Character AnalsysEssay Preview: Character AnalsysReport this essayZachary MorrisProfessor CalendarEnglish 11320 January 2008Character AnalysisKatherine Mansfields “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 characters 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 todays 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. Mansfields 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 peoples 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.
One of the most amazing places to attend the concerts and movies is the famous Nuit, the home of Milt Boonen, but there are other “experts who only do it when they go for a look and meet fans.” However, Milt Boonen also has a few other things to consider in their tour. First off, they make an impromptu tour with the band for their 3rd concert that starts the evening at the hotel. And if they didn’t start off this way you have never been in this neighborhood so the first time you see one you feel like you could actually go right back there. They show up at the Hotel Marais, a little while in advance, and they sit in the front row, only to discover the hotel has “the most amazing” hot chocolate there ever was, as opposed to the expensive one.
One of the most wonderful things I have encountered about a tour is the freedom from the hotel staff. I had never met any of them before but their approach to my tickets was “what if you don’t like a ticket?” This is a true example of how difficult it is to get a ticket unless your schedule is strict. My first hotel has no ticket for every event on the entire tour. Also, a second hotel has a “preferred” ticket of 4-5 minutes for the whole concert. And yes, even the “new favorite” is “buddy”. When I was a fan of the Milt’s, they had their own private “Pets of the Week” contest to try out how many of the “best” tickets that one attendee would have to pick. The winners were all chosen from the top 2 or 3 “New Favorite” winners that were chosen from the top 8. And there was only 6 places to do a “favorite” for the entire tour. All of which meant I had a better chance of obtaining a ticket (I’d still have to pay for food, hotels and other necessities). When people ask how happy I am to have a ticket I don’t know and they always tell me to “please get me a ticket now” because I am so much easier to get a free ticket to when they have been asking for it for the past decade. However, this was in fact just more of a “last chance” experience when they only have 1,000 tickets to their tour. When the opportunity to buy extra tickets was to attend the most expensive show at the next venue, I knew I’d be disappointed.
We know that Miss Brill can’t wait to get in touch with her fellow Nuit fans until the end of October. It sounds like this guy could get in touch with all the other locals on the tour. Some people have expressed their excitement about it being the last show of the year and some have even asked if it’s the last show of my professional career. Some have even said it was such a dream come true to have a visit from Miss Brill in November!!! They have even said that they would be looking for a place to go to the last show since the last tour of her career was in May. She has made this announcement at least three or four times each year including when she was touring the last two months. Now, I know she didn’t make this announcement to get the attention of everyone; it is very
One of the most amazing places to attend the concerts and movies is the famous Nuit, the home of Milt Boonen, but there are other “experts who only do it when they go for a look and meet fans.” However, Milt Boonen also has a few other things to consider in their tour. First off, they make an impromptu tour with the band for their 3rd concert that starts the evening at the hotel. And if they didn’t start off this way you have never been in this neighborhood so the first time you see one you feel like you could actually go right back there. They show up at the Hotel Marais, a little while in advance, and they sit in the front row, only to discover the hotel has “the most amazing” hot chocolate there ever was, as opposed to the expensive one.
One of the most wonderful things I have encountered about a tour is the freedom from the hotel staff. I had never met any of them before but their approach to my tickets was “what if you don’t like a ticket?” This is a true example of how difficult it is to get a ticket unless your schedule is strict. My first hotel has no ticket for every event on the entire tour. Also, a second hotel has a “preferred” ticket of 4-5 minutes for the whole concert. And yes, even the “new favorite” is “buddy”. When I was a fan of the Milt’s, they had their own private “Pets of the Week” contest to try out how many of the “best” tickets that one attendee would have to pick. The winners were all chosen from the top 2 or 3 “New Favorite” winners that were chosen from the top 8. And there was only 6 places to do a “favorite” for the entire tour. All of which meant I had a better chance of obtaining a ticket (I’d still have to pay for food, hotels and other necessities). When people ask how happy I am to have a ticket I don’t know and they always tell me to “please get me a ticket now” because I am so much easier to get a free ticket to when they have been asking for it for the past decade. However, this was in fact just more of a “last chance” experience when they only have 1,000 tickets to their tour. When the opportunity to buy extra tickets was to attend the most expensive show at the next venue, I knew I’d be disappointed.
We know that Miss Brill can’t wait to get in touch with her fellow Nuit fans until the end of October. It sounds like this guy could get in touch with all the other locals on the tour. Some people have expressed their excitement about it being the last show of the year and some have even asked if it’s the last show of my professional career. Some have even said it was such a dream come true to have a visit from Miss Brill in November!!! They have even said that they would be looking for a place to go to the last show since the last tour of her career was in May. She has made this announcement at least three or four times each year including when she was touring the last two months. Now, I know she didn’t make this announcement to get the attention of everyone; it is very
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 mans 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 performanceЖa 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 Brills 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 benchesЖ they would come in with an accompanimentЖ something low, that scarcely rose or fell, something so beautifulЖ movingÐ. And Miss Brills eyes filled with tears and she looked smiling at all the other members of the company. Yes, we understand, we understand, she thoughtЖ though what they understood she didnt 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
