Miss Brill

Although it was so brilliantly fine - the blue sky powdered with gold and great spots of light like white wine splashed over the Jardins Publiques - Miss Brill was glad that she had decided on her fur. The air was motionless, but when you opened your mouth there was just a faint chill, like a chill from a glass of iced water before you sip, and now and again a leaf came drifting - from nowhere, from the sky. Miss Brill put up her hand and touched her fur. Dear little thing! It was nice to feel it again. She had taken it out of its box that afternoon, shaken out the moth-powder, given it a good brush, and rubbed the life back into the dim little eyes. "What has been happening to me?" said the sad little eyes. Oh, how sweet it was to see them snap at her again from the red eiderdown! ... But the nose, which was of some black composition, wasn't at all firm. It must have had a knock, somehow. Never mind - a little dab of black sealing-wax when the time came - when it was absolutely necessary ... Little rogue! Yes, she really felt like that about it. Little rogue biting its tail just by her left ear. She could have taken it off and laid it on her lap and stroked it. She felt a tingling in her hands and arms, but that came from walking, she supposed. And when she breathed, something light and sad - no, not sad, exactly - something gentle seemed to move in her bosom.

     There were a number of people out this afternoon, far more than last Sunday. And the band sounded louder and gayer. That was because the Season had begun. For although the band played all the year round on Sundays, out of season it was never the same. It was like someone playing with only the family to listen; it didn't care how it played if there weren't any strangers present. Wasn't the conductor wearing a new coat, too? She was sure it was new. He scraped with his foot and flapped his arms like a rooster about to crow, and the bandsmen sitting in the green rotunda blew out their cheeks and glared at the music. Now there came a little "flutey" bit - very pretty! - a little chain of bright drops. She was sure it would be repeated. It was; she lifted her head and smiled.

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     Only two people shared her "special" seat: a fine old man in a velvet coat, his hands clasped over a huge carved walking-stick, and a big old woman, sitting upright, with a roll of knitting on her embroidered apron. They did not speak. This was disappointing, for Miss Brill always looked forward to the conversation. She had become really quite expert, she thought, at listening as though she didn't listen, at sitting in other people's lives just for a minute while they talked round her.

     She glanced, sideways, at the old couple. Perhaps they would go soon. Last Sunday, too, hadn't been as interesting as usual. An Englishman and his wife, he wearing a dreadful Panama hat and she button boots. And she'd gone on the whole time about how she ought to wear spectacles; she knew she needed them; but that it was no good getting any; they'd be sure to break and they'd never keep on. And he'd been so patient. He'd suggested everything - gold rims, the kind that curved round your ears, little pads inside the bridge. No, nothing would please her. "They'll always be sliding down my nose!" Miss Brill had wanted to shake her.

     The old people sat on the bench, still as statues. Never mind, there was always the crowd to watch. To

and fro, in front of the flower-beds and the band rotunda, the couples and groups paraded, stopped to talk, to greet, to buy a handful of flowers from the old beggar who had his tray fixed to the railings. Little children ran among them, swooping and laughing; little boys with big white silk bows under their chins, little girls, little French dolls, dressed up in velvet and lace. And sometimes a tiny staggerer came suddenly rocking into the open from under the trees, stopped, stared, as suddenly sat down "flop," until its small high-stepping mother, like a young hen, rushed scolding to its rescue. 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. They were odd, silent, nearly all old, and from the way they stared they looked as though they'd just come from dark little rooms or even - even cupboards!

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     Behind the rotunda the slender trees with yellow leaves down drooping, and through them just a line of sea, and beyond the blue sky with gold-veined clouds.

     Tum-tum-tum tiddle-um! tiddle-um! tum tiddley-um tum ta! blew the band.

