Katherine Mansfield, a modernist writer from New Zealand, brought subtle layers of metaphor and nuance into her short stories. One of her signature stories is “The Garden Party,” a coming-of-age tale about upper-class teenager Laura, who confronts the adult world of class distinction and death over the course of a day. Mansfield imbues “The Garden Party” with a number of well-crafted metaphors that display both her breadth of knowledge and her sharpness of eye.

Skills: analysis, drawing inferences from text, close reading, identifying the relationship between words

About This Document

The Owl Eyes Analyzing Metaphor activity gives students an opportunity to practice examining and analyzing metaphors. Students will engage with specific selections of the text and work collaboratively to identify the vehicle, tenor, and implications of each metaphor. The main components include the following:

• A brief introduction to the text
• A detailed handout on metaphor types
• A step-by-step guide to activity procedure
• A detailed answer key for teachers

In completing this worksheet, students will learn to classify and analyze different kinds of metaphors in order to develop close reading skills and draw deeper inferences from the text.