Katherine Mansfield's "The Garden Party"

Why do you think Laura is unable to finish her final statement, "isn't life...Isn't life--". The narrator says that "she couldn't explain" what life is. Her brother Laurie responds by adding, "Isn't it, darling?" What is the "it" that he speaks of? Why the "darling"?

A little help here please. Your response should be a paragraph length (at least 7 sentences...I want some thought).

Enjoy.

Mr. Branch

PS - please feel free to respond to previous posts by your peers. The only rule is no attacks, although you may refute, disagree, and discuss them.

Laura can't say what she wants to say to his brother Laurie because she feels confused and overwhelmed by her visit to the dead man's house. The blinds that were covering Laura's eyes and holding her innocence were finally taken away, and Laura felt happy but overwhelmed. When Laura tries to explain the visit to her brother, he interupts her by saying, "isn't it darling?" Laurie doesn't use these words to refer to how nice it is to see/understand the pain of others. He uses these last words, meaning how beautifull it is to see things in another perspective, seeing things how different people see things. Laurie says it is darling to learn and experience what's outside the safe and comfortable social bubble. He probably says this to her little sister because he himself had been in the same position already in the past.

Juan Max Boettner Breuer

Laura can't explain what life is because this is the first time that she has experienced life. Prior to the death of the "neighbor," Laura lived in her bubble where everything was perfect. For the first time in years, Laura was not being protected from what occured in society, therefore seeing what reality is made her feel "marvellous." Nobody can explain what life is, but most of us experience what life is. Before seeing the dead "neighbor," Laura was naive and did not understand life. Now that her eyes are open, she starts to understand what life can mean and that confuses her. Knowing something new always confuses people.
Laurie uses "darling" to describe life. Not that death is something joyful, but that life brings with it a box full of candy, each candy being different. For the first time, Laurie is seeing Laura grow up, seeing Laura pass from a stage of naiveness to maturity.

Quote:

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Why do you think Laura is unable to finish her final statement, "isn't life...Isn't life--". The narrator says that "she couldn't explain" what life is. Her brother Laurie responds by adding, "Isn't it, darling?" What is the "it" that he speaks of? Why the "darling"?
A little help here please. Your response should be a paragraph length (at least 7 sentences...I want some thought).

Enjoy.

Mr. Branch

PS - please feel free to respond to previous posts by your peers. The only rule is no attacks, although you may refute, disagree, and discuss them.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think that what's stopping Laura from elaborating further is the fact that life is characterized by very antagonistical concepts. She lived a life of luxury on her hilltop manor, surrounded by glamour and comfort. When she travels downhill, she sees the drudgery in which millions of others live firsthand.

When she lays her eyes on the dead man, she comments that "he was wonderful, beautiful" despite the fact that "all the same [she] had to cry". Hence, the dead man was a paragon of serenity and, simultaneously, of sadness.

Laura could not possibly embody all of these opposites in a single word that would describe the whole neatly. Life is miserable, finite, and difficult. At the same time, however, it is miraculous and beautiful. There's despair and hope, death and birth. When Laura saw Scott's body, she realized all these things. Her inability to express this new body of knowledge, however, is not born out of an inability on her part. Rather, it is a discovery that every person must make for his or her own self: thus, it is implied that Laurie already confronted a similar situation and gleaned said knowledge from it.

This ties into the concept of a "loss of innocence" in that her mother, perhaps symbolic of God's warning to Adam and Eve, tries to tell her "don't, on any account--" when she leaves the house. What she hoped to say is not told to the reader, but it is possible to infer that she hoped to warn Laura against seeing the body, against forsaking her innocence in the face of death. Much like Persephone, Laura becomes inextricably chained to a new perception of life, of which her mother might be able to free her temporarily but never perpetually.

As for Laurie's comment to his sister, his reference to "it" is simply an all-encompassing reference to all of life's contradictions. By referring to "darling", Laurie is not only comforting her sister but, perhaps, elaborating on her own conceit of life as "darling", something dear and cherished.

<font color="#a62a2a"><font size="1">[ August 12, 2007 01:42 PM: Message edited by: alberto_dacosta ]</font></font>

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ August 12, 2007 02:47 PM: Message edited by: alberto_dacosta ]</font>

Laura is not able to describe life because she doesn't know what life is. Laura for the first time saw, through the dead body, what life was really about. Life is about death and the unjustices that society makes. Laura has been blind of what is occuring in her surrounding due to her status in society. When Laura saw the dead neighbor, her eyes opened and saw what she has been deprieved of. The dead body/neighbor represents the passage from being naive to achieving maturity.
When Laurie says "darling", she refers to how beautiful life is. Laurie has seen what life is really about and has pierced the bubble that has been surrounding her. With the dead body, Laura was able to pierce her bubble and see what the "real bubble" looks like.

First of all, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to define life outside of the field of science. On top of this, however, Laura does not know what life is, therefore she can not come up with words for it. What had just happened is that she got a taste of the real world, outside of her family's aegis. For the first time, she experienced something foul first-handedly.

To the contrary of most of my classmates belief, I do not think that the word darling was used to describe life, but an affectionate name for Laura. Basically, Laurie did not say anything about life either, and by saying "isn't it, darlin?" he says nothing new, but supports her way of thought, as if saying "You don't have to try to explain, I understand". The "it" that he speaks of is obviously the concept of life.

Laura is unable to describe life, because she has merely received a taste of it with her shocking experience. She has no words for what she feels, because life simply can't be described in words. Only aspects of life can be given characteristics, but not life as a whole. Here I agree with Mr. Kennedy. Additionally, Laura is perplexed, seeing her perfect world fall apart with a horrible event such as the one that happened. She might have heard of many horrible things in the past, even worse things, but she has never experienced them personally. This is why the death of her neighbor has affected her emotionally so much. The "darling" is just Laurie comforting her and being kind. It is not describing life because it is after a comma.