     Two young girls in red came by and two young soldiers in blue met them, and they laughed and paired and went off arm-in-arm. Two peasant women with funny straw hats passed, gravely, leading beautiful smoke-coloured donkeys. A cold, pale nun hurried by. A beautiful woman came along and dropped her bunch of violets, and a little boy ran after to hand them to her, and she took them and threw them away as if they'd been poisoned. Dear me! Miss Brill didn't know She had been with you whether to admire that or not! And now an ermine toque and a gentleman in grey met just in front of her. He was tall, stiff, dignified, and she was wearing the ermine toque she'd bought when her hair was yellow. Now everything, her hair, her face, even her eyes, was the same colour as the shabby ermine, and her hand, in its cleaned glove, lifted to dab her lips, was a tiny yellowish paw. Oh, she was so pleased to see him - delighted! She rather thought they were going to meet that afternoon. She described where she'd been - everywhere, here, there, along by the sea. The day was so charming - didn't he agree? And wouldn't he, perhaps? ... But he shook his head, lighted a cigarette, slowly breathed a great deep puff into her face, and even while she was still talking and laughing, flicked the match away and walked on. The ermine toque was alone; she smiled more brightly than ever. But even the band seemed to know what she was feeling and played more softly, played tenderly, and the drum beat, "The Brute! The Brute!" over and over. What would she do? What was going to happen now? But as Miss Brill wondered, the ermine toque turned, raised her hand as though she'd seen some one else, much nicer, just over there, and pattered away. And the band changed again and played more quickly, more gayly than ever, and the old couple on Miss Brill's seat got up and marched away, and such a funny old man with long whiskers hobbled along in time to the music and was nearly knocked over by four girls walking abreast.

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     Oh, how fascinating it was! How she enjoyed it! How she loved sitting here, watching it all! It was like a play. It was exactly like a play. Who could believe the sky at the back wasn't painted? But it wasn't till a little brown dog trotted on solemn and then slowly trotted off, like a little "theatre" dog, a little dog that had been drugged, that Miss Brill discovered what it was that made it so exciting. They were all on the stage. They weren't only the audience, not only looking on; they were acting. Even she had a part and came every Sunday. No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn't been there; she was part of the performance after all. How strange she'd never thought of it like that before! And yet it explained why she made such a point of starting from home at just the same time each week - so as not to be late for the performance - and it also explained why she had quite a queer, shy feeling at telling her English pupils how she spent her Sunday afternoons. No wonder! Miss Brill nearly laughed out loud. She was on the stage. She thought of the old invalid gentleman to whom she read the newspaper four afternoons a week while he slept in the garden. She had got quite used to the frail head on the cotton pillow, the hollowed eyes, the open mouth and the high pinched nose. If he'd been dead she mightn't have noticed for weeks; she wouldn't have minded. But suddenly he knew he was having the paper read to him by an actress! "An actress!" The old head lifted; two points of light quivered in the old eyes. "An actress - are ye?" And Miss Brill smoothed the newspaper as though it were the manuscript of her part and said gently; "Yes, I have been an actress for a long time."

     The band had been having a rest. Now they started again. And what they played was warm, sunny, yet there was just a faint chill - a something, what was it? - not sadness - no, not sadness - a something that made you want to sing. The tune lifted, lifted, the light shone; and it seemed to Miss Brill that in another moment all of them, all the whole company, would begin singing. The young ones, the laughing ones who were moving together, they would begin, and the men's voices, very resolute and brave, would join them. And then she too, she too, and the others on the benches - they would come in with a kind of accompaniment - something low, that scarcely rose or fell, something so beautiful - moving ... 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 thought - though what they understood she didn't know.

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     Just at that moment a boy and girl came and sat down where the old couple had been. They were beautifully dressed; they were in love. The hero and heroine, of course, just arrived from his father's yacht. And still soundlessly singing, still with that trembling smile, Miss Brill prepared to listen.

     "No, not now," said the girl. "Not here, I can't."

     "But why? Because of that stupid old thing at the end there?" asked the boy. "Why does she come here at all - who wants her? Why doesn't she keep her silly old mug at home?"

     "It's her fu-ur which is so funny," giggled the girl. "It's exactly like a fried whiting."

     "Ah, be off with you!" said

the boy in an angry whisper. Then: "Tell me, ma petite chere--"

     "No, not here," said the girl. "Not yet."

On her way home she usually bought a slice of honey-cake at the baker's. It was her Sunday treat. Sometimes there was an almond in her slice, sometimes not. It made a great difference. If there was an almond it was like carrying home a tiny present - a surprise - something that might very well not have been there. She hurried on the almond Sundays and struck the match for the kettle in quite a dashing way.

     But to-day she passed the baker's by, climbed the stairs, went into the little dark room - her room like a cupboard - and sat down on the red eiderdown. She sat there for a long time. The box that the fur came out of was on the bed. She unclasped the necklet quickly; quickly, without looking, laid it inside. But when she put the lid on she thought she heard something crying.

