The Fly, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY, by Maria A. Feijóo

This story takes place in a very brief time-lapse, at the end of a meeting between two friends. They both are old men, but very different from each other. Nevertheless, they have an important thing in common, as we will learn later in the narrative.
The first character introduced is Mr Woodifield. He is the youngest, although due to his poor health we could think he is the oldest: he has had a stroke, and his life and mental abilities have been affected. He is now retired, and we know that he is married and has at least two daughters, as we are told that they only allow him to go to the City alone on Tuesdays.
One of those Tuesdays, he goes to “the boss’s” office. This character has no other name in the story. We can suppose he really has been Mr Woodifield’s boss. He is five years older than him, but remains very vigorous and active. He also offers the perfect image of social success: he is proud of his house, of his money and of his position. He treats his employees in an authoritarian way, but he seems to have a real esteem for Mr Woodifield. Anyway, there is something that he does not want to talk about: a photography of a young officer that stands on his table.
At the end of their meeting, “the boss” offers Mr Woodifield a glass of an expensive whisky - he insists on that - in the awareness that he usually is not allowed to drink. Maybe due to the alcohol, Mr Woodifield brings out just the only thing “the boss” does not want to hear about. He explains that his daughters have been in Belgium, visiting the grave of their brother, Reggie, and that they also had a look at a nearby grave, the grave of “the boss’s” son, the young officer in the picture. This is what they have in common: both had lost their sons during the war.
After a few banalities, Mr Woodifield leaves his friend’s office. As he remains alone, “the boss” commands his clerk to be let alone for a half an hour. He is very affected and wants to weep. His unique son was the meaning of his whole life: he wanted him to inherit his business, his house, all what he built with so much effort.
But, surprisingly, he is not able to cry as he did at the beginning of his loss. He goes on thinking how great his son was, but six years have passed, and even looking at the photography he cannot really feel again the pain he was intended to feel.
Suddenly, his attention is drawn to his ink pot, where a fly is desperately trying to survive. In what seems a compassionate gesture, he saves the fly from dying by taking the poor animal out of the ink and dropping it on a blotting-paper. He observes the way the fly removes the ink from his body, and suddenly he takes more ink and drop it on the fly. Once more, the little insect removes the ink accurately, driven by its survival instinct. A second and a third time, the boss repeats the cruel gesture, and twice more the fly repeats his laborious task, each time with less energy. The boss continues observing and even talking to the fly, until it dies.
At that moment, the boss throws the exhausted body of the insect into the waste-paper basket. He has a very weird feeling that frightens him, but he calls his clerk and asks him to bring some blotting-paper. And when he tries to remember what was worrying him before, he could not remember. He could not remember anything at all.

 MY OPINION

This short story is very interesting because there are plenty of possible interpretations. The fly can be held as a powerful representation of the nonsense of the war, where young people lose their lives in an absurd way under the command of powerful people. It is also a vivid image of how difficult it sometimes becomes to struggle for life when we have been hurt by destiny. The two human characters are another image of the poor control we may have upon our lives. “The boss” is an especially rich character due to the contrast between his image of a powerful man, able to control his and the other’s life, and his very childish behaviour with the fly as well as his poor emotional ability to face and manage pain.

QUESTIONS

-How has your life changed since you are retired? Or how do you think it’ll be changed?

-Do retired people feel they are a nuisance for other people? In what sense?

-Let’s talk about cemeteries. Are they beautiful places to walk around? Do you know any curious cemetery? Do you go and visit your relatives’ graves?

-Do you think it’s correct to take away things from a hotel? (I mean: shampoo bottles, combs, toothbrushes…) Do you usually do it?

-When you travel, what do you remember best? (People usually tell anecdotes.)

-What kind of crier are you? Do you cry watching films? Are you ashamed of crying? (Kundera kitsch)

-According to your opinion, why do /don’t children go on with their parents’ trade?

-What do you think it’s the meaning of the fly in the story?

-Why did he torture the fly? Is it an instance of the banality of evil?

-Magic numbers; three times the man flooded the fly with ink, and at the third time it died. What do you think of ritual numbers? Do you have one? Why did you choose it?

-“But such a grinding feeling of wretchedness seized him that he felt positively frightened.” Why?

-At the end, he didn’t remember something, like the old man at the beginning. What does the writer tell us about this for?

