Awesome Ending

Today, I finished How To Read Literature Like a Professor! I liked chapter 25, "Don't Read With Your Eyes." I was kind of puzzled when I first read the title but, once you read on, it becomes clear what he means. He means that you shouldn't read with your eyes and your eyes only; you should look at things with different perspectives. In Homer's The Iliad, Achilles throws a fit because his slave has been taken from him and he slaughters every Trojan in his sight. We would see this as evil, terrible, unjust and just plain bad. But to an ancient Greek, this would appear different. You can't look at things in one way. In chapter 26, Foster talks about irony. Once again, he says' "Irony trumps everything." A nice example of irony: in Waiting For Godot, two men are stranded in a desolate country and they have the option to travel a road near them. But they don't. They choose not to, even though they can escape their desolation by going. Pretty ironic, I'd say. In the last chapter, ch. 27(my favorite), Foster gave us a test case, "The Garden Party", by Katherine Mansfield, a short story to analyze. I really liked it. The Sheridans are having a garden party that starts off with a marquee being placed in their beautiful garden full of karaka-trees, lavender, and fruit clusters. They're quite wealthy and have a cook, who prepared 15 kinds of sandwiches. yummy. Out of nowhere, Laura sees Sadie, cook, and the Godber's man staring at something in shock. At what? A dead man! Out of the blue. It was a man from the cottages below their home who had been killed. Laura told Jose that the party must be thrown off but she, along with her mother, thought that it was unnecessary. It seems like Laura is the only one with a heart; no one else cared. When the party ended, Laura had the idea of giving the leftovers and lilies to the family of the lost man. When she went on over with her gift basket, a woman answered the door and told her to walk in, ordered her to. She saw the "beautiful", in her words, dead man laying in bed. She let out a loud sob and when leaving, saw Laurie.
So, what does this story signify?
My answer: I think that Mansfield is trying to say that you shouldn't take things for granted. Laura comes from a wealthy family, as seen by the hundreds of fancy lilies, a personal cook, and their satin hats. When Laura goes over to the family of the dead man, she sees how other peoples' lives can be. They are poor and the cottages they live in are known for being filthy. There's a big difference between the quality of living of rich and poor. I believe that's why she cried in their home. She said to Laurie when she returned, "Isn't life-" and couldn't finish. I don't know what she wanted to say but you could tell that she was sad and didn't know how to express it.
Foster asked 3 people the same thing and I came pretty close to 2.(I'm kinda proud of myself :) ). The college major said that it signifies the indifference of the dominant class of people to the suffering of others and the other said pretty much the same. The 3rd compared it to birds and flight. Amazing analysis. I really liked the ending and it got me thinking like a professor. Bye!