Student Question
How does context promote the main character's moral change in "The Garden Party: And Other Stories"?
Quick answer:
In "The Garden Party," Laura's moral change is driven by her exposure to the contrasting realities of joy and grief. Initially sensitive to human need, she struggles to reconcile personal pleasure with a neighbor's mourning. Delivering food symbolizes her attempt to bridge this divide, highlighting life's inherent disparities. Ultimately, Laura's incomplete thoughts reflect her acceptance of these complexities, marking a nuanced moral evolution from innocence to a deeper understanding of life's dualities.
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.
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