Her First Ball
Analysis of “Her first ball”
The title of the story is “Her first ball” and it already tells what the story is all about. This story was written by a British writer Katherine Mansfield and it is told in the third-person point of view. The main character, who is the protagonist of the story, is a young girl named Leila. She is 18 years old and she is from the country. The other main character, the antagonist of the story, is a fat old man. The secondary characters are sheridan girls: Meg, Jose, Laura, also Leila’s cousin Laurie and the dance partners whom Leila was dancing with. They only participate in the development of the protagonist. The time of the action is 20th century and the time of the day is evening. Because of the mention of snow it can be assumed that the time of the year is winter. Action develops in several places: cab, the ladies’ room and mainly the drill hall. An internal conflict manifests from the very beginning of the story where the action starts to rise too. Leila wants to experience everything that others can experience, everything is exciting because it is all new to her and she wants not to differ from the others, because it is hard for her to be different. Finally she starts to dance with men and at the beginning it’s very joyful for her but Leila notices that she doesn’t really interest them. They are mostly talking only about the floor. It disappoints her. But finally she meets a fat old man who differs from the other men she danced with, because he doesn’t talk about the floor, he is interested in her. He tells her that he has been going to balls and dancing for thirty years already and she feels a little sorry for him, because he is old, fat and bald. But the story reaches the climax and the external conflict manifests when he starts telling Leila about her future, that she can’t hope to last anything like as long as that, that she will become fat, old and unhappy. It sounds terribly true to her and she stops dancing with him.
The title of the story is “Her first ball” and it already tells what the story is all about. This story was written by a British writer Katherine Mansfield and it is told in the third-person point of view. The main character, who is the protagonist of the story, is a young girl named Leila. She is 18 years old and she is from the country. The other main character, the antagonist of the story, is a fat old man. The secondary characters are sheridan girls: Meg, Jose, Laura, also Leila’s cousin Laurie and the dance partners whom Leila was dancing with. They only participate in the development of the protagonist. The time of the action is 20th century and the time of the day is evening. Because of the mention of snow it can be assumed that the time of the year is winter. Action develops in several places: cab, the ladies’ room and mainly the drill hall. An internal conflict manifests from the very beginning of the story where the action starts to rise too. Leila wants to experience everything that others can experience, everything is exciting because it is all new to her and she wants not to differ from the others, because it is hard for her to be different. Finally she starts to dance with men and at the beginning it’s very joyful for her but Leila notices that she doesn’t really interest them. They are mostly talking only about the floor. It disappoints her. But finally she meets a fat old man who differs from the other men she danced with, because he doesn’t talk about the floor, he is interested in her. He tells her that he has been going to balls and dancing for thirty years already and she feels a little sorry for him, because he is old, fat and bald. But the story reaches the climax and the external conflict manifests when he starts telling Leila about her future, that she can’t hope to last anything like as long as that, that she will become fat, old and unhappy. It sounds terribly true to her and she stops dancing with him.