“Her First Ball” is a short story written by Katherine Mansfield's, Mansfield's mainly focuses with the shortness of happiness and joyful moments in human life. In this story, the protagonist is a young girl called Leila who with her cousins attends her first ball, a large formal ball with dancing. The main themes of this story are very dramatically described throughout the short story. The story tells us the idea of a girl's first experience of a ball dance. Leila was so excited to experience something new in her life as she never went to a Ball "Have you really never been to a ball before, Leila? But, my child, how too weird". Leila was sensitive and felt that everything around her in the ball was very magical.
The story also relates the idea of youth happiness and brevity as a theme. the old man wanted to clear that Leila's happiness will not last long, It will just exist in her youth. Leila thought that she will enjoy her life for non countable time, as they call it unlimited time.The old man claimed that Leila will grow up soon and get as old as him. The old man also mentioned that Leila will get ugly "These Pretty arms will have turned into little short fat ones" - "no one wants to kiss you now" which moved Leila from an excitement mood to a bad mood.
Another main theme of this story is the resilience of youth. Even though Leila was broken hearted by the old man warnings about her getting old and ugly, she realized that no one could trust the future because it is unseen. Regardless the old man's warnings, Leila continued to enjoy herself at the ball "And when her next partner bumped her into the fat man and he said, 'Pardon', she smiled at him more radiantly than ever. She didn't recognize him again" , to swing her mood back to excitement mood. She forgot the aged man's signals,realizing that she was still in her youth age and she should enjoy her life.
A suggested theme in this story is that Leila had a lot of lonely moments. She felt bad in the ball, because of her lack of experience about ball as it is her first ball "Oh dear, how hard it was to be indifferent like the others! She tried not to smile too much; she tried not to care. But every single thing was so new and exciting" . She was a classic country girl who had just arrived from the country to the city to attend her first ball. Her inexperience in addition to the country side problems were the major problems of her not being comfortable in the ball as there is no ball in her country, the ball didn't exist in the country where she lived. This theme is totally different then the other themes in the story as the author successfully shift from excitement and joyful themes to another during the story.
In this essay , we talked about the three main themes in the story, Youth and happiness , Resilience and how Leila had a lot of lonely moments. She should enjoy her youth as she is a beautiful girl. Resilience is about how even though Leila was broken hearted by the fat man , Leila continued to enjoy her life. Last theme that I talked about in this essay is how Leila had lonely moments , She felt lonely in the Ball because it was her first ball and she had no experience going to balls in her life.
Done by : Faisal AlRumaihi
Grade : 9B
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