Mauricio Rodriguez

Laura couldn?t explain what life was. She begins to experience a new part of life. Before, words such as death and sadness were not in her dictionary, and now she was starting to grasp their meaning. Even though we wouldn?t know for sure, but perhaps it was the first time Laura ever cried. She cried because she saw something that should had been awful, yet it was ?marvelous? for her.

Furthermore, Laura couldn?t explain what life was because from learning a new part of it, she realized how little she really knew about it. In Laurie?s respond to his sister, the ?it? refers to all the novel feelings and the boundless mist of life. Understanding Laura's status, he uses ?darling? to help her define life because he knows that there still much more for them to discover.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ August 12, 2007 10:14 PM: Message edited by: brucelin ]</font>

Laura is unable to finish her description of life since life iself is something hard to explain. Besides, Laura, of all people, has a even smaller sense of life due to her naive mind. She is surrounded by her family and innocence so that she has very small idea what life really is. However, seeing her dead neighbor brought reality and pain. This experience becomes her first encounter with "life". When Laurie says "isn't it, darling?" he is talking about life and he understands how her perception of life has changed. I agree with Chris when he says Laurie used "darling" as a name for Laura and not to describe life.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ August 12, 2007 10:09 PM: Message edited by: alexiacalo ]</font>

What Laura feels after she leaves Scott's home she can't translate into words. So overwhelmed by what she saw and realized, Laura became unable to tell Laurie what life really is, which embodies both her realization (kind of a comming of age realization) and her still present immaturity and innocense. That "it"is missing. That ambigious adjective not even Laurie can fill in. This is Mansfield way of telling/not telling us what life is: vague, finite, beatiful, ugly, dark and bright. All of these adjectives crammed into that "it" to explain what Laurie felt, which obviously can't exist.

The darling. Perhaps Laurie was treating Laura as a child who was just born (you know, comming of age and all). He was looking down at her as if saying "you are still a child. you have a lot to learn."

Yet another comming of age story for the record.

Why do you think Laura is unable to finish her final statement, "isn't life...Isn't life--". The narrator says that "she couldn't explain" what life is. Her brother Laurie responds by adding, "Isn't it, darling?" What is the "it" that he speaks of? Why the "darling"?

For a teenager that had lived all of her life trapped in her own bubble of society, with no contact whatsoever with lower classes, it is obvious Laura wouldn't be able to encompass whatever she thought of when she saw the corpse. This experience opened a whole new, different window that she had no idea existed up until then: the real life. The author left the sentence incomplete on purpose; this way, every readers' imagination can complete the statement in whatever way they desire.
The "it" Laurie spoke about is life, since he responded to his sister. He tried to act as someone to support her after opening her eyes. However, the "darling" in the end incites to the vanity and atmosphere of their usual lives, foreshadowing that this sole experience won't change Laura's life. She will end up just as her mother.

Laura cannot explain what life is?for who is really capable of answering that question? One must also note that Laura has never been outside her ?protected? and natured environment. Her world of peace and ?perfection? had never before been placed in perspective, which is why the death of the ?poor? and all feelings it may have conveyed for her were simply too much to abhor. ?It? can symbolize and mean anything the reader chooses it to be. For how could any person on earth be ready to express the meaning of life?surely the writer is smart enough to accept and recognize that some questions, in this case the statement?have simply no answer.

Jorge Benitez

the reason she cant finish her sentence is because she had just undergone such a shocking experience and she was at a loss of words. she has this perfect little view of life and once the fog is lifted and she sees life in its entirety she is no longer naiive. the brothers response to her kind of makes you feel like he knows what she's been through and maybe he himself has experienced it as well.

Laura can't finish her sentence because she had just experienced what life really is. She had never seen nor been through something like that. Laura can no longer define life after seeing something like that. She realizes her life has been some sort of a lie and she can no longer define life in her own words.

Rodrigo Campos

Laura is unable to finish her sentence because she can find no word that fully encompasses all that she perceives life is. I think that, although sad, the experience of visiting the deceased?s home was nonetheless valuable and, to some extend, gratifying to Laura because she was eager to encounter and experience a reality other than her own, and to adopt an attitude less negligent than that of her mother towards her neighbors. Because it seems that Laura confides in Laurie, I believe he may resemble her and have that same degree of empathy. Therefore, the line ?Isn?t it, darling?? possibly shows agreement between their opinions.

Laura is unable to finish her sentence because she truly does not know life. She had never before experienced life before visiting the dead man?s house; never had she felt so overwhelming emotions as she did that day. Once Laura returned to her home and was met by her brother, she could not respond because she realized she did not know the answer. Finally, the use of ?darling? is to show the reader how the human mind tries desperately to attribute some connotation to what it does not know. This misperception proves that much identification of emotions is in fact, incorrect.

SMILE BACK

Laura isnt able to finish her sentence because she is extremely confused by death and suffering, which dont fit with her life, or in this case her vocabulary. Teenage years (supposing she is around the age of 15) are supposed to be about finding who you are and where you are in this world; in Laura's wrld she had never before been placed in doubt, or in a place where she would have to understand such a deep concept by herself. I belivethat the story and especially these lines show Laura in the middle of the comming of age process.

When Laurie said "isnt it, darling?" i thought that it showed that Laurie hasnt come of age yet, and is just a tool the author uses to compare the superficiality by which people at the garden took life.

You are all incorrect and fail my course for the year.

(this is Mr. Branch. I'm a big Journey fan and I post under this name now)