 

VOCABULARY

snug, pram, City, at the helm, wistfully, muffler, treacle, on his last pins, tamper, rolling in his chaps, nutty, yer, saw ... out, cubby, spring chair, learning the ropes, man jack, tackle, look sharp 

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A Dill Pickle, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY, by Elisa Sola Ramos

 A man and a woman meet after six years apart. The story is a conversation between them in a café, through which we know details of their relationship and their personality.

During the conversation, it’s revealed that Vera split up by letter, and he was very touched. We also know that their personalities are very different, quite opposite: fantasy is dominating in Vera’s mind, and he seems to be very practical and even stingy. The reader is behind Vera’s mind: we know her feelings, her name (Vera), but we don’t know the inner feelings of the man, who doesn’t have a name. He’s a flat character or an archetype: a white upper-class man, good-looking (in Vera’s words: “far better good-looking than he had been [in the past]”), with a lot of money that allows him to travel... He appears as a self-confident character: “he had the air of a man who has found his place in life”.

On the contrary, Vera has not been able to travel because she is poor (she had to sell her piano), she’s completely alone, and she seems to be very unstable.

One thing that highlights the differences between them is that their memories about the same fact don’t match: he remembers one afternoon in a Chinese pagoda as a wonderful day, and she remembers the maniac behaviour of him “infuriated out of proportion about the wasps”. In another point of the story, when he recollects the night when he brought a little Christmas tree, he remembers how he could speak about his childhood, and she remembers how stingy he had been with a pot of caviare, which had cost seven and sixpence, and he compared eating caviare with eating money. Not to mention that he couldn’t remember his dog’s name, and she did.

In spite of all of that, she is willing to give up herself, to renounce her vision of the facts (“his [vision] was the truer”) in order to submit to a man, perhaps to be able to eat, perhaps for survival, perhaps for emotional submission (another kind of sexist violence), who knows!

There are many metaphors that help the author to create an atmosphere of sexual desire between the two former lovers or, at least, of Vera’s sexual desire for him.

The first one is the orange. The image of him peeling an orange with “his special way”, the smell and the colour, gives the image that Vera wants to be “eaten” by him.

The second symbol is the veil and the collar. In the beginning of the story, she “raised her veil and unbuttoned her high fur collar” as a sign of opening herself, emotionally or sexually, like a bride. The same image, but reversed, appears at the end of the story: when she decides to leave, “she had unbuttoned her collar again and drawn down her veil”. Thus, the author takes up the powerful image of the bride to close symbolically their relationship.

Another symbol is the glove. She explains that “she was that glove that he held in his fingers”.

The beast she has inside her is another image, a beast which was “hungry” and “pricked up its ears and began to purr...”. It’s like an inner force that contrasts with the self-possession of a woman of her class and time.

The last erotic symbol is the dill pickle, which is a trigger for Vera’s romantic imagination. She completes the explanation about the scene in the Volga with her own imagination: “She sucked in her cheeks; the dill pickle was terribly sour...” It’s a comic effect: juxtaposing the romantic scene in an exotic frame with this prosaic gift and her imagination.

Throughout the conversation, there are many details that describe a very asymmetrical relationship between the couple. She remembers how he used to interrupt her in the middle of what she was saying. (It has been studied that women are much more interrupted than men in large company meetings, and this trait is a sign of sexist behaviour.) Then, after silencing her, he says that he likes her voice -the sound-, but not the content of what she’s saying. It’s an irony. He’s playing with her. All the time, he flirts with her (he highlights the things that unit them) in order to hook her, because he knows her dreamy and romantic character. He’s getting his revenge.

The two characters are completely different. They live in different worlds. The man is Vera’s romantic opponent, and, in the end, we can have doubts as to his being a rich man because he doesn’t want to pay the small cream bill. He’s a liar, or he’s a stingy man.

On the other side, Vera doesn’t have either a very good position, because she is ready to give up herself in order to have a husband. Both characters aren’t very well treated by the author.

Some people say that A Dill Pickle is a feminist story by Katherine Mansfield, but I’m not sure about that. Despite the fact that the figure of the man is completely negative, ridiculous, maniac and cruel, the image of the woman is not better: shallow, unstable and unclear.

QUESTIONS

-What can be his special way to peel an orange? Do you know a singular case of doing something?

-To your view, what does the orange symbolize?

-Do you like being interrupted? What do you do when someone interrupts you?

-What do you know about Kew Gardens?

-What can you tell us about the Black Sea?

-Why did she know he had been mocking?

