Her First Ball
{{Short description|1921 short story by Katherine Mansfield}}
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"Her First Ball" is a 1921 short story by Katherine Mansfield. It was first published in The Sphere on 28 November 1921, and later reprinted in The Garden Party and Other Stories.Katherine Mansfield, Selected Stories, Oxford World's Classics, explanatory notes
Plot summary
A young girl called Leila has come to the city to stay with her cousins. They are going to a ball. Leila is excited: this is her first ball. Once there, she is both excited and terrified. After dancing with several young boys her own age, she dances with a wrinkly balding man who has been coming to balls for a while. This spoils her mood until she dances with a good looking young gentleman where her worries disappear.
Characters
- Leila, a cousin of the Sheridan Girls in The Garden Party. She is 18 years old.
- Lucas
- Tomas
- Meg
- Miss Eccles, Leila's dance teacher at boarding school.
- Jose
- The "Fat Man"
- the first partner
- the second partner
- the third partner
- the fourth partner
- the cab driver (just her imagination before the ball)
- teacher of History
Literary significance
The text is written in the modernist mode, without a set structure, and with many shifts in the narrative.
The main themes of the story are dramatically portrayed through Leila's reactions and her emotions.
Footnotes
External links
- [http://www.bl.uk/works/the-garden-party-and-other-stories The Garden Party and Other Stories] at the British Library
Category:Modernist short stories
Category:Short stories by Katherine Mansfield
Category:Short stories set in New Zealand
Category:Works originally published in The Sphere (newspaper)
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