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.
Curley’s wife is the loneliest character in the book. Crooks may be isolated from the rest because he’s black or Candy because of his old age and injury, and Lennie because of his stupidity. But she’s a complete outcast. Never wanted, never loved. Curley treats her as if she were an object, and Steinbeck puts more ‘loneliness’ to her by not giving her a name because she’s merely a property belonging to Curley In her moment of greatest vulnerability, Curley’s wife seeks out even greater weaknesses in others, preying upon Lennie’s mental handicap, Candy’s debilitating age, and the colour of Crooks’s skin in order to steel herself against harm.
The novels Ethan Frome and Catcher in the Rye by Edith Wharton and J.D.Salinger, respectively, are two great works that depict two characters’ struggles in life. Three themes that both novels share are the need for companionship, regret over lost potential and immersion in a fantasy world. Ethan Frome and Holden Caulfield are both very lonely characters in desperate need for companionship and compassion. They both search for human contact of sorts to prevent the onset of loneliness. Frome marries Zenobia Pierce prematurely, only to obviate “the mortal silence of…long imprisonment.” (Wharton, page 61) He wanted “the sound of a …voice” to fill the void on his farm.
'Curley's wife is a very complex character because she is presented in different personalities at different chapters and in this chapter we see that she desires freedom and fame. Steinbeck presents her in such way that or opinion of her changes through out the novel, first we see her as a flirt then we see her presented in a horrible racist personality and now Steinbeck presents her as Innocent. Steinbeck did this because at this chapter where she dies it's like he wants us to feel sympathy for her because not that she is dead her problems are gone and there is not need for attentions because now she looks relaxed laying down on the hay. The language used in this chapter is very descriptive especially the part when Curley's wife dies, this might be because at the time
Explore the ways Curley’s wife is presented and developed in ‘Of Mice and Men.’ Steinbeck presents Curley’s wife in a negative and unflattering way in the novella ‘Of Mice and Men.’ She is an important character who is perhaps the loneliest person on the ranch. As a result of this she behaves in ways that other characters disapprove of. I shall show the ways Curley’s wife is presented and developed by showing how she appears, how she acts around other characters and what they say about her. Even before Curley’s wife appears, Candy talks about her in a negative way to George and Lennie. He is quite gossipy and says ‘She got the eye’.
Instead of graciously accepting whatever she could get, Phoenix coldly reminds the lady that “five pennies is a nickel” (Welty, 649). Anyone who was just a sad, poor little old lady concerned only with the health of her sick grandchild would graciously accept whatever she could get and then be on her way back. Phoenix, however, doesn’t do this. In fact, it is almost scary how quickly she snaps out of a remorseful trance while she remembers her grandson to this blunt and almost rude state, only to quickly regress back to grandmother of the year, but, again, it is all an act to get what she’s really after. Many people say that the title is one of the most important parts of a story.
She, “did not like him as much as a bride should like her bridegroom,” (Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm). This alone breaks the rules of the fairy tales we all know because there is a mention of whether the girl likes her suitor or not. In most fairy tales marriage is a prize, not something that has to do with actually liking someone. The girl then goes to her fiancé’s house and hears a bird screeching that she should turn back because she is in a murderer’s house. After exploring the dark home, the girl discovers and old woman.
The central theme of “Miss Brill” is the pain of loneliness, and inadvertent attempts to experience life through the experiences of total strangers. From the beginning of the narrative it becomes apparent that Miss Brill is starving for warmth and companionship. She tenderly caresses her fur as if it were a beloved pet when she rubbs “the life into the dim little eyes” (p.50) of the old fox boa. Another sign of Miss Brill’s need for companionship is evident in her perception of the music which the band is playing at the Jardins Publiques: “It was like some one playing with only the family to listen (p.50).” Despite of her loneliness, she is considering herself a part of this family that the band is entertaining with its music. But in reality she is more of an observer, a voyeur, and not an active participant in life as it unfolds at the Jardins Publiques.
Kitty a lesbian made Stew selfish that she didn’t turn out the way he wanted her to.” He couldn’t help to get angry because it overrode his helplessness” (Gaitskill 458). Stew describes his relationship with his daughter by saying,” As he watched her, that she was doing things that were as bad or worse than the things that had him angry at her five years before. It seemed that a large white space existed between him and her” (Gaitskill 459). He keeps comparing her to the older daughter he wanted her to be. When reading the article Kitty wrote in the national magazine Self, she writes about how she thinks about her father saying,” My father may love me but he doesn’t love the way I live, even more complicated because I’m gay”(Gaitskill 460).
During one of her Sunday visits to the park Miss Brill’s self-image will be painfully restructured in her mind. Miss Brill will be forced to let go of her unrealistic belief that she possesses a role with meaning in her society and that she is superior to the people around her into feelings of uselessness, unimportance; without a place that matters within her society. Miss Brill’s need to leave for the park at the exact same time each Sunday, not wanting to change her routine for fear she may miss something, seem to show her desperate need for human contact and her desire for a friend with whom she could share a connection. The author's ingenuity and careful attention to detail creates a dramatic view, through Miss Brill’s own narration of her thoughts, her