Element of reductionParameters She isolates herselfNot the environment that caused her emptiness, it’s her choiceCharacter from the insideManipulative, restrictive, destructiveA fur does not decay

Miss Brill

(Katherine Mansfield 1922)

“Miss Brill,” Katherine Mansfield’s short story about a woman’s Sunday outing to a park, was published in her 1922collection of stories entitled The Garden Party. The story’s enduring popularity is due in part to its use of a stream-of-consciousness narrative in which Miss Brill’s character is revealed through her thoughts about others as she watches acrowd from a park bench. Mansfield’s talent as a writer is illustrated by the fact that she at no point tells what Miss Brill isthinking about her own life, yet the story draws one of the most succinct, complete character portraits in twentieth-centuryshort fiction. “Miss Brill” has become one of Mansfield’s most popular stories, and has been reprinted in numerousanthologies and collections. The story is typical of Mansfield’s style; she often employed stream-

of-consciousnessnarration in order to show the psychological complexity of everyday experience in her characters’ lives.

Author Biography

Katherine Mansfield was born Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp to a wealthy family in Wellington, New Zealand, onOctober 14, 1888. She was educated in London, deciding early on that she wanted to be a writer. She studied music, wrotefor the school newspaper, and gained her intellectual freedom by studying Oscar Wilde and the other English “decadent”writers of the early twentieth century. Three years later she returned to New Zealand, where her parents expected her tofind a suitable husband and lead the life of a well-bred woman. However, Mansfield was rebellious, adventurous, and moreenamored of the artistic community than of polite society. She began publishing stories in Australian magazines in 1907,and shortly thereafter returned to London. A brief affair left her pregnant and she consented to marry a man, GeorgeBowden, whom she had known a mere three weeks and who was not the father of her child. She dressed in black for thewedding and left him before the night was over. Upon receiving word of the scandal and fueled by rumors that herdaughter had also been involved with several women, Mansfield’s mother immediately sailed to London and placed herdaughter in a spa in Germany, far away from the Bohemian artists’ community of London and her best friend, Ida Baker,whom Mansfield’s mother considered a bad influence. During her time in Germany, Mansfield suffered a miscarriage andwas cut out of her parents’ will. After returning to London, Mansfield moved in with Baker, continuing to write andconduct various love affairs.

In 1911, Mansfield published her first volume of stories, In a German Pension, most of which had been written duringher stay at the German spa. That same year she met John Middleton Murry, the editor of a literary magazine. Althoughthey lived together on and off for many years, her other affairs continued, most notably with Baker. Together Mansfieldand Murry published a small journal, The Blue Review, which folded after only three issues. However, the experience

gained them entrance into the literary community of the day, and one of their newfound friends was D. H. Lawrence. In1918, Mansfield was finally granted a divorce from Bowden, and she and Murry married. Stricken with tuberculosis in1917, Mansfield became increasingly ill. She continued to write, publishing her two most well-known collections, Bliss andOther Stories and The Garden Party and Other Stories in 1920 and 1922 respectively. The collections received favorablecritical attention, and she continued to write even after her health forced her to move to Fontainebleau. Though she wasseparated from Murray for long periods towards the end of her life, it was he who saw that her literary reputation wasestablished by publishing her last stories and her collections of letters after her death in January, 1923, at the age ofthirty-four.

Plot Summary

The Jardins Publiques (Public Gardens) in a French town on an early autumn Sunday afternoon is the setting for “MissBrill.” The air is still, but there is a “faint chill, like a chill from a glass of iced water before you sip,” so Miss Brill ishappy to have worn her fur stole. The stole, in accordance to the fashions of the times, was constructed so that its fake eyesand nose could be attached to its tail, securing it around the wearer’s neck. It is the first time she has worn it in a while.When preparing for her stroll in the park, she gives it a “good brush,” “[rubs] the life back into the dim little eyes,” andteasingly calls it her “little rogue.”

Miss Brill watches the people in the park with delight. The band sounds “louder and gayer” to her than it has onprevious Sundays. She listens to the concert from her “special’ seat” and is disappointed when the other two people seatedthere do not speak. Her favorite pastime on Sunday afternoon is to eavesdrop on people’s conversations.

n one observation, Miss Brill notices that all the people sitting on the benches listening to the band are “odd, silent,nearly all old” and “looked as though they’d just come from dark little rooms or even — even cupboards.” As Miss Brilllistens to the band and watches the children playing, her thoughts drift from the pupils to whom

she teaches English, to theold man to whom she reads the newspaper four days a week.

As her exuberance grows, Miss Brill likens her position as that of an actress in a play. As dramas are acted out in the park, Miss Brill realizes that she is a character, too: “Even she had a part and came every Sunday. No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn’t been there.” She delights in the metaphor. The band, which had been taking a break, resumes playing. Miss Brill thinks that the “whole company” might begin singing along at any moment. They would sing something “so beautiful — and moving.” She feels a vague sense of community with the rest of the people in the park.

