Episode 284: Best of – “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield

The Literary Life Podcast

Angelina Stanford

Education, Selfeducation, Classicaleducation, Reading, Literature, Homeschool, Arts, Books, Charlottemason, Homeeducation, Homeschooling

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 July 2025

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on The Literary Life, we bring you an episode from deep in the archives in which Cindy and Angelina discussed Katherine Mansfield’s short story “The Garden Party.” After a great chat over their commonplace quotes, Angelina and Cindy dig into this week’s story. They start with how Cindy found this story and the connections she was making to Little Women. Angelina gives a brief biographical sketch of Katherine Mansfield and highlights how Mansfield’s own illness and death give us insight into how she deals with death in this story. Angelina walks us through how she looks at the use of figurative language and images, such as the Garden of Eden. They also touch on “The Garden Party” having the same structure of moving toward a moment of epiphany that we saw in “Araby.”

Cindy brings up the disconnect between the world of the women at home and the working people outside the home, as well as between the classes in this story. They talk about the importance of Laura’s new hat as a symbol of one type of person she can become. Another image that Angelina and Cindy take a look at is the descent from the garden into darkness. They discuss the parallels from the beginning of the story and the end of the story, as well as Laura’s movement from innocence to experience, from blindness to sight.

To view the full show notes for this episode, complete with commonplace quotes, book links, and this week's poem, please visit https://theliterary.life/284.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Literary Life Podcast.
0:03.0	We've grown quite significantly since our debut in 2019,
0:07.0	and we've had many requests to highlight older episodes that new listeners may have missed,
0:12.0	as well as revisit listener favorites.
0:15.0	To honor that request, I present to you this episode of the best of the Literary Life podcast.
0:22.3	Welcome to the Literary Life podcast, where your hosts, Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins,
0:28.1	explore a life shaped by books, stories, and poetry. Each week, we will rescue story from
0:34.2	the ivory tower and bring it to your couch, your kitchen, and your commute.
0:38.3	The literary life is for everyone because in the words of Stratford Caldecott,
0:43.3	to be enchanted by story is to be granted a deeper insight into reality.
0:51.3	Hello and welcome to episode 13 of the literaryary Life podcast with me, Angelina Stanford, and my partner in crime, Cindy Rollins.
1:00.3	Hey, Cindy.
1:01.1	Hello, I guess we're at the unlucky number here.
1:04.7	Oh, that's ominous.
1:06.4	Yeah, the floor in the hotel that doesn't really exist so that no one has to be on floor 13 yeah here we are
1:13.3	here we are that's right that's right thank you to our very brave listeners who tuned in for episode
1:18.4	13 just don't don't listen to this under a ladder or while holding a black cat you should be fine
1:23.2	oh Cindy how you doing?
1:31.9	I'm doing well. I've had a good week and lots of company.
1:36.9	So I'm a little worn out from that, but I'm always glad to have people visiting.
1:42.1	That's good. I had a really good weekend, Mr. Banks and that's right.
1:46.6	We went to McKays and had a fabulous time and came back with quite a hall. So McKay's is a used bookstore that's kind of popular in the South and they're just
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 17 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Angelina Stanford, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Angelina Stanford and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.