Rationality in The Garden Party and Kew Gardens - Essay Example

Rationality vs. Irrationality During the Modern Age in the beginning decades of the 1900s, artists and writers were concerned with how one might discern and portray the truth. During this period in time, there was a heavy focus on the new technology of the day, the ability of machines and factories to churn out products at several hundred times the rate of normal human workers working from cottages or towns. Science was creating a great stir as concepts such as evolution became more widely known and discussed. Philosophy was exploring the effects of colonialism and proving that there was often more than one way to look at something. Out of this general confusion of ideas, there was a large concentration on the concepts of rationality versus irrationality. For many people, rationality was the only way by which one might arrive at the truth, through a careful and thorough examination of the physical evidence placed before one. For others, the truth could only be found by allowing one to open one’s mind to the greater possibilities and transcendental understandings that were associated more within the arena of emotions, feelings or intuitions. Katherine Mansfield presents the first of these approaches in her short story “The Garden Party” while Virginia Woolf attempts to remove the separation between rationality and irrationality, arguing that the two exist side by side, in her short story “Kew Gardens.” In “The Garden Party”, Katherine Mansfield tells the story of a young girl as she helps her family prepare for a special garden party. The reason for the party is never given although the details include the placement of a marquee, a tremendous number of lilies and a band of musicians and a hint is provided that perhaps it is a yearly event as Laura’s mother tells her, “I’m determined to leave everything to you children this year” (Mansfield 59). These details reveal elements of the irrational as the lavish party is held within sight and sound of a poor section of town in which the people were mourning the death of a young father. This irrationality is brought into ever clearer focus as the older girls are engaged in activities designed to make them look nice while Laura, presumably younger, is sent out to cope with the party details. “Meg could not possibly go and supervise the men. She had washed her hair before breakfast, and she sat drinking her coffee in a green turban, with a dark wet curl stamped on each cheek. Jose, the butterfly, always came down in a silk petticoat and a kimono jacket” (Mansfield 59-60). The other female characters are shown as particularly unconcerned with the realities of life, not even capable of occupying their time with the frivolity of party decorations in their all-consuming interest in their own appearance. As is seen in the poem, this shallowness, an inherent aspect of the society Mansfield knew as a child, is contrasted against the depth of her main character. When Laura interacts with the workmen, she demonstrates an ability to transcend class distinctions that is not shared by her family in order to see the rational side of life. As she interacted with the workmen, noticing the way in which they attempted to make her feel more comfortable and their concern for things such as the smell of lavender, she thought, “It’s all the fault, she decided, as the tall fellow drew something on the back of an envelope, something that was to be looped up or left to hang, of these absurd class distinctions. Well, for her part, she didn’t feel them” (Mansfield 62-63). Her ability to see the rational is made more obvious when she attempts to stop the party upon hearing of the death of the young carter. "But we can’t possibly have a garden-party with a man dead just outside the front gate … And just think of what the band would sound like to that poor woman” (Mansfield 71-72). Laura’s rational response to the tragedy of her community is brought into even sharper contrast by the reaction of her family, which reflected the typical reactions of Mansfield’s society. Jose automatically assumes the carter was drunk when the accident occurred and her mother is only concerned that the accident might have happened in their own garden. While they recognize nothing inappropriate in their actions of sending Laura down to the carter’s widow with leftover party dishes, Laura is well aware of how inappropriate her appearance and the nature of her gift is under the circumstances. Just as Mansfield’s story vacillates between the rational and the irrational, so does Virginia Woolf’s short story “Kew Gardens” convey a sense of shifting perspectives. However, in Woolf’s depiction, the rational and the irrational seem to move through subtle shifts between one and the other, rather than the strict dichotomy seen in Mansfield’s story. While the story focuses in on the action that takes place in and around an oval-shaped flower garden within Kew Gardens, several different stories are being told, each of which provide a glimpse of the rational as well as the irrational. At its introduction, the story works to describe the flower bed itself, focusing on the various different colors present on the flowers and illustrating how these different colors fall off of the flowers one by one, briefly changing the color of the earth beneath. “From the oval-shaped flower-bed there rose perhaps a hundred stalks spreading into heart-shaped or tongue-shaped leaves half way up and unfurling at the tip red or blue or yellow petals marked with spots of color raised upon the surface; and from the red, blue or yellow gloom of the throat emerged a straight bar, rough with gold dust and slightly clubbed at the end” (Woolf). The rational is present