Kalinina Alena

7171
"Her First Ball" by Katherine Mansfield
Essay
"Her First Ball" is a story written by Katherine Mansfield (Kathleen
Mansfield Murry), was a prominent modernist writer who was born and brought up
in New Zealand. She wrote short stories and poetry under the pen name Katherine
Mansfield.
The sitting of the story is in a cab that Leila and her cousins are driving in to
get to the ball, however most of the ball was placed in the ballroom hall. It is
placed in the early 1900s, as the date of publishing suggests, when ballroom
dancing was at an all-time high. Implying that Leila's boarding school was in the
same area or region as the drill hall in the story, we can say that the story took
place in England. London, to be exact.
The exposition is that the characters are introduced and the story is in
perspective of Leila, a teenage country girl, who is going to her first ball. She is so
excited, that she sees everything as if it waltzing and she feels like she is at the
ball. She is with her cousins who are from the city and already have some ball
experience.
The protagonist of the story is Leila who is driving in to get to the first ball
in her life. It is possible to guess Mansfield’s attitude to the protagonist is positive.
This manifests itself in an attempt to protect herself from the negativity of the
people around her, an example, but every single thing was so new and exciting…
The antagonist is a fat man. The author describes him like a tried, cynical,
negative and marvelous person. An example, it gave Leila a shock to see how old
he was and he looked shabby. His waistcoat was creased there was a button off his
glove his coat looked as if it was dusty with French chalk.
The rising action of the story is that Leila along with her cousins Meg,
Laurie, Jose, and Laura reach the hall and the girls go into the packed ladies room
to add the finishing touches to the looks. Like Leila, many other young women
were excited to go out. There was a great hubbub and all the women were nervous
to get out to meet their partners.
The climax of the story is the women flood into the hall and make last
minute adjustments. Leila views the polished golden floors, the red carpet, and the
azaleas as some of the marvelous things in the setting. She thinks how "simply
heavenly" the hall looked. The men stood at the opposite side of the ballroom and
the appeared to the ladies to take forever to initiate the dancing. Suddenly though,
the music started and the men walked over to pick their respective partners. The
ball was on!!
 The falling action is Leila starts to dance and enjoy her long awaited dream
finally put into action. She compares how her practice at boarding school in a
dusty smelling hall was so elementary when compared to the classy, heavenly
looking ballroom and how men danced way better than girls.
However, Leila also meets a nice but mysterious old fat man. He tells her
about how he had been waltzing for about thirty years. He goes on to even say
what Leila will be like in the future; an old woman looking down from the stands
on a younger generation who does something they did when they were younger.
Leila is rather angry at his statements and angry at him for spoiling it for her.
The resolution of the story is Leila didn't feel like dancing anymore because
the old man discouraged her. But when a young man bowed before her and she
decided to dance with him out of politeness, she began to receive the fantastic
emotions she had felt before. With every turn and every glide she took, the more
she forgot about what the old man had said. Her desire to dance was not deterred.
In "Her First Ball" by Katherine Mansfield many literary techniques were
used but the primary ones were the use of repetitions (…all became feet glided,
glided), hyperboles (she would like to have kept those wisps as a keepsake, as a
remembrance), epithets ( …past waltzing lamp-posts and houses and fences and
trees), comparisons (when she looked through the dark windows at the stars they
gad long beams like wings…), metaphors (…pushing above her white fur lake a
flower through snow), oxymorons (…she would die at least) and personifications
(…colored flags strung across the ceiling were talking).
In conclusion, I would like to say when you love something with all your
heart, nothing should ever stop you from keeping your love for it or continuing to
do what you love. Leila loved the ball experience and she loved dancing. Though
the old man discouraged her at first and she didn't want to dance, she came back to
do what she loved: dancing in the ball. So you should never give up on your
passions and the things you love. In the end, the story teaches us to appreciate
every moment of our life and even difficult time.