The Garden Party

“‘Where do you want the marquee put, mother?’ ‘My dear child, it’s no use asking me. I’m determined to leave everything to you children this year. Forget I am your mother. Treat me as an honoured guest.’”

The reader’s first introduction to Mrs. Sheridan is her relinquishment of her role of hostess. While she insists that her children will lead the preparations for the party, giving them more adult responsibilities, she later resumes the role of hostess, placing the children back in the limbo between adolescence and adulthood.

“Oh, how extraordinarily nice workmen were, she thought. Why couldn’t she have workmen for her friends rather than the silly boys she danced with and who came to Sunday night supper? She would get on much better with men like these.”

As Laura observes one of the workmen enjoying the scent of a lavender sprig, her inner monologue shows her grappling with class distinction. Because Laura is from a well-to-do family, the “silly boys” she references are most likely of her same social strata. However, Laura does not seem to mind the class differences between herself and the workmen, as she is interested in the workmen’s personalities.

“It’s all the fault, she decided, […] of these absurd class distinctions. Well, for her part, she didn’t feel them. Not a bit, not an atom... And now there came the chock-chock of wooden hammers.”

As Laura still considers the workmen, she concludes that class distinctions are not important to her. This immediately distinguishes her from her family members who are more concerned with life inside the gates of their home than outside. As she continues to ponder this, she is called back inside the house for a phone call; this moment symbolizes that while she errs to the side of egalitarianism, her upbringing calls her back to her duties, to which she responds quickly and favorably.