in this image as one can plainly see the process occurring, but the irrational is also introduced as the various visitors to the garden are introduced, each having a specific color and shape of their own and changing the look of the garden in their own way for only a brief moment at a time. “The petals were voluminous enough to be stirred by the summer breeze, and when they moved, the red, blue and yellow lights passed one over the other, staining an inch of the brown earth beneath with a spot of the most intricate color” (Woolf). This combination of rational and irrational can also be traced through each of the human stories that pass through the garden. The first of these stories is that of Simon and Eleanor. Each of them are thinking their own thoughts beginning with Simon. “’Fifteen years ago I came here with Lily,’ he thought. ‘We sat somewhere over there by a lake and I begged her to marry me all through the hot afternoon. How the dragonfly kept circling round us: how clearly I see the dragonfly and her shoe with the square silver buckle at the toe’” (Woolf). For Simon, the rational path to this memory of who he once was is concentrated into these two images, the silver buckle and the dragonfly and these images signify only one thing. Eleanor, however, is able to see much further than simply the rational side of life as she makes clear when she answers Simon regarding whether or not she ever thinks about the past. “Doesn’t one always think of the past, in a garden with men and women lying under the trees? Aren’t they one’s past, all that remains of it, those men and women, those ghosts lying under the trees, ... one’s happiness, one’s reality?” (Woolf). Eleanor’s memories are associated more with abstract and irrational connections, which enable them to be expanded to relate to all of the other users of the park, past and present, as she invokes images of death and ghosts by talking about the present people lying under the trees and reminding the reader that they could as easily be lying under the ground and then makes this connection stronger by calling them ghosts. The way in which this family moves on past the flower-bed further connects them with these ideas as they “soon diminished in size among the trees and looked half transparent as the sunlight and shade swam over their backs in large trembling irregular patches” (Woolf). Another couple, this time a younger one and without such certain futures together, also illustrate the interrelationships Woolf held existed between the rational and the irrational. As the young man mentions that it is fortunate they came on a day other than Friday because that’s when they charge a sixpence for entrance into the park, the girl, Trissie, asks “Isn’t it worth sixpence?” (Woolf). While it might be assumed that she intends a visit to the park, the young man asks the obvious question, “What do you mean by it?” and the young woman is unable to answer. In this exchange, the reader begins to understand the rational concept of a day outdoors as being worth spending a sixpence, then begins to question their assumptions regarding what is worth a sixpence and then, as the narrative continues to inform the reader that “long pauses came between each of these remarks; they were uttered in toneless and monotonous voices” (Woolf), the reader realizes that there is something else still going on that exists below the rational surface. The boy seems to see the rational and the irrational existing side by side as he struggles to come to grips with what is happening in his soul: “there was a bill that he would pay with a real two shilling piece, and it was real, all real, he assured himself, fingering the coin in his pocket, real to everyone except to him and to her; even to him it began to seem real; and then – but it was too exciting to stand and think any longer” (Woolf) while it is the girl this time who seems to remain fixed in the rational as she considers what sort of tea is served at Kew Gardens and seems to experience little of the magic the boy has noticed. In each story, there are elements of the rational and the irrational within the action and thoughts of the characters. However, these are used to different effect by the two authors. Mansfield chooses to focus upon the rational as the means to the truth while illustrating the irrational as a means of escaping from it. The difference between the rational and the irrational can be easily traced in the differences between Laura and the rest of her family. Laura intuitively understood the greater value of people, understanding that each individual, regardless of class or social sphere, might be capable of appreciating little things like the smell of lavender. She is very aware of the tragedy that occurred just down the hill as compared to the other members of her family. Her family exemplifies the irrational habits of the wealthy in that they must have so many flowers that there isn’t room for them all and are insensitive enough to send the leftovers of a gay party down to a new widow in the hands of a child in a party dress and hat, completely inappropriate attire and fare for the events then occurring. Woolf, on the other hand, chooses to illustrate how the rational and the irrational coexist, each working from the other to provide more universal connections between the various entities. The irrational provides a means by which greater understanding and insight might be found as it is guided by rational observation and thought. Works Cited Mansfield, Katherine. (1922). “The Garden Party.” The Garden Party and Other Stories. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Woolf, Virginia. (1921). “Kew Gardens.” Monday or Tuesday. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. Read More