In english, is professor emeritus of rhetoric and english at armstrong atlantic state university and the author of two grammar and composition textbooks for college freshmen, writing exercises macmillan and passages: a writer 39 s guide st. Read more after you have finished reading 34 miss brill, 34 by katherine mansfield. Compare your response to the short story with the analysis offered in this sample critical essay. Next, compare 34 miss brill 39 s fragile fantasy 34 with another paper on the same topic, 34 poor, pitiful miss brill. 34 in 34 miss brill, 34 katherine mansfield introduces readers to an uncommunicative and apparently simple minded woman who eavesdrops on strangers, who imagines herself to be an actress in an absurd musical, and whose dearest friend in life appears to be a shabby fur stole. And yet we are encouraged neither to laugh at miss brill nor to dismiss her as a grotesque madwoman. Through mansfield 39 s skillful handling of point of view, characterization, and plot development, miss brill comes across as a convincing character who evokes our sympathy.

Mansfield allows us both to share miss brill 39 s perceptions and to recognize that those perceptions are highly romanticized. Miss brill 39 s view of the world on this sunday afternoon in early autumn is a delightful one, and we are invited to share in her pleasure: the day 34 so brilliantly fine, 34 the children 34 swooping and laughing, 34 the band sounding 34 louder and gayer 34 than on previous sundays. And yet, because the point of view is the third person that is, told from the outside , we 39 re encouraged to look at miss brill herself as well as share her perceptions.

This dual perspective encourages us to view miss brill as someone who has resorted to fantasy i.e. Her romanticized perceptions rather than self pity our view of her as a lonely person. Miss brill reveals herself to us through her perceptions of the other people in the park the other players in the 34 company. 34 since she doesn 39 t really know anyone, she characterizes these people by the clothes they wear for example, 34 a fine old man in a velvet coat, 34 an englishman 34 wearing a dreadful panama hat, 34 34 little boys with big white silk bows under their chins 34 , observing these costumes with the careful eye of a wardrobe mistress. They are performing for her benefit, she thinks, even though to us it appears that they like the band which 34 didn 39 t care how it played if there weren 39 t any strangers present 34 are oblivious to her existence.

Some of these characters are not very appealing: the silent couple beside her on the bench, the vain woman who chatters about the spectacles she should be wearing, the 34 beautiful 34 woman who throws away a bunch of violets 34 as if they 39 d been poisoned, 34 and the four girls who nearly knock over an old man this last incident foreshadowing her own encounter with careless youths at the end of the story. Miss brill is annoyed by some of these people, sympathetic toward others, but she reacts to them all as if they were characters on stage. Miss brill appears to be too innocent and isolated from life to even comprehend human nastiness.

But is she really so childlike, or is she in fact a kind of actress? there is one character whom miss brill appears to identify with the woman wearing 34 the ermine toque she 39 d bought when her hair was yellow. 34 the description of the 34 shabby ermine 34 and the woman 39 s hand as a 34 tiny yellowish paw 34 suggests that miss brill is making an unconscious link with herself. Miss brill would never use the word 34 shabby 34 to describe her own fur, though we know that it is.

Extended Essay Ib English B

The 34 gentleman in gray 34 is very rude to the woman: he blows smoke into her face and abandons her. But to miss brill, this is all just a stage performance with the band playing music that suits the scene , and the true nature of this curious encounter is never made clear to the reader. Could the woman be a prostitute? possibly, but miss brill would never consider this. She has identified with the woman perhaps because she herself knows what it 39 s like to be snubbed in the same way that playgoers identify with certain stage characters.

Could the woman herself be playing a game? 34 the ermine toque turned, raised her hand as though she 39 d seen someone else, much nicer, just over there, and pattered away. 34 the woman 39 s humiliation in this episode anticipates miss brill 39 s humiliation at the end of the story, but here the scene ends happily. We see that miss brill is living vicariously, not so much through the lives of others, but through their performances as miss brill interprets them.