-What is the meaning of the dill pickle in the story?

-Why do you think the man has no name?

-According to you, why does she go away so suddenly?

 

VOCABULARY

daffodils, muff, meant to, loathe, sniggering, purr, ringers 

 

AUDIOBOOK

ANALYSIS

REVIEW

SYNOPSIS

SUMMARY

Mr and Mrs Dove, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY, by Alícia Usart

 

England is where the plot of this story takes place. Reggie has to return to Rhodesia, an English colony, the next day. He’s the only son of a widowed woman, with a tough character. His uncle, at his death, left him a fruit farm there, from which he makes between 500 and 600 pounds annually. He is in love, crazy and desperately in love, with Anne, a girl from the neighbourhood. His love is of the kind we see in literature, a romantic love. He is only able to see the positive aspects of her. He believes that he has small chances to marry her, but anyway, he is determined to find out if she cares for him in the same way he does for her.

He set out for Anna’s house, and nothing could stop him, not even his mother. He found himself in the drawing room and, before the bell had stopped ringing, Anna entered the room and announced to him that her parents were out. At that time, he was only capable of stating that he would depart tomorrow.

Suddenly Anne burst into laughter, and that was not the first time it happened; she apologized, but it was an uncomfortable situation for both. Anne offered him a cigarette and took one for herself, and the conversation turned to his upcoming departure.

At the same time, the doves outside were cooing. Anne moved away from him and allowed him to enter the side veranda because she didn’t want to hear what he was trying to tell her. They were observing the doves’ behaviour, and it seemed to Anne that it was similar to their behaviour; but Reggie was only concentrating on what he was willing to say, and finally did: “Anne, do you think you could ever care for me?” He was released, but Anne replied that she could not. Anyway, he didn’t give up, trying to comprehend the reason why she was laughing at him.

In reality, Anne loved him and appreciated him; however, she believed that what she was feeling wasn’t true love: she thought true love was different, like the way she read in books.

 

PERSONAL OPINION

Their relationship would be as the doves’, one running forward and the other following, one was Mr Dove and the other Mrs Dove. Mrs Dove looking at Mr Dove and laughing, and he, keeping following her and bowing and bowing…, but isn’t the dove’s love a romantic kind of love? They are the symbol of love, they are faithful for life, the male takes long time to choose his partner, he courts her at length, and their bond ends only with the end of the two.

QUESTIONS

-What do you know about the mating habits of the doves?

-What can you tell us about Rhodesia in that time?

-According to your view, until what extent the family composition influences somebody’s personality? I mean: being the only child, the position among siblings, being the only boy or the only girl, single-parent families, etc.

-Do you think is it possible to love someone whom you laugh at?

-Reginald’s mother has two dogs and Anne shows Reginald two doves: can you find a parallelism between these two couples?

-What is Anne like? Is she a bad person because she makes a fool of Reginald?

-In your opinion, what is going to happen after Reggie comes back to Anne at the end of the story?

 

 

VOCABULARY

a ghost of / an earthly, preposterous, short of, screwed him up to it, jammed, out of the running, steep, jar, grit, top-hole, hollyhocks, pealing, bucked him up, hat-hunting, wan, french window, huskily, cut off

AUDIOBOOK

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

ANALYSIS

A FEMINIST ANALYSIS

Life of Ma Parker, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY, by Aurora Ledesma.

Ma Parker lived a hard life. She left Stratford-on-Avon at the age of sixteen and started to work as a kitchen-maid with a cruel woman, the cook, who would not let her read her letters from home and threw them away. She also worked as a “help” in a doctor’s house. After two years, she got married to a baker. This was also a very painful experience. She had thirteen children, seven of them died very early. Her husband also died and left Ma Parker to raise the remaining six children all by herself. When they started going to school, her sister-in-law came to her house, to take care of them. One day, her sister-in-law had an accident and injured her spine, and Ma Parker had to look after this woman who behaved and cried like another baby.

Two of her children, Maudie and Alice, left her and fell into bad ways. Her two other sons went to live in another country, and young Jim joined the army and left for India. Her youngest daughter, Ethel, got married to a worthless, little waiter who soon died, leaving behind a newly born son, Lennie, to be taken care of by Ma Parker.

