The Function of the Hat in The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield

Third version
The function of the hat in "the garden party"
Almost everybody in the story wears a hat; it tells something about the person who wears it. It is used as a statussymbol; the classes are expressed by their hats. That is why it has an important place in the story. Laura's feeling towards class distinctions is related to the hat. The hat gives her a status; when she walks towards the dead man's house, she thinks everyone is looking at her big hat with a velvet streamer. The other people who live in the little houses are very poor, so they can not afford such a hat.
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