect. That s okay, though, because the story from Genesis of
Adam and Eve is only one version, and on the level of myth, it has many cousins. For now I think I ll
reserve judgment for a little bit about what sort of garden this particular one might turn out to be.
What I notice first in the text is that word ideal ; how many times have you described your weather
as ideal? They couldn t have had a more perfect day. Those two words may just be hyperbole, but
coming in the first two sentences of the story, they feel suggestive. The sky is without a cloud (just so
we can t but expect some sort of cloud is coming), and the gardener has been at work since dawn.
Later, this perfect afternoon will ripen and then slowly fade, as a fruit or flower would. By then we
will have seen that flowers permeate this story, as befits a garden party. Even the places emptied of
daisies are rosettes. And the real roses themselves have bloomed in the hundreds overnight, as if
by magic or, since Mansfield mentions a visitation by archangels, by divinity. This first paragraph is
bracketed by the ideal and archangels not a particularly human environment, is it?
When I see an unreal, idealized setting such as this, I generally want to know who s in charge. No
mystery here: everyone defers to Mrs. Sheridan. Whose garden is it? Not the gardener s; he s just a
servant doing the bidding of the mistress. And what a garden, with its hundreds of roses, lily lawn,
karaka trees with broad leaves and bunches of yellow fruit, lavender, plus trays and trays and trays of
canna lilies, of which, Mrs. Sheridan believes, one cannot have too many. This excess of canna lilies she
describes as enough for once in her life. Even the guests become part of her garden realm, seeming
to be bright birds as they stroll the lawn and stoop to admire the flowers, while her hat, which she
passes on to Laura, has gold daisies. Clearly she is the queen or goddess of this garden world. Food
is the other major element of her realm. She is responsible for food for the party, sandwiches (fifteen
different kinds including cream-cheese-and-lemon-curd and egg-and-olive) and cream puffs and
passion fruit ices (so we know it is New Zealand and not Newcastle). The final component is children,
of which she has four. So a queen overseeing her realm of living plants, food, and progeny. Mrs.
Sheridan begins to sound suspiciously like a fertility goddess. Since, however, there are lots of kinds of
fertility goddesses, we need more information.
I m not done with that hat. It s a black hat with black velvet ribbon and gold daisies, equally
incongruous at the party and at the later visitation, although I m less impressed by what it is than by
whose it is. Mrs. Sheridan has purchased it, but she insists that Laura take it, declaring it much too
young for herself. Although Laura resists, she does accept the hat and is later captivated by her own
charming image in the mirror. No doubt she does look charming, but part of that is transferral. When
a younger character takes on an older character s talisman, she also assumes some of the elder s
power. This is true whether it s a father s coat, a mentor s sword, a teacher s pen, or a mother s hat.
Because the hat has come from Mrs. Sheridan, Laura instantly becomes more closely associated than
any of her siblings with her mother. This identification is furthered first by Laura s standing beside her
mother to help with the good-byes and then by the contents of her charity basket: leftover food from
the party and, but for the destruction they would have wrought on her lace frock, arum lilies. This
growing identification between Mrs. Sheridan and Laura is significant on a couple of levels, and we ll
return to that presently.
First, though, let s look at Laura s trip. The perfect afternoon on the high promontory is ending and
growing dusky as Laura shut[s] their garden gates. From here on her trip grows progressively darker.
The cottages down in the hollow are in deep shade, the lane smoky and dark. Some of the
cottages show a flicker of light, just enough to project shadows on the windows. She wishes she had
put on a coat, since her bright frock shines amid the dismal surroundings. Inside the dead man s house
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