The story begins when Ma Parker arrives at her work as a maid in the house of a literary gentleman. She had buried her loving Lennie, who was the only ray of light in her sad life, the previous day. After opening the door, the gentleman asks her about her grandson. She informs him that he had passed away the day before. He enquires about the funeral, but Ma Parker doesn’t say anything about it and walks to the kitchen to do her work. After changing her clothes, she puts on her apron in preparation for her duties. While she is cleaning the pile of dishes in the kitchen, she remembers her small grandson persuading her to hand over a cent. She recalls Lennie’s tribulations. He had had a chest infection that he seemed not to be able to get rid of. Even though she has suffered a lot in her life, she has never complained and never broken down, but now, the day after Lennie’s burial, she is overcome and finally wants to cry.

Suddenly, she puts on her jacket and her hat and walks out absent-mindedly, lost in thought. She is unaware of her destination. She really wants to cry. It becomes difficult for her to postpone it any longer. She couldn’t cry anywhere, not at home or on a park bench. She couldn’t cry in the gentleman’s flat. She couldn’t find any location where she could be alone and cry. There is nowhere for Ma Parker to cry. It starts to rain, and she has nowhere to go. The rain can mask her tears, and she no longer has to hide and find a place to cry.

 

SOME REFLECTIONS

The story mixes the past with the present. The past is not a separate entity. Another literary device that Mansfield employs is interior monologue like “Why must it all have happened to me?” The most important, themes are social position and isolation. On the one hand, we see the literary gentleman who does not seem to understand how hard Ma Parker’s life is. He accuses her of stealing and discredits her as “a hag”; on the other hand, we have Ma Parker, a poor, uneducated woman. She pities the poor young gentleman for having no one to look after him.

QUESTIONS

-What are the things we have to say in a funeral? Do we have to tell only how nice the dead person was, or you can also talk their dark side?

-Why do you think the literary gentleman doesn’t have a name?

-In the paragraph “The result looked like a gigantic dustbin. […] or dark stains like tea.” There is a mixture of ideas: the dirty room next to the sad-looking sky. What is the relation between these two pictures?

-The literary man makes a “product called Life”. When do you think literature is Life?

-Katherine Mansfield died of consumption. What do you know about consumption and literature? Can you give us more examples of writers?

-What is the meaning of this sentence: “Then young Maudie went wrong and took her sister Alice with her”?

-Do you trust in the remedies appeared in newspapers? Do you have any anecdote?

-What kind of invalid are you: patient, angry, worried…?

-What would have to be the master’s attitude in front of an ill servant?

-What deeds do you consider that you have to do in private: crying, laughing, coughing…, but also brushing one’s teeth…?

 

VOCABULARY

parding, huskily, hobbled, marmalade, twinge, squashed, deadened, pail, roller towel, hag, area railings, chimley, range, beedles, sold up, loaves, chock-a-block, putting it on, bottils, postal order, stifled, counterpane, fitting by, as like as not

AUDIOBOOK

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

SUMMARY

WOMAN WORK, by Maya Angelou

The Doll's House, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY, by Dora Sarrión

The story began when Mrs Hay brought the Burnell children a doll’s house as a gift. The house smelled of new paint, which the adults disliked, but it was so marvellous for the three daughters of the Burnell’s family, Isabel, Lottie and Kezia, that they didn’t mind the smell. It was very well decorated with little furniture and dolls inside. Although everything was perfect in the house, Kezia, the youngest sister, paid attention to a small lamp, which she thought it was the best part of the house.
They were eager to go to school and tell their classmates about their new gift.
But Isabel told her sisters that, because she was the oldest, she was going to explain to their classmates about the doll’s house, and to decide which classmates were going to see the house in person.
The next morning, during the playtime at school, Isabel was surrounded by her classmates waiting for her explanation about the details of the house. But not every girl could approach her. Lil and Else Kelvey couldn’t.
The school was not as sophisticated as Burnell parents would like. Because they lived in a remote area, the school contained students from several demographic and economic backgrounds. The children of wealthy parents separate themselves from their socio-economically disadvantaged classmates on the playground. The Kelvey sisters were the poorest students at school. Their mother was the village washerwoman, and everyone in the city said that their father was in prison.
Like their classmates, Else and Lil were fascinated by the explanations about the doll’s house, but they couldn’t participate in the conversation, they could only overhear how Isabel was proudly describing it. When Isabel finished, Kezia reminded her to mention her lamp, even though no one else seemed to care about it.
Isabel chose the first two girls who were to come back with them that afternoon to see the house, and said that everyone was going to have a chance in the future to see it. Only the Kelveys knew they will never be chosen.
One day Kezia asked her mother if she could invite the Kelveys to see the doll’s house, but Mrs Burnell refused it, and at Kezia’s insistence, she answered “Run away, Kezia, you know quite well why not”. But she didn’t understand.
As the days passed, almost all the children were amazed at how wonderful the doll’s house was. But there was a moment when everyone had seen the house except the Kelveys, and, as it seemed that the subject was beginning to languish, the girls decided to make fun of the Kelveys sisters; but their reaction was only silence, so this new adventure of making fun of them did not seem to have much success.
Later that afternoon, when Kezia was at home swinging in the courtyard, she saw the Kelveys coming in the road towards her. She invited them in to see her doll’s house. But Lil shook her head quickly and reminded her that they weren’t supposed to talk to each other.  Kezia assured that it didn’t matter what her mother said, that they could come in and see her doll’s house because nobody was looking. Lil still didn’t want to go in, but Else, standing behind her, tugged at her dress and looked at her pleadingly.
Kezia leaded the girls inside the courtyard, but while she was showing the house, Aunt Beryl arrived and shouted furiously at her. She shooed the Kelveys out as if they were chickens, and she slammed the doll’s house to.
Lil and Else ran away scared by Aunt Beryl, and when they could no longer see the Burnell’s house, they stopped to take a break. They didn’t say anything to each other; in silence they looked at the landscape; Else approached her sister, caressed her, smiled, and said softly:
“I saw the little lamp.”

