The theme of Mona Gardner’s The Dinner Party is gender stereotyping. The story is a satire of attitudes towards women in upper class colonial England. It begins with a debate over dinner between an army officer and young girl. The officer argues that men are better than women at staying calm during a crisis. The host’s wife proves him wrong by demonstrating nerves of steel when the guests are threatened by a deadly visitor. Although one of the other guests foreshadows the looming danger, the full extent of the woman’s courage is not evident until the final paragraph. More…