What is the setting in relation to the plot in Katherine Mansfield's ''The Garden Party''?

The setting of "The Garden Party" begins at Laura's home
and shifts to the neighborhood and home of the dead man's widow. When the story opens in
medias res (or res in medias), Laura is making preparations for a garden party and
greeting workmen who have come to carry out the details of the arrangements. The house
and garden are the elegant living places of the wealthy Sheridan family and connected to
an accidental killing of a young carter who left a young widow behind him. It is this
accidentally event that forms the main conflict of the story because Laura feels the
moral impropriety of holding a party in the garden after a man lost his life. There is
an implied shift of scene as the party seems to carry on without narratorial comment
aside from scattered stream of consciousness remarks made by Laura that indicates the
fulfillment of the party.

Later, the setting changes to the
neighborhood and home of the young widow when Laura's mother insists that she remain in
her party clothes and go to deliver a platter full of party leftovers to the home of the
grieving young widow. Laura capitulates and goes on the journey down the lane to make
the delivery while still in her garden party dress and black hat. The lane leads Laura
to the cottage of the young man and his widow, which is surrounded by a mournful group
of people through whom Laura makes her way. Inside the cottage, the setting reveals
grieved characters and the body of the young man laid out looking peaceful and restful
in death. While looking at the young man, Laura has a flash of enlightenment, an
epiphany, and realizes how incongruous her presence is there amidst the trappings of
luxury, arrogant life, and garden parties. She exclaims, "Forgive my hat," the symbol of
all the incongruities, and leaves the cottage setting to reenter the lane where her
brother meets her, having come after her to give her encouragement. They share the
knowledge that life is an incongruence of having and not having as her brother says,
"Isn't it, darling?"