A young couple, well-dressed and in love, come and sit near her, and Miss Brill imagines them to be the hero andheroine of the play. She listens to their conversation, but instead of revealing dialogue that fulfills Miss Brill’s fantasy oftheater, the girl makes fun of Miss Brill’s fur collar. The boy, trying to appease his girlfriend, says “Why does she comehere at all — who wants her? Why doesn’t she keep her silly old mug at home?” The girl, snickering, compares thewoman’ s fur to a dead fish, saying that it looks like a “fried whiting.”

Miss Brill’s reaction to the comments are not recorded. Instead, she forgoes her usual stop at the bakery on her way back to her “little dark room — her room like a cupboard,” where she sits silently for a long time. Finally, she unclasps her fur quickly without looking at it. As she places it back in the box, she thinks that she hears “something crying.”

Characters Miss Brill

Miss Brill is a middle-aged, unmarried English woman who lives alone in a small apartment in France. She teachesEnglish to students and reads the newspaper to an elderly man several times a week. One of her prized possessions is a furnecklet that she wears on a Sunday visit to the town’s park. The story takes place during one of these Sunday visits inwhich she eavesdrops on people’s conversations and listens to the band. Miss Brill is an astute observer of others, noticingthat the other people sitting on the park benches seem “odd” as if they had “just come from dark little rooms.” She fails,however, to realize that she is one of them. Enchanted by the crisp air and the advent of the Season, Miss Brill comparesthe park to a stage, and the people — including herself — as actors and actresses in a play. The

metaphor takes on theproportions of an epiphany in which she believes that she has finally connected with the community. The realization fillsher with joy, and she imagines a young, attractive couple on the bench next to her as the play’s hero and heroine. She hasmade a false connection, though, she realizes when instead of partaking of romantic dialogue, the couple insult her. Shehas managed to connect with others only in her fantasy. Miss Brill retreats to her apartment without having succeeded inestablishing the human contact she desperately wants and has sought. Miss Brill, however, suppresses her sorrow whenshe imagines that she hears her fur stole crying as she returns it to its box. She is unable to recognize the feeling as herown, just as she has been unable to see herself as others in the park perceive her.

Fur Necklet

Miss Brill’s fur necklet, with its “dim little eyes,” a nose “that wasn’t at all firm,” and a mouth that bites “its tail justby her left ear,” assumes many human characteristics in the story. It is a friend to Miss Brill, who calls it her “littlerogue,” and whose eyes ask the question “What has been happening to me?” — a question that the woman is not able toask of herself. The fur lives in a box, just as its owner lives in a “dark little room,” and together they visit the park onSunday afternoon. After Miss Brill’s day has been spoiled, however, she returns to her apartment and stashes the fur backin its box, ashamed that it has brought her ridicule from people she has admired. The fur, she imagines, is crying — yetanother human characteristic Miss Brill ascribes to her fur, which has come to symbolize Miss Brill herself.

The Woman in the Ermine Toque

The woman in the ermine toque whom Miss Brill observes in the park symbolizes the title character herself, and her rebuff by a man in a gray suit foreshadows Miss Brill’s rejection later in the story. Miss Brill notes that the woman’s fur hat is “shabby,” bought when “her hair was yellow”; characteristics that could apply to the observer herself, though she fails to realize this. The woman is delighted to see the man in the gray suit, just as Miss Brill is delighted by the young

couple who approach her bench. When he blows smoke in the woman’s face, Miss Brill feels the rejection personally by imagining the drum beat of the band calling out “The Brute! The Brute!” The Young Romantic Couple

The young, romantic couple approach the bench from which Miss Brill is watching the crowd. They are “beautifully dressed” and in love. Immediately, they become the hero and heroine of Miss Brill’s imaginary play. However, instead of revealing some sprightly romantic dialogue, the boy and girl are having a quarrel in which the girl insists, “Not here, I can’t.” In an effort to placate his girlfriend, the “hero” condemns Miss Brill, asking, “who wants her? Why doesn’t she keep her silly old mug at home?” In response, the girl giggles that it is the woman’s fur that she finds so distracting. Thus, the couple’s dialogue, instead of fitting in with Miss Brill’s conception of the situation as a stage play in which they are all welcome characters, makes her realize that her presence in the park is not wanted.

