Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield

Brenda Mendez 35411

Paper 4

Language and Tone Essay

Revised Submission

        The short story, “Miss Brill” by Katherine Mansfield, is a story told from Miss Brill’s point of view. Miss Brill is an older lady who spends her Sundays in a park, people watching, and attending concerts. Throughout the story, it is quite obvious that Miss Brill is lonely, although Miss Brill is completely oblivious to her true reality. Her loneliness leads her to become delusional of her reality, by listening to other people’s stories and picturing herself experiencing their experiences. Another example of her being lonely is the way she talks about and loves her old fur coat. It is clear that the coat represents her life; it was once brand new and now is just some old fur coat. The central idea for Miss Brill involves loneliness and self-delusion, which falls under the psychological category.

        There is vivid imagery as the story opens up with “the blue sky powdered with gold and great spots of light like white wine splashed over the Jardins Publiques” (Mansfield 835). The simile compares the bright sky to a spill of white wine. It provides the great imagery for an opening to a story, which fits Miss Brill first opinion of herself and her life. We get a sense of Miss Brill emotions towards her picking her old fur coat before leaving her apartment and heading to a public garden to sit on a bench, like she does every Sunday, which is the setting where most of the story takes place. Mansfield provides the readers with a lot of imagery and cues on how observant Miss Brill is; for example, Miss Brill is always at the park on a Sunday constantly people watching, “Other people sat on the benches and green chairs, but they were nearly always the same, Sunday after Sunday, and – Miss Brill had often noticed—there was something funny about nearly all of them” (Mansfield 836).

        As Miss Brill continues to eavesdrop on others around her she begins to notice that they are all older like her. She becomes excited when she notices a young couple who seem so in love sitting right next to her. Being the observant and eavesdropping older lady that she is, she over hears the young man does not have a nice description about her. The young man calls her a “stupid old thing” and complains, “Why does she come here at all – who wants her? Why doesn’t she keep her silly old mug at home” (Mansfield 837). After the concert when Miss Brill is on her way home, Mansfield talks about how she always picks up a slice of cake, but she did not stop this time. Miss Brill instead goes in her “little darkroom” and sits there for quite some time and cries about the rude young man’s comments.