How this story has sensitized you towards society and its injustice

As a result of the class prejudice in the microcosm of New Zealand society Mansfield depicts, people of lower social standing are made victims of persistent ostracism. This exclusion from the larger group is best illustrated in the Kelveys' staying forever banished to the edge of the circle of girls who flock around Isabel Burnell at lunch and playtime. Rather than the Kelveys occupying a completely separate area of the playground, the invisible forces of class prejudice and social ostracism keep them near enough for the popular girls to feel superior over them and ridicule them whenever the whim to exercise power strikes. By keeping the Kelveys close but unequal, the girls at the mixed-income school emulate the greater society's de facto rules of ostracism that ensure the Kelveys' parents are kept subservient and in the underclass.