Themes

“Miss Brill” presents an afternoon in the life of a middle-aged spinster. On her usual Sunday visit to the park, sheimagines the she and the people in the park are characters in a play. Contributing to her good mood is the fact that she iswearing her prized fur stole. Anticipating the conversation of two strangers who sit down next to her, Miss Brill’svivacious mood is shattered by the couple’s ridicule for her and her fur. She returns to her tiny apartment and places thefur back in its box, imagining that she hears it crying.

Alienation and Loneliness

Though Miss Brill does not reveal it in her thoughts, her behavior indicates that she is a lonely woman. She thinks of nofamily members during her Sunday outing, instead focusing on her few students and the elderly man to whom she reads thenewspaper several times a week. Even her name, Miss Brill, suggests an isolating formality; with the absence of a firstname, the reader is never introduced to her on a personal level. Her fantasy, in which she imagines the people in the parkas characters in a play connected in some psychological and physical way to one another, reveals her loneliness in acreative way. Yet, her manufactured sense of connection to these strangers is shattered when she is insulted by the youngcouple that sit next to her on the bench. When her fantasy of playacting is crushed by the

conversation of the romanticcouple, she is shown to be alienated from her environment — estranged and apart from the others in the park, to whom sheonly imagined a connection. Symbolically, this sense of alienation is heightened at the end of the story when Miss Brillreturns her fur to its box quickly and without looking at it. This action is in stark contrast to her playful conversation withit earlier in the day, when she called it her “little rogue.” The final action of the story completes the characterization ofMiss Brill as an alienated and lonely individual when she believes that she hears her beloved fur crying as she returns it toits box, just as she herself has returned to her “room like a cupboard.”

Appearances and Reality

Through the stream-of-consciousness narrative in “Miss Brill,” Mansfield creates a story in which the stark contrastbetween appearances and reality are manifest through the thoughts of the main character. At the beginning of the story,Miss Brill is perturbed by the old couple sitting on the bench near her. Their silence makes eavesdropping on their livesdifficult. Yet, she does not realize that their behavior echoes her own silent existence. Similarly, Miss Brill notices that theother people sitting on chairs in the park are “odd, silent, nearly all old” and “looked as though they’d just come fromdark little rooms or even — even cupboards!” The irony that she is one of these odd people who lives in a cupboard is notrecognized. She also notices an old woman wearing a fur hat, which she calls a “shabby ermine,” bought when thewoman’s hair was yellow. When the woman raises her hand to her lips, Miss Brill compares it to a “tiny yellowish paw.”While making fun of this woman in her own mind, the comparisons between the “ermine toque” and her own appearancego unnoticed. Later, when Miss Brill’s imagination concocts the metaphor of the park visitors as actors in a play, shethinks of them as connected to her in a harmonious way: “we understand, we understand, she thought.” Yet, the attractivecouple whom she imagines to be the hero and heroine of the play are revealed through their conversation to not be part ofthis “appearance” of a stage play. In the reality of their cruel comments, they are not “members of the company” who“understand.” This strong illusion of playacting Miss Brill has envisioned has been dismantled

through the harsh words ofthe boy and girl. In reality, they think of her not as a fellow actress, but as a “stupid old thing” whose fur resembles a“fried whiting.” The play — a metaphor which produced a moment of epiphany for Miss Brill — has taken place only in the cynicism generated by the millions of casualties in the war. Like others of her day, Miss Brill is a foreigner living inFrance, but she is alienated from the thriving community of artists and writers who formed the “moveable feast” in Parisduring the 1920s. Instead, Miss Brill has a few students to whom she teaches English and she reads to an elderlygentleman until he falls asleep. Miss Brill’s association with this man further represents her alignment with an era nowobsolete. The young couple on the bench are of a younger generation, and their comments reveal the attitude towardswhich young people now regarded their elders.

Mansfield, whose numerous affairs always marked her as a bit of a free spirit, fit into this new social order quitecomfortably. However, by the time she wrote “Miss Brill,” she was weak from tuberculosis and exerted the bulk of herenergy writing stories and letters. In England, the Bloomsbury writers, a loosely-knit group that included Virginia Woolfand whose main literary goal was to eradicate the old social order of the Victorians, were in frequent correspondence withMansfield.

