Miss Brill Story by Katherine Mansfield

Animals help humans in our lives for sharing their features. Every new experience can make a person change; sometimes the changes are positive, and other times it is negative. Either way, here is no avoiding change. Animals are kind, helpful, and playful.

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.

In order to bring us closer to Miss Brill, Mansfield uses the technique of showing, by

Bliss and Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield and Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin

She is an elderly woman, but she is not a “normal” old woman. "The old people sat on the bench, still as statues. Never mind, there was always the crowd to watch.” This quote shows what Miss Brill thinks about elderly people. By doing this, she is acting like a teenager, sort of immature. She likes to be different from the other elderly people or people who act like old people. In the same way, when she saw old people who were sitting on benches, she said that they were "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!” In this way, she is putting herself away from that “old people”. She describes them in a negative tone and showing that she is much more than one typical frail old

Harriet Jacobs in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl uses clear detail, except when talking about her sexual history, to fully describe what it is like to be a slave. Jacobs says that Northerners only think of slavery as perpetual bondage; they don 't know the depth of degradation there is to that word. She believes that no one could truly understand how slavery really is unless they have gone through it. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl do not only tell about the physical pains and hard labor that she went through. It mostly concentrates on the emotional viewpoints on it and what it did to shape who she is. When writing her story, Jacobs had a clear motive. Her motive was one of a political taking. She writes through her experiences and sufferings to make it clear to people, mainly the Northerners, and more specifically white women in the North, how slavery really is. She does not want sympathy, however, she does want "to arouse the women in the North to a realizing sense of the condition of two millions of women of the South, still in bondage" (2). Jacobs wants people to take action in antislavery efforts. Jacobs in telling her story uses many techniques to make it effective. Some of the techniques that she uses are dealing with the use of her language, her selections of incidents and details, and her method of addressing an audience.

While Mrs. Mallard remembers Mr. Mallard as a kind and tender man who loved her, she also viewed him as the oppression that marriage put upon women and men. While Mr. Mallard was kind and loving to his wife, he was also controlling and overbearing. Josephine, Mrs. Mallard’s sister and Richards, Mr. Mallard’s friend is there to break the news of Mr. Mallard’s death. Richards has learned of Mr. Mallard’s death at the newspaper office, not wanting to believe the information that was received, Richards waited for the new to be delivered for a second time before enlisting the help of Josephine. They are both there to support Mrs. Mallard and their support shows that they care for Mr. and Mrs. Mallard.

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.

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

She pays attention to the smallest details. "Wasn’t the conductor [of the band in the park] wearing a new coat, too? She was sure it was new. He scraped with his foot and flapped his arms like a rooster about to crow… Now came a little ‘flutey’ bit—very pretty!—a little chain of bright drops. She was sure it would be repeated. It was; she lifted her head and smiled" (98). Even if she’s only an observer, Miss Brill is an involved observer. She draws enjoyment from simply being in the park atmosphere. However, her enjoyment is more than a passing mood. It’s actually an indication of a deeper emotion—a kind of happiness. This becomes clear after Miss Brill has paid close attention to several small exchanges between people at the park. "Oh how fascinating it was! How she enjoyed it! How she loved sitting here, watching it all!" (99). That Miss Brill does not actually participate in anything is clear to the reader, but not to her. Vicarious involvement in other people’s lives seems to be fulfilling for her, even though there is no actual interplay with others. The most telling evidence that Miss Brill is happy (and that her happiness is based on a false impression) is when she comes to the conclusion that she’s somehow needed at the park. "No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn’t been there; she was part of the performance after all… Miss Brill nearly laughed out loud" (100). This realization eventually moves Miss Brill to

The narrator in the story “Miss Brill” by Katherine Mansfield, is telling us this story in the third person singular perspective. Our narrator is a non-participant and we learn no details about this person, from a physical sense. Nothing to tell us whether it is a friend of Miss Brill, a relative, or just someone watching. Katherine Mansfield’s Miss Brill comes alive from the descriptions we get from this anonymous person. The narrator uses limited omniscience while telling us about this beautiful Sunday afternoon. By this I mean the narrator has a great insight into Miss Brill’s perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and into her world as a whole, but no real insight into any of the other characters in this story. By using this point of view,

Katherine Mansfield's "Miss Brill" is a woman self-contained, not pessimistic but settled, content. She is not a victim of her circumstances, but the satisfied creator of them. You could say she has her ducks lined up the way she wants them. Through the character of Miss Brill, Katherine Mansfield reveals a woman who has the ability to enjoy a simple world of her own elaborate creation.

Mansfield created the story with the intention of allowing it to be open for various interpretations; though she includes specific detail concerning the characters Mansfield does not elucidate them in a manner that clearly defines their personalities. The story, like the budding rose, is one that never peaks to maturity, but rather remains in the developing stage because of its ambiguities which cause it to be discussed and interpreted in many varying ways.