Her First Ball

In "Her First Ball" a girl named Leila, who has never attended a ball because she lives in the country, attends her first ball with her cousins. Leila is so excited about the event that everything...

Remember that an excellent student of English Literature will not only be able to identify language devices, but also comment upon them and what in particular they add to the text and the effect...

Perhaps the main theme of Katherine Manfield's "Her First Ball" is the resilience of youth. For, while appearances vs. reality is one theme, and the temporality of absolute happiness is another,...

"Her First Ball" is told from the perspective of a third person narrator; this is the point of view. The third person narrator describes the sights and sounds of the ball in detail and this...

Leila, the main character of "Her First Ball" is indirectly described as a girl who lives in an area that is quite isolated from the excitement of the city. In fact she even says that her closest...

The old man serves as a reminder that life is not perfect. Even in Leila's dreamy environment, there is a reality check when the old man claims that Leila will too grow old and find herself sitting...

When we look at poetic devices in the narrative of the story Her First Ball the most salient one is definitely imagery. Imagery is the license used by writers to appeal to all the five senses so...

In Katherine Mansfield's "Her First Ball," the beginning of the short story tells us about Leila's state of mind, and the importance of this moment in her life. We find that Lelia is inexperienced....

In this story of pictorial intensity, the story of a young country girl's introduction "to the beginning of everything," there are a few characters of consequence and others who briefly appear:...

Figurative language, such as metaphors which make implied unusual comparisons between unlike things and personification, which gives inanimate objects human-like characteristics, lends imaginative...

The old man brings a touch of negativity to Leila's first dancing experience. However, his words constitute important social commentary. First, female beauty (and by extension, youth) is greatly...

In "Her First Ball," Mansfield describes a bittersweet moment of innocence and maturation. Having grown up in the country, 15 miles from the closest neighbor, Leila's experience at the ball is more...

For Leila, her entrance into the ball are significant because they represent a girl's first foray into the conditioned world of what it means to be a woman. Leila is possessed by a sense of...

The theme of this postmodernist tale, set sometime before 1921 though first published in 1921, is a classic coming of age theme. Mansfield describes a young woman's first encounter with the wider...

Locked into the human soul there is always an envious part that encourages its being to drive a gratuitous nail of cruelty into those who have what others have already lost, an envy of the joie de...

The most pronounced element of Mansfield's style is the close proximity of the involved, subjective narrator. Narrators may be distanced or close in proximity, as they may be objective or...

The question isn't so much "what is Sheridan girls" as it is "who are the Sheridan girls." They are first of all, the sisters with whom Leila is going to the ball. They are secondly, the sisters of...

Leila is impressionable. She is as innocent as is a white lily. She is dancing at her first ball. The night is magical. The evening dancing leaves her breathless. Leila is naive. She is...

Excitement and anticipation are conveyed through the way in which Leila is shown to be thinking of the ball and obsessed by it even in the opening paragraph. Note the way that she equates being in...

This is an interesting question to consider. Generally, Mansfield is famed for the way in which she depicts the powerless position of women in a patriarchal society, and so this would suggest that...

A story of musicality and pictorial intensity, "Her First Ball" describes Leila's excitement at the idea of attending a ball where she will get to dance with young men rather than the other girls...

One way in which Leila could be characterized is being overwhelmed with so much in the moment. Leila is overcome with the reality of what the moment presents. The ball, the pomp and celebrated...

An absolutely lyric piece of writing, "Her First Ball" is composed using the tempo of a waltz with its wording. In this story, Katherine Mansfield relates Leila's first experience of the...

The theme of "Her First Ball" is one related to the pangs of growing up, one might say it is the lighter side of a coming of age story. Leila attends her first ball, all nerves and dreams, and...

Katherine Mansfield's "Her First Ball" is what is known as a coming-of-age story. This means that the main character will experience an event that will change his or her perspective for good. The...

Leila of Katherine Mansfield's "Her First Ball" is an naive young lady who comes from the outback to the city to attend her first ball. She "floated away like a flower that is tossed into a pool"...

When Leila attends her first ball, she revels in the excitement of even insignificant things such as the tissue paper that holds the gloves of her cousin Laurie. Her romanticized perception of the...

Beneath his point that time is a thief who robs young ladies of their naivete and youthful joie de vivre, the older fat man pronounces much more about himself than he does the concept of the...

One useful way to connect both of these texts is through the principal theme of disillusionment and how it is explored in the case of both of the central characters depicted in these stories. For...

The importance of the setting in the stories "The Destructors" and "Her First Ball", as well as in the play The Fly in the Ointment is that they provide the backdrop to a series of events that will...

Not only is it Leila's first ball, but as the exposition of "Her First Ball" illustrates, there is a novelty to everything surrounding this event because of her inexperience of urbane life. For...

In contrast to the imaginative delights of Leila on the night of her first formal ball as she "floats away like a flower that is tossed into a pool" is the sudden interruption of the old fat man,...

Katherine Mansflied's story of "pictorial intensity" presents an ingenue from the outback who attends her first ball. Mesmerized by the magic of the night, the innocent Leila perceives The road...

Mansfield presents Leila's thoughts as buzzing with anticipation and excitement both before and during the ball. Being able use a narrative voice that captures how Leila feels and appears to the...

Leila is certainly not worldly as are some of the other girls or world-weary as is the fat man. As the title of Mansfield's story denotes, Leila is inexperienced and naive, having grown up in the...

Katherine Mansfield's "Her First Ball" is the story of a young girl from the country in New Zealand who has her first introduction to "the beginning of everything." Enthralled as any young lady...

In Katherine Mansfield's poem entitled, "Her First Ball," the author uses the language of the story in several way. In particular, the words she chooses add a sense of excitement to the story. The...

Mansfield reveals Leila's thoughts through narrator commentary, indirect speech, free indirect speech, and sensory and psychological reactions. She opens the narrative with narrator commentary in...

This is a very interesting question to consider, and I have provided you below with links to the enotes study guides on both of these excellent short stories. My initial response to this question...

I would want to start by looking at the way that story begins before the ball actually starts, with Leila's trip to the ball in the cab with the Sheridan girls. What this does is that it allows the...

Many of Katherine Mansfield's narratives are characterized by what has been described as "pictorial intensity," evoking various states of happiness, longing, or despair. "Her First Ball" certainly...

The contrast between Leila's life before the ball and what is happening at the ball help to highlight the distance from where she was to where she is now. On one hand, the contrast helps to...

Young, ingenuous Leila has arrived from the outback to the city where she is attending her first formal ball to which her friends, the Sheridan girls, have invited her. Aware of her lack of...

The first thing to consider is that Leila's character, although is sharing her first ball with kids of her own class, does not really belong to the group. She has never gone to a ball before, she...

“Her First Ball” by Katherine Mansfield is realistic fiction written in the form of a short story. Katherine Mansfield writes the story of a young lady who is attending her first ball. This...

Katherine Mansfield's short story "Her First Ball" explores a number of themes, including the heightened sensitivity of youth, gender roles, and the fleeting, temporary nature of time. A key...

There are specific subtopics within the theme of "youth", as the central theme of "Her First Ball" that are treated in a way that the reader can associate with the main character's emotions during...

Leila is young. The reactions she featured to her first ball are consistent with those of young people and the sense of excitement that comes along with being youthful. She regales at the beauty,...

Your essay plan needs to consider what about the theme of loss of innocence you want to write about. That will become your thesis statement. Next you will need to decide what details and quotes...

At the end of “Her First Ball,” the protagonist, Leila, enjoys a wonderful dance with a curly-haired young man. Only a few minutes earlier, however, she had thought that her evening would be...