STORIES OF OURSELVES

        Katherine Mansfield’s story, ‘Her First Ball’, portrays a memorable event in a young woman’s life, symbolizing her entrance into modern society as a debutante. It conveys the idea of a girl’s first experience of a ball. The exposition of Leila illustrated that there was novelty to everything surrounding the event; there was excitement even for insignificant things. Leila’s longing to attend the ball was obvious through the way the author described her. She was impressionable and felt that everything around her was magical.

 

        Mansfield used a list to describe the setting of the ball. She also used alliteration to depict how the characters were “…gazing at the gleaming, golden floor, the azaleas, the lanterns, the stage at one end with its red carpet and gilt chairs and the band in a corner.” She sought to highlight how mesmerised Leila was in the ‘”heavenly” ballroom. In addition to this, the writer included the monologues of multiple characters in a very humorous way to be able to draw the readers into the story. The antique yet captivating room and the description of the scenario may also bring a sense of nostalgia to some readers, to the readers who have experienced the same thing. This connection that the author tried to make between the setting and the readers, helps them relate to the story and stay interested in it, leaving them wanting more.

 

        The author wanted to explain a lot of themes like naivety and youth in the story, ideas of innocence and experience are the most frequent themes that come up in this story and Mansfield’s careful word choice contributes to this. Using the word ‘little’ when describing to Leila as a “Little lady” emphasizes how small her world really is, how little she has experienced of the world. Although, the theme is not only about how innocent the character is, throughout the story we also witness how aging and gaining experience as time passes is suggested when Leila sees the reality of growing up but is unsure of what to do with her new knowledge.

 

        Moreover, symbolism was also a predominant writing technique as the main character, Leila, was a symbol of loss innocence, naivety and a sheltered lifestyle. When ‘she quite forgot to be shy’ and forgot how she ‘begged her mother’ to ‘say she couldn’t go after all’, it portrays how she was once innocent and that this was the point where she began to change; where we come across the theme of loss innocence through awareness of mortality and death towards the climax of the story.