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The Characteristics Of Introverts In Katherine Mansfield's Miss Brill

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An introvert is a person who tends to stick to themselves like a loner. In similarity, an outsider is someone who is isolated and not involved in a particular group. These two characteristics come together accordingly because they complement each other. If a person is a loner then ideally, he or she is not associated with a group. This is shown in Katherine Mansfield's short story of Miss Brill. Miss Brill is a lonely person throughout the story, mainly sticking to herself and not associating with others. The character Miss Brill, is an introverted outsider because she talks to her favorite coat, watches other people from a distance and has a soft heart in criticism.
Speaking to inanimate objects is an action a solitary individual would often do. Inanimate simply means not alive like a brush, a computer or in Miss Brill's case her coat. At the beginning and the ending of the story, Miss Brill speaks to or about her fur coat that is locked away like it is her only friend. "Dear little thing.... what has been happening to me" (Mansfield ln 7-11). In lines 7 through eleven, Miss Brill is talking to her fur coat as if the coat can speak back. She also takes the action of the coat by pointing out the sound of crying. "But when she put the lid on she thought she heard something crying" (Mansfield ln 169-170). Miss Brill claims she heard something crying. She hears this just when she puts her coat back in the box. The same coat she refers to as a little thing and speaks for it.

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