Literature
Delahoyde

Katherine Mansfield:
"Her First Ball"

A New Critical approach works well with this short story. The main question, automatically, involves the last couple sentences. What has happened? What does this ending mean? Opinions run the gamut from very positive upbeat readings (usually the majority) to rather grim ones (often difficult to articulate). The way to sort this through is to break it down. (There's often a rankling about dissecting literature, but unlike the science classes' frogs, one can put the victim back together in English class and it lives again.) The more crucial interpretive questions emerge from the material we encounter after the above aspects of the story are established.