In the following essay, Court examines deception and irony in "Disorder and Early Sorrow."

Professor Cornelius's loss of his young daughter, Ellie, and Ellie's loss of Max Hergesell, the "fairy prince" who captures her tiny heart at the "big folks"' party in Mann's "Disorder and Early Sorrow," are but the final movements in a narrative that suggests fraud and hopelessness from beginning to end. The opening paragraph, for example, quite appropriately begins with a reference to one of the most deceptive of all foods— croquettes—deceptive because the ingredients are disguised. The Corneliuses, a very "proper" middle class family, living in an illusory house outwardly appearing elegant but actually badly in need of repair, a house in which "they themselves look odd . . . with their worn and turned clothing and altered way of life," sit to eat a dinner of "croquettes made of turnip greens...