In “Miss Brill,” Mansfield created one of her most famous characterizations; one that illustrates the illusions of the old order and how they are shown to be just that: illusions. Critical Overview

Mansfield is one of only a few writers to gain critical prominence on the basis of her short stories alone; she publishedno novels during her short lifetime. Though published widely while she was still alive, her literary reputation waspermanently established after her death with the publication of her collected letters and correspondence. In The Letters ofKatherine Mansfield, the author gives readers insight into the way in which she constructed “Miss Brill”: “I choose therise and fall of every paragraph to fit her. . . . After I’d written it I read it aloud — numbers of times — just as one wouldplay over a musical composition — trying to get it nearer and nearer to the expression of Miss

Brill — until it fitted her.”“Miss Brill” has always been on of Mansfield’s most popular stories. Clare Hanson and Andrew Gurr argue in their bookKatherine Mansfield that Miss Brill is more than a characterization of a lonely spinster: “In Mansfield’s view we are allultimately solitary, and human beings are fundamentally cruel and indifferent to one another except in the rare instanceswhere they love. Without love, and without the comfort of illusions, the reality of life can be grim indeed.” They furthernote that “Miss Brill” has often been regarded as a moral, even as a sentimental story. Echoing the opinion of manycritics, Robert L. Hull’s essay in Studies in Short Fiction states that “[t]he principle theme of Katherine Mansfield’s ’MissBrill’ is estrangement.”

Compare & Contrast 1920s: Few professions other than nursing and teaching are deemed socially acceptable for women who must support themselves. Today: College graduates are as likely to be female as male, and a majority of women are employed in the workforce and in virtually every profession. 1920s: One’s social rank can be determined from one’s clothing. Gentlemen wear hats, ladies gloves, and fur denotes a position of some social standing. Women, with few exceptions, always wear dresses or skirts. Today: Social conventions regarding dress are relaxed. Hats and gloves are uncommon in many circles, and pants are a staple of most women’s wardrobes. Many believe fur to be a symbol not of status but rather an indication of cruelty and conspicuous consumption. 1920s: Common forms of recreation include reading, going to the theater, and gathering in public places such as parks or pubs. People often dress up to appear in public. Today: 98 percent of all households in the United States own televisions. Other forms of mass communication, including the telephone, radio, and the personal computers have infringed on the time spent socializing with others in a public sphere. In suburban areas, the most crowded space is often the shopping mall.

An analysis of theme mrs brill

An Analysis of Theme of Katherine Mansfield’s Miss Brill “Miss Brill” a fictional story written by Katherine Mansfield, was published in 1922. The story depicts Miss Brill as a disillusioned, elderly woman, desperately seeking acceptance from the society in which she lives. She thinks of herself as an “actress” performing to an audience every Sunday afternoon in the Jardins

Publiques. Adorned in her precious fur, she thinks herself to be an active, important participant, in the world around her. She is emotionally devastated when a young couple shatters her fantasy by a comment that she is a “stupid old thing.” Mansfield’s use of character, action, and symbolism help communicate her message in this story. The need for acceptance, and belonging, at any age, is important to human survival. Miss Brill is a lonely, sickly woman in denial. Her lack of self awareness is evident to everyone but h

She acts as if the fur is human and able to experience pain and loneliness, another way for her to disregard her own pain and loneliness. Miss Brill is also experiencing tingling sensations in her arms and hands, which would lead one to believe that she is not well. She acts as if it is a human companion. She does not realize how lonely, and desperate for attention she truly is. The way she talks to it and even offers it comfort, suggests she thinks of it as if it is a friend. s aging quickly, with her own death near at hand. Katherine Mansfield is able to clearly convey her message once one examines the use of all these symbols. Even the name Miss Brill is symbolic. We need to care about how we treat others. The way that one acts and speaks can have an enormous impact on the emotional well being and self perception of others. Thinking it asks "What has been happening to me?"� (131). Everyone needs to feel as if they are a part of their world.

Katherine Mansfield accomplishes an incredible drama with detailed characterization in Miss Brill, a story only four pages long. As a gem cutter creates innumerable facets to increase the brilliance of a small diamond or other precious stone, Mansfield does something similar: the simplest of plots is enriched with symbolism, word selection and limited omniscient point of view, and emerges as a masterwork.

The story's title provides an example of the author's ingenuity and attention to detail. We immediately realize that the central character is a lonely spinster, probably an elderly Englishwoman, living in a resort area of France near the seashore, earning enough to support herself by tutoring English children and reading the newspapers to an old invalid whose ability to hear and comprehend are questionable.

We sense her mood and excitement in her opening-line description of the weather and the setting. "Although it was so brilliantly fine - the blue sky powdered with gold and great spots of light like white wine splashed over the Jardins Publiques - Miss Brill was glad that she had decided on her fur."

