Death pervades Mansfield's short stories. Her own illness of pleurisy/consumption and the harsh effects of World War I focused her thinking and reactions. As social commentator, she continued to remain an active participant in the European intelligencia. Like many of her contemporaries, however, Mansfield felt cut off from the harshness of death and war (x-xi).
The Daughters of The Late Colonel and The Garden Party depict characters in society facing the real world consequences of death. Through Josephine and Constantia in Daughters, Mansfield emphasizes how illness and death pervades not only the dead but the living as well. Death cuts the daughters off from an adult, mature life; trapped in their service to the memory of
Example Essays Home
