Laura’s mother ultimately changes her daughter’s mind about canceling the party when she gives Laura the hat she herself was planning on wearing to the fête. Laura is at first resistant to this gift, as she is well aware that it’s her mother’s attempt at pacifying her, but changes her mind once she sees her reflection. Despite the fact that Laura considered the shattered family “nearly neighbors,” (2587) she believes throwing a party right above a home in mourning is in poor taste. She leaves her mother’s room, still wearing the hat, when “There, quite by chance, the first thing she [sees is] this charming girl in the mirror; in her black hat trimmed with golden daisies, and a long black velvet ribbon. Never [had Laura] imagined she could
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Laura’s a child, she knows she looks lovely, and after she sees herself in her new present, it’s easy for her to go along with her mother’s more progressed and more engrained form of classism. “Is mother right? she thought. And now she hoped her mother was right.” (2588) In his 1965 essay, “An Eden for Insiders: Katherine Mansfield 's New Zealand,” Don W. Kleine wryly comments that adapting to classism and prejudice is easy for Laura, given her familial and socioeconomic background. He says that “Laura… is cheated of the moral experience she craves, by evasions only money can buy,” (208) and that the “perils of abstraction… are prevented by the impetuosity of [Laura’s] youthful emotion.” (207). She’s so excited about her new pretty hat that imagining the sorrow of people she doesn’t know, in a class she doesn’t know, in a place she’s been but isn’t all that familiar proves to be too difficult for her. She’s still just a kid, and instead of forcing her to empathize with and try to help the less fortunate, to make them more concrete, her mother gives her a present to help Laura ignore it and continue assisting in the preparations for their
Laura’s a child, she knows she looks lovely, and after she sees herself in her new present, it’s easy for her to go along with her mother’s more progressed and more engrained form of classism. “Is mother right? she thought. And now she hoped her mother was right.” (2588) In his 1965 essay, “An Eden for Insiders: Katherine Mansfield 's New Zealand,” Don W. Kleine wryly comments that adapting to classism and prejudice is easy for Laura, given her familial and socioeconomic background. He says that “Laura… is cheated of the moral experience she craves, by evasions only money can buy,” (208) and that the “perils of abstraction… are prevented by the impetuosity of [Laura’s] youthful emotion.” (207). She’s so excited about her new pretty hat that imagining the sorrow of people she doesn’t know, in a class she doesn’t know, in a place she’s been but isn’t all that familiar proves to be too difficult for her. She’s still just a kid, and instead of forcing her to empathize with and try to help the less fortunate, to make them more concrete, her mother gives her a present to help Laura ignore it and continue assisting in the preparations for their