The Garden Party Group

Question:

dotd
dotd
Student
High School - 12th Grade

To what extent does context (social conditions, time, setting, other people) promote the moral change in the main character?

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Posted by dotd on Monday September 22, 2008 at 8:14 PM and tagged with context, main character, setting, social confitions, the garden party, time.

Answers:

  1. parkerlee
    parkerlee Teacher

    eNotes Editor

    The "evolution" of Laura throughout the story is a most enigmatic one. Instead of a 'coming of age,' so to speak, through experience, Laura loses something of her original sensitivity to human need. She confronts for the first time the duplicity of life, in which one must respond to others' distress but at the same time keep personal joy.

    At first Laura cannot reconcile the idea of doing something for pleasure while at that very moment a neighbour is in deep mourning and grief. The basket of food she delivers is the 'bridge' between the two worlds. Life is made up of "the haves" and "the have nots," and compassion cannot help but so much. She seems to come to terms with this necessary disparity in the end but cannot articulate her thoughts. Her unfinished sentence says more than anything she could have expressed.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/garden-party/summary
    http://www.enotes.com/garden-party/themes

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    Posted by parkerlee on Wednesday September 24, 2008 at 9:50 AM