VII explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Social Class and Mobility

  Alice's envy of Mildred Palmer's wealth and engagement to Arthur Russell underscores class divisions and the struggle for social mobility.

• Appearance vs. Reality

  Alice pretends to have an escort and feigns amusement, masking her loneliness and social decline.

• Ambition and Disappointment

  Alice's past popularity and current isolation reflect her thwarted ambitions and disappointment in her social prospects.

Characters to notice

• Alice Adams

  Sits alone at the dance, pretending to await an escort; reflects on her decline in popularity and envies Mildred Palmer.

• Frank Dowling

  Sits with Alice but is taken away by his mother to dance with Henrietta Lamb.

• Mrs. Dowling

  Interrupts Alice and Frank, manipulates Frank into leaving to dance with Henrietta Lamb.

• Mildred Palmer

  Mentioned as the fortunate girl engaged to Arthur Russell, envied by Alice.

• Arthur Russell

  Mentioned as Mildred Palmer's fiancé, seen as perfect and well-off.

• Henrietta Lamb

  Mentioned as the girl Frank Dowling is urged to dance with.

Key passages

• “She had learned to do it perfectly. She had learned it during the last two years; she was twenty when for the first time she had the shock of finding herself without an applicant for one of her dances.”

  Alice had mastered the art of pretending to have a partner, a skill she developed after experiencing the humiliation of having no one ask her to dance at age twenty.

  Highlights Alice's adaptation to social decline and her learned deception.

• “In Alice’s eyes, Mildred had been blessed enough; something ought to be left over, by this time, for another girl.”

  Alice felt that Mildred already had more than her share of good fortune, and that some luck should be reserved for others like herself.

  Reveals Alice's resentment and sense of unfairness regarding class and privilege.