The Imagination in Miss Brill In the short story “Miss Brill,” an old lady spends her Sunday witnessing human beings at the park. Although she is ignored by her surroundings, Miss Brill still seems to persuade herself that she is still important in that even though she is not noticed. She believes that if she was not at the park, the park attendees will still miss her. It’s obvious that she is a lonely person due to her dramatic thoughts and always trying to entertain herself through nonverbal communication between her and her own thoughts. In the beginning of the story, Miss Brill has a conflict between choosing which kind of fur she would like to wear to go to the park on an early Sunday morning.
Alienation in Katherine Mansfield’s “Miss Brill” In Katherine Mansfield’s short story, “Miss Brill,” we as readers are confronted with the idea that fantasizing can alienate a person from the world or society and can make us lonely. “Miss Brill” displays this alienation through her fantasies of being youthful, having companions, and being important. Miss Brill visits the park and fantasizes her entire life so much that she doesn’t notice she has grown old alone. Miss Brill always speaks to her only friend, her fur stole, so much that she hasn’t thought to make any other friends. Miss Brill fantasizes so much about being important and that ”somebody would [notice] if she [wasn’t] there” (135), that she didn’t realize what the community actually thinks of her.
Her whole life she was kept to the family and isolated from society because of the family’s idea of being better than everyone. When Emily’s father dies she tells everyone that he wasn’t dead, “she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will” (Faulkner p# 240). Emily couldn’t change and tried to hold on. The character Miss Brill is isolated in a different manner. Every Sunday Miss Brill would go to the park and “Only two people shared her special seat”(Mansfield p# 276).
She feels as thouh they are playing only for her. She then thinks to herself that this is a play and everyone has a special role in this play, and that she has a role in the play too, which is going to the park every Sunday to sit in the park and watch what goes on around her. The a younger couple comes and sits next to her on the bench. They begin to have a conversation, and of course Miss Brill listened in. The young man began to say how stupid Miss Brill’s fur ermine is and how she should just stay home because no one wants to see her face or wants her around.
Character Analysis: Susie So far in the novel The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, the character that stands out most to me is Susie Salmon. Although she has already passed away, Susie is the narrator of the story and I find that to be very unique and interesting. Susie was your average fourteen year old, who happened to fall into a misfortunate situation which lead to her death. She was very naive, and did not think anything of Mr. Harvey leading her to the corn field in the dark. She had always been very innocent, walking home from school every day in the dark and never thought anything of it.
In the end of the text, she starts to see the world as a pretty place. She begins to love her mother, herself and her baby. She doesn’t wants to share “her bench” in the park with anybody and if there is someone who dares to sit on the bench, she goes away. In the end of the text when the lady comes and sit one her bench she begins to be irritated, but when the lady begins to cry, the girl gets upset and don’t know what she should do. She doesn’t want to see her cry.
When Lennie is in the barn because he killed the puppy Curley’s wife walks in and starts talking to Lennie. “…Why can’t I talk to you? I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely.”(86) In doing this Curley’s wife is coming right out and telling Lennie that she is lonely and just wants someone to talk to. Curley’s wife is always looking for someone just to talk to because she doesn’t have anything better to do.
Katherine uses a wide variety of different characters to develop the idea of the loneliness that comes with old age. The main character is Miss Brill herself. She is an elderly lady who is socially isolated due to her old age and impoverishment. We realise her loneliness by the way she treats her fur scarf. This is Miss Brills only companion, the only thing she has to love and she treats it like it’s a living being, calling it her “Little rouge” and petting it as someone would a cat.
The park bench that Miss Brill sits on while at the park every Sunday is a symbol to show the audience the social isolation and loneliness Miss Brill is experiencing in hope to try fid a companion other than her fur to socialize with. The personal pronoun example of her special seat implies that she always sits there every week as it’s a way of Miss Brill having routine in her life, and a social connection with the outside world around her. The adjective ‘special’ is to describe that the seat is owned by Miss Brill and treasured to her very closely. This is because it makes her feel at home being perched on the bench, as it’s a place to go to observe and listen to peoples conversation that she likes to feel apart off. The music is a symbol of the band playing in the park.
A friend, from the neighborhood decided she would take my daughter and her kids skating. I was so grateful to her, because I was a wreck and could not care for my daughter properly that day. More friends came and sat with me, prayed with me and gave me money through out the day. One of my friends never showed up, but she called everyday. A few weeks past, I was home alone and my friend called I told her that I was not in a good mood.