Characterisation choices for the male characters in the story also help develop the themes of innocence and experience. They are either exploitive of women – the porter and the old man, or they are malicious and cynical, like the waiter and the group of young men that was on the train. Her reactions to them were childish, she pretended to act like a adult but was obviously fighting underneath.
The point where she loses her innocence is when the old man tried to kiss her. She was panicking, and embarrassed. From this point onwards, everyone to her seemed more evil and cynical to her, she was in a world where all old men had “twitching knees”.
In ‘The Woman at the Store’, three travellers arrive at the store and after confrontation the woman agrees that they can stay. The sinicism is much more subtle, because the woman has already lost her innocence. She is a lonely and desperate woman, and one of the travelers, Jo decided to take advantage of that. Her attitude towards her child, Elsie, is quite violent “Shut your mouth”. Elsie get angry and threatens to show the travelers her drawings, she gets “beat in the head”. In the end Elsie shows Hin and the female traveller her drawings of a woman shooting a man. We can see that she lost her innocence in a really harsh way as she is already exposed to death at such a young age because it implies that she witnessed a murder scene.
Leila, the main character in “Her First Ball”, is absolutely breath-taken at every sight and sound at the ball. It is Leila’s first ball, her first exposition to society. Leila is a young, naïve girl who is eager with anticipation, “she tried not to smile too much but everything was so new and exciting”.
This theme of innocence vs. experience is brought up when Leila is made aware of the restrictions and predictability of her life as a woman, as the Fat man says “these pretty arms will have turned into little short fat ones, and you’ll beat time with a different sort of fan, a black bony one… your heart will ache, ache.” Repetition is used to emphasize the fixed, functional life of marriage.
Awareness of mortality, death and aging is brought up “black, bony one”, “You will face death”. We can see that Leila is innocent, and just beginning to open up to the world, whereas the man has already been through a lot and has a lot of life experience. Leila is described as “little”, just like in ‘The Little Governess’. It has the same connotations – Leila is childish, girly, naïve, innocent. The idea that life is dulled by time and experience, while the new generation is still fresh and full of life and vitality is suggested, “that’s what it is too be old”.
‘The Garden Party’ also brings up the idea of experience through awareness of mortality/death. This story is about a family who is going to hold a garden party even when a death occurred right next to their house. Laura’s family – the Sheridan’s, is of the upper classes. The imagery of roses suggests how wealthy they are, “literally hundreds”. The protagonist Laura is portrayed as an artistic young women who is established as a naïve, adolescent character “stammered like a little girl”. She feels divided from her family because she has a sensitive response to the death of their lower-class neighbours.
The dialogue of workmen is quite colloquial – “bang slap”, they are subservient as they obey the middle class. Her sexual innocence is suggested as “she blushed and tried too look severe and even a bit short sighted as she came up to them (the workers) ”. We can see that Laura is a sensitive character through observations in the beginning, as she is considerate of where the marquee will go. She compares her life to that of the workmen, she wants to relate to them and break through the class barrier – “took a bite of her bread-and butter as she stared at the little drawing. She felt just like a work-girl”. This prepares us for her reaction towards the Scott’s death.
The lyrics of the song are significant as it gives the reader the sense that everything is coming to an end. There is also the suggestion on the theme of mortality “This Life is Weary/Hope come to die”. This song is quite lamentful and grieving, this maybe a foreshadowing of Scott’s death.
Laura’s initial reaction when she found out about Scott’s death is to cancel the garden party “we can’t possibly have garden party with a man dead just outside the front gate”. Her sister Jose is unsympathetic; she says that life can’t stop just because of one person. Laura has a childish reaction to this “tell my mom on you”. But her mother had the same reaction as Jose, which was quite unexpected to Laura. All she is interested in is herself, her party and her reputation, just like the rest of the family.
The description of the little cottages of the working class is full of imagery of animals and disease, this is very effective but quite negative “cabbage stalks, sick hens..”. The children are described as
“swarmed”, they don’t sound like people but like animals.
Laura decides to temporarily forget about the death. “blurry newspaper” – she hasn’t seen the reality of the situation, she wants to forget but it doesn’t last long as she is distracted by her own beauty and youth. She realises that she belongs in the upper class “I fit in here, so I should go play my role”. Awareness of mortality and loss of innocence themes are developed through the imagery of the dying party. “slowly faded, slowly its petals changed” mimics the death of Scott and awareness of the end of things that pervades the story.
When Laura’s mother sends her with a basket of “scraps” and insists that she “take the arum lilies too”, because, “People of that class are so impressed by arum lilies”, as well as her daughter’s comment, “You won’t bring a drunken workman back to life by being sentimental”, we begin to realise just how far the prejudiced comments of class distinctions have separated the Sheridan family from reality. Laura’s unusual reaction to the body suggests she may be envious of him, as he no longer has to worry about anything “What did garden parties…matter to him? He was far from all those things”. It may also suggest her childish inability to accept the finality of death and wants to view it as sleep “sleeping so soundly”. At this point, Laura has a partial realisation of death’s seriousness. She sees the reality of death, but is unsure of what to do with her new knowledge.
The ideas of innocence and experience are reoccurring themes throughout Mansfield’s stories.
We come to realize that human emotion and experience is universal, regardless of class distinction. We cannot escape death due to our mortality, thus we must all accept it. Everyone grows to become more experienced over time even though Mansfield sees the loss of innocence and the gain of new experience as a negative process.