I think in this story there are several interesting topics to discuss, but in my opinion, the relationship that the writer establishes between Else and Kezia through a lamp is fascinating. Both characters are different from the rest of the members of their families: Else is quiet, but she is clear about what she wants to achieve, she is not afraid, and Kezia does not understand the reasons why she cannot talk to the Kelvey sisters, and she is breaking the rules.
And they are both united by a lamp, which, in my opinion, would be the symbol of hope for change.

QUESTIONS

-What do you know about A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen?

-Is there any solution to avoid giving sexist toys to the children?

-What was your favourite toy when you were a child?

-In the story, there seems to be a bullying problem against the Kelveys. Did you feel this problem when you were at school?

-Are you in favour of mixing children of all condition in the same school? In your opinion, do the parents have to have the right of choosing the school for their children?

-“Even the teacher had a special voice for them [the Kelveys]”. When we talk about bullying, we usually think it is something between students. But what happens when the teacher is involved in the situation?

-Why do you think the narrator says “our Else” instead of only “Else”?

-According to your point of view, why Kezia decides to show the house to the Kelveys?

-Why was Aunt Beryl so angry when Kezia showed the house to the Kelveys? Were her reasons the same as Kezia’s mother’s?

-Were the Kelveys happy in the end? What is a “rare smile”?

 

VOCABULARY

feed-room, slab, toffee, papered, traipsing, bossy, tarred, palings, roll (was called), Nudging, shunned, spry, freckles, quill, cropped (hair), made eyes, snapped, sell, titter, buggy, thieved out, buttercups, shooed ... out

AUDIOBOOK BBC

AUDIOBOOK THE GUARDIAN

Frau Brechenmacher Attends a Wedding, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY, by Josep Guiteres

In this story we have the themes of gender roles, domination, submission, control, identity and tradition.

Throughout the story, Frau Brechenmacher is always at the disposal of her husband.

When her husband arrives home, the Frau has already prepared all the clothes for him to go to the wedding, making sure that he would be ready before her.

Even the Frau uses her daughter Rose to help her to prepare his husband’s things for the wedding. In reality, she is teaching her how to serve her husband.

When the couple goes to the wedding, he walks in front of her it as if there was a hierarchy that the Frau had to follow, that is, the Herr occupies first place in the entire story.

When they arrived at the place where the wedding was being held, the Frau sat next to her friend Frau Ledermann, who told her that it was very striking that her skirt was open at the back; but she was so attentive to her family that she forgot to take care of herself.

At the wedding it seems that men and women are separated as if each one had their own place in this event.

According to the conversation between the two women, the bride, who already has a daughter, did not want to marry anyone, but agreed to marry due to the traditional composition of the family.

When the Herr gave the gift to the bride and the groom, of all those present, the Frau was the only person who did not laugh, possibly because for her the gift symbolizes the result of her life.

When the couple arrived home, the Frau prepared dinner for her husband, an obvious sign of submission to the man. The Frau went to bed and curled up like a child, and this position tells us that she has not grown since she has not had the opportunity to develop her own life.

