Character Analsys

Zachary Morris

Professor Calendar

English 113

20 January 2008

Character Analysis

Katherine Mansfield's "Miss Brill" is one of her final short stories published. Mansfield was an early 20th Century short story writer, with this story coming from her final compilation of short stories, The Garden Party and Other Stories, published a year before her untimely death in 1923 at the age of thirty-five. "Miss Brill" looks at a specific day of the isolated, lonely, and transparent title character's life. Around this time period an older, unwed woman did not have the ability to go out with friends or join social clubs similar to today's women. As "Miss Brill" depicts, they often lived by themselves in an individual room and were not afforded the then luxury of any kind of real meaningful relationship, especially with a member of the opposite sex. This writing could easily be the product of Mansfield reaching middle-age having not formed a family. Miss Brill may be the person Mansfield fears becoming in the future as an unwed, childless woman. Mansfield's story makes clear distinctions of the way an individual views the world, views themselves in that perceived world, and the way that individual is seen by other people. Miss Brill is a static character either unable or unwilling to live in reality.

"Miss Brill" takes place in Jaradis Publiques, France, with Miss Brill attending a live band concert. Miss Brill is at the show by herself, yet still has some sort of imagined conversation with the fur piece she wears around her neck. She is familiar with the area taking her "special" seat. She is familiar with the band also, making the observation in her mind that the conductor was wearing a new coat. She is at the first show of the season, so she knows the band will put on a good performance. Taking her seat near a couple, she has prepared to eavesdrop. Listening in on other people's conversation without them knowing is a skill in which Miss Brill takes great pride. She is disappointed when the couple does not speak, so she instead remembers the couple that she had listened in on last week. The current couple still makes no conversation, so she turns her attention to the large crowd.

The crowd interests Miss Brill much more than the silent, odd, mostly older people she is seated among. She notices several individuals before fixing her attention on an older woman and a distinguished gentleman on which she can eavesdrop. The man is rude to the woman and Miss Brill takes exception to the man's behavior. After the man and woman have parted ways, she turns her attention again to the crowd in general. At this point, Miss Brill views the band and the whole audience, including herself, as taking part in a staged performanceÐ'--a play. Her thoughts take her away to an imagined conversation with an invalid, to whom she often reads, where she announces, with great pride, herself an actress. The band now reconvenes from an unannounced break. The music and the crowd seem to move together, which allows Miss Brill to drift off once again now imagining the crowd, again she included, singing in harmonious unity. This daydream is interrupted by a well-dressed young couple obviously in love, sitting where the old couple had previously been, on whom she can eavesdrop. The young girl will not speak for some reason. Soon Miss Brill realizes the couple is talking about her, and she is the reason that the girl will not speak. The young man says some very hurtful things about Miss Brill, which she can hear because she is listening to the conversation.

Miss Brill then departs the show and is walking home. She decides to pass up her usual Sunday honey cake at the bakery on the way back to her room. Once she arrives, she sits for a long while before returning the fur piece to its box. After doing so, she imagines the fur piece is crying as the story comes to a close.

Miss Brill lives in isolation, both from people and her own emotions. The isolation from people causes her a great deal of sadness. She will not recognize the feeling as sadness because of her isolation from her feelings. The story begins with her being at a public event by herself. She is obviously an unwed woman because of the title miss. Her companion, that seems to be the only object in the present with which she communicates, is her fur piece (225-226). Her room is a place referred to as a cupboard that seems to imply a place where she is stored. On her Sundays out to the show she has a "special" seat that she sits in regularly, in essence seeming to confine herself to a specific seat (226). The special seat of Miss Brill's seems that she has unknowingly embraced her isolation by confining herself to the same seat every Sunday. Miss Brill is oblivious to the way she feels about her isolation, because she has isolated herself from her feelings as well. The narrator mentions a feeling of sadness twice trying, unsuccessfully, to dissuade the audience, and Miss Brill, that she is in fact feeling sad (226 and 228). Once the thought of sadness is brushed off the second time, it is apparent that Miss Brill is looking for anything she can hold as a meaningful relationship with another person, or even the group as a whole, but as she imagines the singing crowd to empathize with her, she does not understand her own feeling:

And the she too, she too, and the others on the benchesÐ'-- they would come in with an accompanimentÐ'-- something low, that scarcely rose or fell, something so beautifulÐ'-- movingÐ'.... And Miss Brill's eyes filled with tears and she looked smiling at all the other members of the company. Yes, we understand, we understand, she thoughtÐ'-- though what they understood she didn't know (228).

Her isolation is brought about by an inability to relate with people, herself included, though she obviously does not lack a desire to do so. This is shown in her two escapes from reality in which she is joined with people. The imagined conversation with the invalid is the first, which may be one of the only men in her life, but is still a relationship that can never materialize in reality. The second is the entire audience at the show singing as a choir. She also seems to allow the band to express her emotions, so they will not be her own. The gentleman being so rude to the older woman upsets Miss Brill very much, but she is incapable of expressing that emotion. Instead, she allows the band to do it for her by rhythmically calling the man a brute (227). She actually seems to be living the dialog between the older man and