KATHERINE MANSFIELD’IN “BAHÇE PARTİSİ” ADLI ÖYKÜSÜNDE SINIF AYRIMI VE TOPLUMSAL CİNSİYET ROLLERİ KONUSUNDAKİ İKİLİ KARŞITLIKLARIN YIKILMASI

Abstract

Katherine Mansfield’s contribution to the development of short story genre in English literature is based on her use of narrative techniques, especially that of focalization. In her short story “The Garden Party” which recounts the story of the upper-class Sheridan family’s garden party preparations, Mansfield challenges issues related to class and gender from the main character Laura’s focalisation. In this initiation story, Laura starts questioning the roles attributed to an upper-class woman right after she meets the workers who come to make the preparations for the party. Her dilemma about her class comes to a climactic point when she learns the death of a working class neighbour, Mr. Scott, and visits his funeral home. Through the juxtaposition of these two classes from the viewpoint of a female adolescent, Mansfield not only criticises the hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie, but also roles expected from a woman. The aim of this article, then, is to discuss Mansfield’s “The Garden Party” with respect to the theory of deconstruction to show how the writer problematizes logocentrism by subverting the binary oppositions based on class and gender. Keywords: Katherine Mansfield, “The Garden Party”, Deconstruction, Narrative Techniques.