The Garden Party

How does Katherine Mansfield use imagery in The Garden Party?

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Masfield uses images of light and darkness to illustrate the contrasting worlds in which the characters live.

The world of the Scott family:

Now the broad road was crossed. The lane began, smoky and dark. Women in shawls and men's tweed caps hurried by. Men hung over the palings; the children played in the doorways. A low hum came from the mean little cottages. In some of them there was a flicker of light, and a shadow, crab-like, moved across the window.

The world of the Sheridans:

And after all the weather was ideal. They could not have had a more perfect day for a garden-party if they had ordered it. Windless, warm, the sky without a cloud. Only the blue was veiled with a haze of light gold, as it is sometimes in early summer.

Source(s)

The Garden Party