The story was written in the early 1920s. Youthful readers may have to be reminded that this was a time when there was no stigma attached to wearing the fur of animals and that fur stoles

of the period often combined taxidermy with the art of the furrier. It was common to see stoles made into a loop with the animal's mouth equipped with a snap device that would fasten to the tail.

The fur piece is treasured by Miss Brill, who addresses it as "Dear little thing" and "Little rogue." We are told how "She had taken it out of its box that afternoon, shaken out the moth powder, given it a good brush, and rubbed life back into the dim little eyes."

Gradually the furpiece comes to be a symbol of its owner. Both are of advanced age and a little the worse for wear. ". . .the nose, which was of some black composition, wasn't at all firm. It must have had a knock, somehow. Never mind - a little dab of black sealing -wax when the time came - when it was absolutely necessary."

Miss Brill's given name is never mentioned since she has no friends who would use it. However, at the beginning of the story she is blissfully happy with her life and situation. She has compensated for her isolation by sitting in on the lives of other people and casting herself as a significant character in the panoramic, multi-charactered drama of life.

Very much a creature of habit, her Sunday routine was

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to attend the open-air band concert at the public gardens. She had her own special seat where she would listen to the music and sit in on the conversations of nearby people. She was disappointed if they remained silent. The previous Sunday had been unpleasant because the conversation between an Englishman and his wife involved her complaints about failing vision and the problems involved with wearing spectacles. "Miss Brill had wanted to shake her."

We see everything through the eyes of Miss Brill, and through dramatic irony we often see or comprehend situations differently and more accurately than she does. She thinks to herself that the other people on chairs and benches were she same, Sunday after Sunday: "odd, silent, nearly all old, and from the way they stared they looked as though they'd just come from little dark rooms or even - even cupboards." She is unaware that she is describing both herself and her fur.

"And now an ermine toque and a gentleman in gray met just in front of her." Interestingly, the woman in her fur hat was getting on in years and it showed in "her hair, her face, even her eyes," which were "the same color as the shabby ermine." Miss Brill is shocked when the gentleman "lighted a cigarette, slowly breathed a great deep puff into her face. . .flicked the match away and walked on." The innocent Miss Brill is unaware that she has been watching a prostitute plying her trade without success.

The high point of the story occurs as Miss Brill fantasizes that all the people in sight, herself included, were actors on stage. If she had missed playing her part one Sunday, someone would have noticed!

Her world and her dramatic career crash. ". . .a boy and a girl came and sat down where the old couple had been." Miss Brill thinks of them as the hero and heroine of her drama. Eavesdropping on their conversation, she hears them refer to herself as "that stupid old thing" and to her furpiece as "exactly like a fried whiting," referring to a fish.

In the heartrending conclusion, Miss Brill returns to her "little dark room - her room like a cupboard" without making her usual stop at the baker's for a slice of honeycake that might -just might - have an almond in it. She removes her necklet and puts it in a box, thinking as she does so that she hears something crying. The symbolic correspondence of this sweet little old lady who wants only good things to happen and has not an iota of ill will or meanness in her is completed as we realize who is weeping and the depth of the hurt that has been caused.

One wonders if the crushing realization of how others, and especially the young, view her can be overcome. Will there be future Sunday band concerts and slices of honeycake? Will her fur stole ever again leave its cupboard?

To Befriend a Corpse: Symbolism of the Fur in Miss Brill

Clinging to her neck and nearly embracing her, the lifelike fur upon Miss Brill gazes with the lifeless eyes of death. In the short story Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield, Miss Brill specifically chooses the fur to complement her attire on her special outing to the town concert. Miss Brill has few occasions to venture out of her little house, so to her this Sunday jaunt is quite the momentous event. As she watches the crowds, she happily wears her fur, yet it is apparent that the pelt serves to do more than merely adorn her. In essence, the fur worn by Miss Brill serves as a symbol of her hidden deadness, which she subconsciously tries to mask with counterfeit community, fake companionship, and fantasy.

Though Miss Brill imagines that the life-like fur upon her shoulder epitomizes the excitement of the escapade, the fur itself actually serves as a symbol of various qualities of her character. To begin, the fur most strongly represents her inner deadness. Just as the fur is merely a preserved animal cadaver, so Miss Brill looks fine on the outside yet is dead and hollow within because of her isolation. Throughout the text, Miss Brill repeatedly identifies with the fur by wanting to stroke its fur, talking to it, and ascribing to it an amiable personality. Such camaraderie would perhaps be more understandable if the object of her affections was a living animal. However, considering that it is a fur, the corpse of a dead animal, she is identifying herself with a dead creature.