QUESTIONS

-They leave the children alone in the house. How has our concept of safety changed? Can you tell an example of it that shocks you?

-The father was the top authority in the family, and he had the monopoly of violence. How has it changed?

-How do you know the Brechenmacher family is a low-class family, and what details show us that they pretend to be of a higher class?

“Giving her [the bride] the appearance of an iced cake all ready to be cut and served in little pieces to the bridegroom sitting beside her.” What in a current wedding ceremony goes on showing the male domination, according to your view?

What stories with illegitimate children do you know? Tell us a summary of one of them.

How could be possible that a woman is more male chauvinist than a man?

Herr Brechenmachen carries “the coffee pot to the bridal pair… She lifted the lid, peeped in, then shut it down with a little scream”. What was inside the coffee-pot? What can be the meaning of this present?

-How can you imagine Frau Brechebnmachen wedding night?

 

VOCABULARY

muddled, cinders, fir, saucers, overawed, bows, perspiration, froth, wedged, dandle, clout

ANALYSIS

AUDIOBOOK

Lore (video: watch from minute 140)

Feuille d'Album, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY, by Núria Lecina

The title is the same as Chopin’s musical composition that remembers love in spring, when new flowers and leaves begin to grown. This piece was dedicated to the countess Szeremtieff.
The text is narrated in the third person by an unknown narrator. In some moments, another narrator takes part with some question or comment. There are a lot of changes in the narration. The text it’s full of descriptions of the main character, other people and places or atmosphere.

Ian is the main character. He is a young painter who lives alone in Paris, in a typical French building in a top flat in front of Senna’s River. The description that Katherine writes shows us different aspects of the boy, sometimes contradictory.

We read that at first glance he seems an interesting man, elegant, clever and handsome. In spite of that, we read that he also is an impossible man, unbearably heavy and especially shy, very shy. He has difficulties to achieve a normal social relationship, and his relationships with women who are interested in him always end badly. Ian doesn’t answer to the kindnesses of these women. He hides inside his shell, like a tortoise. He closes and disappears.

He lives in his own world; he has an introvert life with his own routines. He is excessively tidy with home things. He thinks about his economy and the way to organize his savings. All in his life has to follow some pattern to be right. For instance, in front of his bed, there is a notice with this advice: GET UP AT ONCE.

One afternoon he was in the window having a snack when he saw a girl in the building across the way in front of him. The girl went out to the balcony with a flower’s pot. She was a bit odd in her clothes and maybe in the way she spoke to another person. He didn’t know who spoke to her. Perhaps somebody she lived with?

At this moment Ian understood that she was the only person he really wanted to meet. She appeared to be the same age as him. He fell in love with her just at that moment. He began to imagine things about her life and also how his life would be like with her. But the girl did not notice the presence of someone watching her. She carried on his routines.

From this day, he felt a change in his life: he had a challenge and this was to get as fast as he could a new pattern of behaviour to order his routines and actions: NOT TO LOOK AT HER AND NOT TO THINK ABOUT HER UNTIL THE PAINTING IS FINISHED.

Ian wanted to meet the girl, but he hadn’t any idea of what to do. He didn’t have experience in this matter. His shyness drowned him. Every day he observed the girl, every time he had more and more desire to meet her. One day he discovered that every Thursday she went out with a basket, probably shopping. One Thursday, when the girl left home, Ian decided to act. He went down to the street and followed her. He saw more and more clearly that they were soulmates.

She seemed lonely, serious. Then he saw the opportunity. She entered a shop and bought an egg, only one. The same that he would have chosen. When the girl came out, he went into the store and bought the same. Quickly he followed her, and when she arrived to her building and entered the lobby, he went in behind her and said:

“Excuse me, Mademoiselle, I think you dropped this”, and he showed her the egg.

And he handed her his own egg!!!

That scene seems taken from a basic manual to begin relationships. Maybe the object isn’t the most appropriate, but I hope everything will work very well with them.

 

PERSONAL OPINION

As in Chopin’s composition, Ian finds love, and it appears suddenly, like leaves (feuilles) and flowers in Spring. In this short story, Katherine Mansfield presents the awakening of the love in a young man. One man that, in spite of his difficulty with relationships, has the same emotions and feelings as the other people.

