History of Miss Brill
In this portion of my research, I will be talking about the history of Miss Brill. Miss Brill is a short story by Katherine Mansfield. It was first published on November 26, 1920, and later reprinted in The Garden Party and Other Stories.
After the First World War in the 1920s, Europe was trying to rebuild. During this time, cultural diversity and wealth grew around many European countries, especially France. France became a place where artists and writers can live comfortable.
Miss Brill is an English teacher who lives near the public gardens in a French town. The narrator follows her around on a regular Sunday afternoon, which she spends walking around and sitting at the park.
The story opens up with Miss
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As she returns her fur coat to its box, Miss Brill, Zweig (2012) stated “thought she heard something crying” (p. 221).
Literary Analysis In this portion of my research, I will be conducting a literary analysis on Miss Brill. Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield was taken from her The Garden Party and Other Stories collection and is narrated in a third person by an unknown narrator. By telling the story through the eyes of the protagonist, Mansfield is able to convey to the reader the protagonist’s loneliness and lacks self-awareness. Mansfield offers no explanation as to Miss Brill’s past, leaving it to the readers to draw their own conclusions.
In this portion of my research, I will be talking about the theme of Miss Brill. The theme of the short story is the contrast of illusion and reality. As you read the story, the reader gets to explore the theme of loneliness. At first, you can tell Miss Brill might be lonely as the way she describes her pulling out her fur stole out of the box, Zweig (2012) stated “rubbed the life back into the dim little eyes” (p. 219) meaning she gives her fur stole a voice and emotions, when in reality, it’s just materialistic. She continues to stroke it and carries it with her throughout the story, which Mansfield uses to reveal that she does not have any other friends or family to socialize with. Miss Brill lacks movement in her life as she describes, Zweig (2012) stated “the air was motionless” (p. 218). Miss Brill goes to
Design elements are important because of the part that scenery, costuming, and lighting plays in the movement of the musical production. As Richard Kislan says, "the ultimate objective of the designer of musicals must be to service the moving forms that characterize the musical theater." (Kislan 251). As a member of the audience I never recognize the movement of the scenery but enjoy each new set and costume. Without those important changes of movement the audience might lose interest or feel lost in a long musical. Musicals are full of costume changes that signify an important event in a character's plot. A good example is My Fair Lady, where Eliza Doolittle begins the musical with nothing more but rags and a small weary basket of flowers.
Kate the Great by Meg Cabot, teaches you to know that only true friends will always be by your side no matter what.
Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines gutsy as “marked by courage, pluck, or determination; having a strong or appealing flavor ("Dictionary and Thesaurus | Merriam-Webster"). It may be common to associate this adjective with a skydiver or daredevil, but what about an eighteenth century columnist named Fanny Fern? Fanny Fern, or as her birth certificate would state, Sarah Willis Parton, lived in the mid to late 1800s and wrote famously about controversial issues that are still prevalent in the twenty first century. Fern wrote with whimsy and liveliness, making issues like gender inequality in marriage and women’s reform seem funny and lighthearted, although looking closer, we can see that (through the use of several tropes) she was anything but. With cuts such as a woman’s cult of domesticity disguised as a relatable entry about silly husbands, we can look back at Fern’s work today and admire her courage to write without compromising her beliefs, as well as her ‘guts’ and determination. Fanny Fern famously used a witty mix of sarcasm, pun, and metaphor in her eighteenth century writing to critique and challenge her highly oppressive patriarchal society.
A narrator, who is without a name, tells of his first hand experiences throughout the story. This is in contrast to ‘Miss Brill’ in which narrative is delivered in the third person, with the use of free indirect speech to depict the story and portray the characters. By Wells selecting a first person narrative he draws the reader closer into the character’s mind set. This gives Wells the ability to convey the primary characters full spectrum of emotional thought, from open mindedness to the conflict and fear within him. First narrative provides the reader insight to thoughts and observations therefore adding suspense of the unknowing into the gothic style.
We learn about and bare witness to her thoughts and lack of a dynamic development in this story. Throughout the story we learn about Miss Brill and her prominent tendency to listen in on others conversations and fantasize about the lives of those around her. In the beginning, Miss Brill is sitting in the park at her “special” seat as she did every Sunday. Sharing this seat with two other people, Miss Brill awaits the start of their conversation, but is soon disappointed when they did not speak. As the story progresses, we come to recognize that Miss Brill believes those around her to be a part of the a play: “They weren’t only the audience, not only looking on; they were acting. Even she had a part and came every Sunday” (864). Because of her belief that everyone was a part of a performance, Miss Brill romanticizes the stranger’s lives. After sitting alone at her “special” seat, a boy and girl come sit down. Miss Brill immediately commences fantasizing about who they are: “They were beautifully dressed; they were in love. The hero and heroine, of course, just arrived from his father’s yacht” (865). While Miss Brill is brought back into reality through the conversation she eavesdrops on between a boy and girl, her perception of reality does not change. Miss Brill is static because while being brought back into a harsh reality she does not accept this is the truth as shown when she “thought she heard
In the short story “Miss Brill” the protagonist, Miss Brill, is a lonely and isolated woman who likes to spend her Sunday afternoon’s in the park observing everyone around her and listening to their conversations without them knowing. We can infer that Miss Brill has created her own fantasy world to escape the harsh reality of her own life. At the end of the story the audience can come to the conclusion that Miss Brill experienced an epiphany that will change her life.
