Notes On "Miss Brill" by Catherine Mansfield

Miss Brill

"Miss Brill" is a short story by Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923). It was first published in Athenaeum on 26 November 1920, and later reprinted in The Garden Party and Other Stories.

Plot Summery

The story is about Miss Brill, a middle-aged English teacher living by the Jardins Publiques, the Public Gardens, in a French town. The story begins by Miss Brill "deciding on her fur[...] dear little thing! It was nice to feel it again" The fur is something very dear to her, as she rubs the fur, seeming to put life into the eyes. It follows her on a regular Sunday afternoon in the park, which she spends walking and sitting in the park. She sees the world as a play, if it were a stage, and enjoys watching the people around her, often judging them condescendingly and eavesdropping on the strangers. The reader learns that Miss Brill's life must be unfilled and this is how she develops her pride. When she arrives at the park, she notices that there are more people than last Sunday, and the band is especially louder because the Season had commenced. Sitting next to her on the bench was an elderly couple. Their lack of conversation disappointed Miss Brill because she enjoys, "sitting in other people's lives just for a minute while they talked round her. Watching others in the park, she notices that most of the people that sit on the benches are the same; the people are elderly, silent, idle, and appear as though they have come from a small dark place. A woman drops her violet roses, only to be picked up and returned by a young boy. The woman proceeds to dispose of them, and Miss Brill does not know if that is to be well-regarded. After the elderly couple left the bench, Miss Brill seemed to believe that even she took part in the play as she attended every Sunday. Beginning to daydream about how she reads to an elderly man four times a week, she plays a scenario in her mind with the man. She visions that he would no longer sleep through the stories as he normally does once he realized he was an actress, and he would become engaged and excited. Continuing her idea of the play as the band played a new song, she visioned everybody in the park taking part in the song and singing, and she begins to cry at the thought of this. A young couple sit on the bench where the elderly couple had been before. Miss Brill believes they are nicely dressed and she is prepared to listen. As she does, she hears the boy make a rude remark about her being a "stupid old thing", and the girl responds, "It's her fu-fur which is so funny," which hurts Miss Brill terribly because of her love of her fur. On her way home, a typical Sunday would involve the purchase of cake at the bakery, but instead she went home into her own dark room. As she quickly put her fur back in its box, she hears a cry, this cry is Miss Brill. The reason why the story says, "she thinks she hears a cry" is because Miss Brill does not want to accept that she is the one crying, or accept herself for that matter. Mansfield's personification throughout the passage reveals a sense of loneliness belonging to Miss Brill for she not only fabricates a connection with the other park goers, but also personifies her inanimate piece of clothing by conversing with it as well as feeling for it.

Point Of View

"Miss Brill" is written in the Third Person Limited Omniscient point of view. We know only what is going on inside Miss Brill’s mind and what she sees and hears. This is the case until later in the story, after she is rejected by the young people, and the narration switches to Dramatic.

Symbols

Fur-She refers to the fur as a "rogue" which is ironic that she is very attached to this garment. A rogue is an adventurer which she lacks in her life. It is also a male, which she does not have in her life either. The fur lives a similar story as she does, living in a dark small room, getting hit in the nose as she did when the boy made the rude remark about her, and when returning to the box, crying for its destruction, and Miss Brill crying for her hurt soul.

Ermine toque-The nice fur has now decayed and withered. This fur is similar to those sitting on the benches at the park, and Miss Brill herself.

Orchestra-Her emotions are reflective of the gaiety of the songs played by the orchestra. The orchestra mostly plays throughout Miss Brill's entire park experience. It is her that ranges in emotions, like the many genres the orchestra must have played. This was the trimming on judge's robes in Europe, and a sign of honor and purity.

Major Motifs

• loneliness
• illusion versus reality
• rejection
• isolation

Literary Analysis

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 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?