The girl in the story says of the fur, that it looks like a fried whiting. In other words, she believes it looks like a cooked bird, like fried chicken. This description emphasizes the deadness, if not the sickly cadaverousness of Miss Brill's treasured object. In some ways, Miss Brill is herself a dead creature. She is isolated, friendless, without connection or community in which to participate as a valid contributor, yet she is filled with avid enthusiasm, emotion, passion, and wholesome goodness. She longs to find a place to belong, yet she is alone. She lives as an outsider, a mere observer, evidenced by her conversations, which are merely her actions of eves-dropping on the dialogues of others.

The fur also serves as a symbol of the effects of her confinement and solitude. According to the 1889 edition of English Composition and Rhetoric, by Alexander Bain, a symbol is something used to represent the thing signified. Red

tape is the routine of office. Peace is signified by sheathing of the sword. It reads, These signs and circumstances are usually more striking than the main subject; in many instances however, all that is sought or gained is variety of expression. When the story Miss Brill opens, the fur is the symbol of internment. Miss Brill puts on the fur, having just previously removed it from its incarceration in the storage container. Miss Brill takes great pains to brush the fur and polish its eyes to ensure its best appearance. As she watches the crowd, she imagines the eyes of the fur marveling at the change of scenery and transformation of its own appearance. Miss Brill does not recognize herself in any aspect of the fur, yet as she fancies the fur's amazement, so she experiences a similar elation as she emerges from her cloistered existence and immerses herself in the crowds. At the conclusion of the story, Miss Brill returns the fur to its box in her emotional pain of wounded delight. Simultaneously, she descends into a depressive disappointment herself, becoming like her fur in its seasonal concealment.

Beyond merely functioning as a symbol, the fur also acts as an illuminative tool to reveal aspects of Miss Brill's disposition, as she attempts to conceal her deadness and seclusion with false community. One of the most fundamental qualities of Miss Brill's character, her yearning for belonging and companionship, is directly revealed by the fur. For example, Miss Brill comes to the concert with almost the dedication of the orchestral members, identifying herself with them in little ways and longing to feel that she is a part of the event. As she watches the performance, her mind turns to her fur several times. On one occasion she calls it the dear little thing with the familiarity and affection which one would bequeath a cherished pet or child. Though it is an inanimate object, indeed a corpse, she finds in it the solace of a companion in her desperation for community.

The fur also serves to illuminate her subtle dysfunctions. Her solitude and isolation have brought her to such a state of social atrophy that in her quest for a companion she has attributed life-like qualities to her fur. She thinks to herself how she could have taken it off and laid it in her lap and stroked it. She imagines the dim eyes of the fur to say What has been happening to me? fancying that they marvel at the sights of the world outside the fur's constraining storage box. It may be postulated

that Miss Brill even goes so far as self-delusion in her personification of the dead animal on her shoulder. She calls it a little rogue, as though it had personality and even a mischievous character. Though Miss Brill does in no way actually believe that the fur is a living creature, yet she has an unnatural affability with it.

As some children develop reliance upon a blanket or other comforting object for their sense of security, it may be debated that Miss Brill's affection for her fur arises from such a dependency upon it. This could be argued by citing the first line of the story which discloses the balmy conditions of the weather. Evidently, she did not wear the fur for additional warmth, so perhaps her reasoning has moorings in a need for a security object. However, the text of the story does indicate the contrary, for if her affections were of dysfunctional dependency, Miss Brill would have always taken the fur with her on her outings. As it is stated in the book, she decided on her fur. This indicates that she is not always accustomed to taking the fur with her, but that for this occasion she has deemed it most appropriate. However, her subsequent characterization of the fur still indicates some emotional and social dysfunction.

Throughout the story, the beloved fur acts as a mirror to Miss Brill, reflecting her, though she is quite unaware. Eventually, when the fur is slighted by derogatory criticism, Miss Brill realizes the connection between her and the fur. She does not understand fully, yet gradually she realizes that the fur cannot be a companion, that it merely reveals and ascribes deadness to her. She is repulsed by this revelation and walks home gravely disappointed and forlorn. When she returns to her home she goes to the dark room and quickly removes the fur, placing it in the box. This is a pivotal point of the story, for it is the moment in which Miss Brillhaving just discovered her dysfunctionsmust choose whether she shall continue in her shallow though moderately comfortable life of self-deception, retreat to the security of her room like a cupboard in a state of melancholy despair, or to cast aside the veil of segregation. Thus the fur is both the object of her dysfunctions, the symbol of her deadness and confinement, and the mirror of revelation.