Unfinished

A detailed Summary of Unfinished

Everything around her is so strikingly new and enthralling. It is Leila's first ball, and her first exposition to society.

The main character in this story is eighteen year old Leila who is attending her first ball along with her cousins. Leila is extremely excited at the prospect of the dancing and seeing all these people in their beautiful clothes. The time span is short as in so many of Mansfield's stories. There is a third person non-participant narrator, but the story is told from Leila's perspective and we follow her thoughts and feelings throughout the events of the ball. The characters surrounding Leila are her cousins, the Sheridans, and her dance partners. Already from the first paragraph Mansfield succeeds in what could be called one of her trademarks; she jumps straight into the action, in media res, we are slung into the story with no introduction. As mentioned this chapter will focus on the three main developments of Leila's evening, beginning with her early enjoyment of the ball, continuing with her insight into the harsh realities of life and ending with her recovery.

Leila's background is not described in details. However the reader gets some glimpses of her previous experiences and her childhood. We know for e

We get a sense of Leila's personality right from the beginning of the story, even though she is never really described from an outside perspective. She is very perceptive. When they travel in the cab to the ball she notices every little detail around her, such as the bolster in the cab, the lamp-posts, the fences and the trees. She is also very imaginative. The lamp-posts are waltzing in her eyes, and the bolster in the cab feels like "the sleeve of an unknown young man's dress suit" (192). In her mind she is already at the ball and throughout the story she paints very vivid pictures of everything she sees. Leila seems to be a soft and gentle girl from to the way she responds to her cousins' fascination with her lack of experience and their amazement that she has never attended a ball before. She is not offended, nor does she try to pretend that she is as sophisticated as they are. She simply accepts the situation and while gently playing with her fan tells them that that is the way it is when living far away from other people. In fact she admires her cousins; their elegance, their beauty and the friendliness and ease between them. She wishes that she too had brothers and sisters who would ask her for dances or comment on her hair. She is a shy girl by she "quite forgot to be shy" 195 when she

She absorbs every tiny detail of her cousins' clothes and hair-dos. Again we see how vivid Leila's imagination is when it comes to describing things. Simple common details, such as Meg's tuberoses are even seen by her as most charming and extraordinary. Cousin Jose's hair is a "long loop of amber", Laura's dark hair is "pushing like a flower through snow" (192) over her fur Leila tries to emboss every tiny detail in her mind; she even wants to save the tissue paper Laurie pulls from his new gloves. It is as if she wants to save this evening forever. Her descriptions are so wonderfully metaphorical that as a reader it is hard not to see before you exactly what she means. While watching the young people swirl over the floor Leila reflects upon how different the music sounds and how different the dancing couples are in comparison to what she is used to from the dance classes at the boarding school. The difference is so overwhelming to Leila that she is sure that if she has to stand there by her own and listen to the music "she would die at least, or faint, or lift her arms and fly out of one of those dark windows that showed the stars" 197

Leila does not suffer a lack of dance partners this evening if her very first ball. She tries to tell her dance partners that this is her first ball. She is even relieved when admitting to one of her partners that that is the case. He does not seem too interested though (198). And she finds it peculiar that her dance partners start their conversations by talking about the floor. She thinks to herself "Did one always begin with the floor?" 198. Leila does not really know what to say about the floor, when she finds it "most beautifully slippery" her first dance partner seems amused or perhaps confused. No one seems to appreciate how precious this evening is to her. Her first partner is a good dancer, he steers her beautifully and Leila remembers the dance lessons at the boarding school and she contemplates how different it is to dance with a man instead of a girl. Her partner seems to be the quiet type. When the dance is over the

Some common words found in the essay are:
Cousin Jose's, , Mansfield Leila, tiny detail, dance partners, beginning story, boarding school, dance partner, amber laura's dark, laura's dark hair, jose's hair loop, comes describing, leila's imagination, imagination comes, vivid leila's, hair loop, loop amber laura's, hair loop amber,

Approximate Word count = 2280
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English