In my opinion, Ian suffers some dysfunction in social abilities. He constantly needs rules for his actions, he always needs order around him. It seems he is afraid in front of new situations; this is, from my point of view, the reason why he doesn’t answer people and hides like a tortoise. Maybe he suffers from some minor autistic disorder.

QUESTIONS

-Why does he say “you nearly screamed” when the boy was in your studio?

-Who was the person “who started to give him a mother’s tender care”?

-When do you know that someone is an artist?

-What kind of pictures do you imagine Ian French painted?

-How do you imagine the family’s girl and the girl’s character?

-Why did he give her an egg at the end of the story? What does the egg symbolize?

-What is the meaning of the title?

 

VOCABULARY

rousing, stony, rag-time, Broken Doll, fishy, ladling, booths, awning, still life, spangle, peppered, daffodils, draper's, dairy

 ANALYSIS

ANOTHER ANALYSIS

MEANING OF THE TITLE

Her First Ball, by Katherine Mansfield

 

AUDIOBOOK

SUMMARY, by Glòria Torner

This story that goes from innocence to maturity can be divided into four parts:

1. Before the ball. Is the cab her first partner of the ball?

Remembering her first experience, a young girl, named Leila, is about to attend her first ball escorted by their cousins Laura, Meg, Jose and Laurie. She is sitting into the cab, and she is so excited that she is looking everything as if it is waltzing because she feels like she is in the real ball thinking and imagining that her first real partner is the cab.

Leila is talking to their cousins because they are surprised that she is so nervous. She attends the ball with a feeling of great expectation because she is a country girl who has never been to a public ball. Their cousins, who know that Leila is naive and innocent, and they come from the city, and they already have some ball experiences, take care of her and protect her.

2. Before entering to the saloon

Leila and their cousins, the Sheridans, arrive at the drill hall. Laura is helping Leila to push to the noisy ladies’ room, where women are busy getting ready and making the last minutes adjustments.

From the door, Leila’s emotion and excitement is increasing with the beauty of the room with golden floors, red carpets, lights and the elegant atmosphere. How Leila’s perception of the ball is that of a dreamlike event! She begins to listen to the music, and the dance programs are passed out. And everything is ready.

3. During the ball

The men stand at the opposite side of the ballroom, and they appear in front of the ladies waiting for the dance to begin.  The music starts, and the men walk over to pick their respective partners.

The ball is on! When Meg cries “Ready Leila?”, Leila begins to dance. The feeling of joy during her first and second partner is clear. Leila enjoys very much dancing spontaneously, because she had learned to dance with girls at the boarding school, but with a male partner is fantastic!

But with the third partner, the fat man, the story changes, the climax starts. This is the part where the tension is the highest because this older man paints a bitter picture of Leila’s future. He is an experienced man who believes he recognizes Leila from another ball, but this is impossible. He begins to dance with an inexperienced Leila. This man manages to ruin her night with just one dance. At that moment, Leila doesn’t want to dance anymore because this old and fat man discourages her.

3. The end. The last dance.

Now we are reaching the outcome. The fourth and last partner, a young man, bows before her and she decides to dance with him. Now she begins to feel again the fantastic emotions she has felt before. With every turn and every glide, she forgets the bad sentences the old man has said to her before. Suddenly the ball seems beautiful again.

Some remarks.

I don’t know if the antagonist, “the fat man,” was trying to ruin the Leila’s night, or he wants simply to warn her.

I imagine this story is set in the early 1900s, in New Zealand.

From the folk stories as The Cinderella or The Red Shoes to some modern films as Billie Elliot I think this theme is a topic in literature, dance or movies.

Don’t you think we always remember our first ball?

QUESTIONS

-Do you remember your first ball? Or the first time you did something that only older people did?

-What keepsakes do you have?

-Do you think dancing has to be a social skill for everybody? I mean: do you think children have to learn it at school? Can everyone dance, or must everyone have the knack? Do you think black people have the art of dancing in their blood?

-Do you think they are things that they ever won’t be “feminist”, like dancing or weddings?

-Have you ever acted as a chaperone?

-What is the best way to not disappoint your desires?

-According to your opinion, why is the old man so cruel with the girl?

-With young people (or with people in general) is better to be optimist or to be pessimist?

-Do you think the main feature of young people is the ability to recover soon from blows? Do you have any examples?

 

VOCABULARY

bolster, bowled, keepsake, drill hall, dash, wraps, cotton, tassels, strung, gilt, under my wing, freckled, yore, calico, clutched, French chalk, Twinkletoes