The story is set in London. The main character, Bertha, is a married woman of thirty, who thinks she has a perfect life. She is going to hold a dinner party for some friends. She is secretly attracted to one of the guests, Miss Pearl Fulton. As Bertha is always attracted to beautiful women who have something strange about them. In the end, she discovers her husband, Harry, is having an affair with Pearl.
The author, Katherine Mansfield, uses the main character to criticise social conventions. Bertha is inhibited by conventions, and wants to get rid of. Although she struggles against them, this is not easy for her. She can’t follow her impulses to run and dance in the street and she asks herself why you are given a body if you keep it in a case like a rare fiddle. Babies usually are looked after by nannies, and their parents do not want to spoil them, so, she thinks it is not appropriate to tell a nanny that a baby clutching a strange dog’s ear is rather dangerous. When the nanny refuses to give her baby to her, she asks herself again why have a baby if it was held in another woman’s arm like the rare fiddle kept in the case. She can’t express her feelings to Pearl, not even to her husband. On the other hand, her husband and other guests are less inhibited and more easy-going; they criticize and make jokes about other people.
The author also uses Bertha’s point of view to show that the main character does not fully understand herself and her feelings. She misinterprets her feelings for Pearl; they are not her own feelings of bliss; they are Harry’s. He has a perfect life, always loves beautiful women, and falls in love with Pearl. Once Bertha discovers she has been betrayed, her feelings towards her husband change. Before she thought Harry had many good characters, at the end of the story, he becomes roughness and his face becomes ugly.
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