Katherine Mansfield’s “Her First Ball” is a classic example of a short story from the Modernism genre. Mansfield is known as a pioneer of the modern short story and was a key figure in the literary modernist movement, along with writers like Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence. Modernism developed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries following a rise in industrialization and the atrocities of World War I. It often featured themes of anxiety, existentialism, displacement, and impermanence.
Another characteristic of Modernism is experimentation with form and technique, such as employing multiple character perspectives or the use of free verse in poetry. Modernists explicitly tried to break from traditional models of prose and poetry. Modernist writing often focused on the individual and used literary devices like imagery, emphasizing an individual’s experiences, emotions, and interior life.
What's more, “Her First Ball” is one of Mansfield’s stories from her well-known 1922 short story collection The Garden Party and Other Stories and is representative of the topics and themes that she frequently wrote about. Themes common in Mansfield’s writing—and characteristic of the Modernism genre more broadly—include interiority, impermanence, and existentialism. “Her First Ball” focuses on Leila’s experience of the ball and highlights themes about the impermanence of youth and the trivial nature of societal expectations.