Bliss and Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield and Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin
Mrs. Fox, by Sarah Hall was published in 2014. Mrs. Fox is a short story by Sarah Hall about a woman who turns into a fox during her pregnancy, much to the dismay of her husband. Mrs. Fox describes a woman who is not satisfied with her life with her husband, Mr. Fox. They both remain detached thorough the story. When Mrs. Fox turns into a fox, Mr. Fox does not understand why his wife was not happy or satisfied in her human life. Sarah Hall does a wonderful job of displaying out an unusually intriguing setting, a breath taking characterization of the two main characters Mr. and Mrs. Fox, and she displays a dark and modern theme, rightfully earning the BBC National short story
Miss Brill constantly and silently judged everyone she saw, this is demonstrated when the author writes, “She had become really quite the expert, she thought, at listening as though she didn’t listen, at sitting in other people’s lives just for a minute while they talked around her” (Mansfield 309). Both quotes describe each character’s disposition towards others and their dominant personality traits. While Maum Hannah and Miss Brill are dissimilar, they also have character traits in common.
When comparing passionate versus companionate love, there really isn’t a better option of the two due to how both are almost always required for a long and secure marriage. In Janie’s case, out of the three men she married, none of them had both the qualities of romance and stability which is why their marriages all went downhill. However, Tea Cake was an exception, due to how his death before him being able to provide Janie with material security caused readers to never know whether if he would become like Joe Starks and eventually lose the intimacy between him and Janie or remain loving and romantic towards her. However, it is guaranteed that if he did remain intimate towards Janie if he became successful, then most likely, they would have
The late nineteenth and early twentieth century in Europe saw a lot of developments, like nationalism and imperialism, that eventually led to the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Countries in Europe were expanding and taking over countries in Africa thanks to nationalism, and this competition led to high political tension that contributed to the Great War. This war was the bloodiest, most destructive war in European history up to that point, and it represented a major break from the status quo in many aspects of European life and politics. The war changed European history because war was taken to a new level, the European economy was changed, and Europe began its decline as a world power as a result.
In “Miss Brill,” Katherine Mansfield utilizes Miss Brill’s thoughts and actions and the surroundings to characterize Miss Brill as a lonely character. Mansfield immediately introduces Miss Brill with a very odd scene that shows her conversation with the fur coat. This quickly and effectively establishes the type of person Miss Brill is. As a result, Mansfield suggests that Miss Brill is a lonely and an “abnormal” person to illustrate to the audience how society treats those who are not considered “normal” through the later actions of a young couple.
When reading Miss Brill written by Katherine Mansfield. The story starts off in the perspective of Mrs. Brill a elderly lady wearing a fur coat. This is when the story starts to progress, Mrs. Brill decides to wear her fur coat to the public garden. She then proceeds to sit in the garden on a bench and observe the various foot traffic. She would sit and observe and listen to the peoples conversation without them noticing her ease dropping. The garden was quite busy that day due to the band that usually plays there playing so beautifully. An elderly couple come and sit by Mrs. Brill on the bench, they were not interesting to Mrs. Brill. Mrs. Brill started to notice that the people on Sundays were usually very odd, they looked very pale like they had been in a cupboard all week and only came out for fresh air. Two girls then walked by Mrs. Brill they were accompanied by two
Miss Brill often finds herself personifying this fox fur, giving it gendered pronouns as opposed to objective pronouns. This indicates how the fur seems to be the only companion or friend that she has, and that she projects her loneliness onto this fox fur. The style of Mansfield’s writing shows that Miss Brill deeply cares about this fur, showing some of Miss Brill’s internal monologue as she takes the fox fur out of its box that afternoon. In the park, Miss Brill finds herself listening in to people’s conversations, as she feels like she can be a part of their lives this way even if it was just for a moment. The deep isolation and loneliness that Miss Brill experiences causes her to long for human connection -- though she never figures out how to achieve it. Also, it is interesting to see how Miss Brill describes the other elderly people in the park around her. She observes that they looked as though they had “just come out from dark little rooms or even — even cupboards!” This is significant because she compares them to her fox fur, which is something that she keeps in a cupboard until she is ready to leave her house again. She makes this comparison between the other elderly people at the park, however she does not make this connection to herself. This could show how Miss Brill separates herself from the other elderly people, because she longs for
The details as told, seem to be coming directly from Miss Brill at times. The narrator gets us settled into the park with Miss Brill and tells us that she sees those around her as “odd, silent, nearly all old, and from the way they stared they looked as though they’d just come from dark little rooms or even-even cupboards!” This tells me that Miss Brill sees herself differently than she sees others, not odd or funny. She is a part of all this life and activity at the park! An actor in the grand play and “somebody would have noticed if she hadn’t been there.” She really loved to be out with others and thought that she was very much a part of the world and not apart from it. Don’t we all feel this way? Some people are truly introverted and care little of interacting, but I think the majority of us strive to become part of the world and at times feel like this life is one big drama and we have a big part. Our role might only be important for one scene, but we feel like the leading man or woman at times. The narrator leads us to what appears to be a fitting climax; a crescendo of music and song, with all players involved. Miss Brill’s dreams of this were quickly shattered. The comments by the young people, “Why does she come here at all-who wants her? Why doesn’t she keep her silly mug at home?” leaves Miss Brill with the cold realization that she is in fact like the odd, old people that she watches in the