'The Garden Party'

Nothing much to this story, but it's just as strong as any lengthy novel or longer short story.

The upper-class Sheridans are hosting a garden party. As their servants prepare for the party (and the family worries and idles without too much worry), they find out a local working man died in the street. Laura thinks the party should be cancelled in consideration to the family that lives nearby. The rest of the family disagree assuming the man was probably drunk and that's why he died; as if, if this were true, he deserved to die. Quite the classy family.

The party goes on without a hitch. Following, Laura takes a basket of food to the man's grieving family where she sees the body against her will.

In about 15 pages, Katharine Mansfield says more than Franz Kafka or Albert Camus often say in 400 pages. This is a really simple tale of the class conciousness and the eventual breakdown of extreme classism and the burgeoning development of the middle class.

Never was there some kind of death of rich people. They've always existed and there's more of them today than there ever has been in the history of the world.

But attitudes have changed, although that seems hard to believe. It's not so black and white anymore.