Fietkau 1 Angela Fietkau Professor A.

Sanfilippo LIT 100 Intro to Literature 13 March 2011

The Beauty of Miss Brill Katherine Mansfields short story is more than an account of someone who enjoys people watching. Through skillful plot arrangement, Miss Brill captivates its readers while simultaneously presenting them with a study of human character and aesthetics. It is remarkable how Mansfield accomplishes so much within the confines of a short story. From the first line, Miss Brill takes you on mysterious journey that does not reveal itself right away. Like poetry, the message behind the words comes after a few readings but I believe it is well worth it. The exposition skillfully creates intrigue for the story and sympathy for the protagonist. Mansfield accomplishes this by plopping the reader unannounced within the protagonists stream of consciousness. The reader experiences images of beauty and cheerfulness without its context and allows them to appreciate the images they create on their own. This is true for one of the very first images we are introduced to the blue sky powdered with gold and great spots of light like white wine splashed( Mansfield par 1). Once we figure out she is describing an autumn view of the park the beauty of the image remains with us. Another interesting view is given with The old people sat on the bench, still as statues. Never mind, there was always the crowd to watch (Mansfield par 5). Here we have an image of old people, compared to the protagonist, and her optimistic change of focus to watch the crowd. At this point we do not know her age but can guess she believes to be younger than they are. Even though

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we later understand Miss Brill may be the same age as those who first share her seat, we are able to appreciate her youthful and optimistic spirit. This image allows the reader to feel sympathy for Miss Brill at the end of the story because we were given a sense of what her perceptions meant to her. In essence, the exposition of Miss Brill enhanced the readers perception of the beauty and characterization of the story. The internal conflict shown in Miss Brill is a struggle between the protagonists perception of the world and its reality. Through this recurring conflict, the reader is shown many examples of how perception can change the world around us. We see this with how Miss Brill lovingly describes her shabby fur, how she looks at other old people as strange and in how she spontaneously becomes overwhelmed with a sense of belonging to people she has never met. At the time of this rising action, the reader begins to fully understand how far apart Miss Brill is with reality. We see how separated Miss Brill must feel from the people around her because she does not talk to a soul throughout the story. She eavesdrops on conversations and imagines being together with them in a play rather than connecting with something. This conflict gives the reader the impression that she is lonely and lives in a fantasy that is not real but at least is happy. This impression quickly changes within the last paragraphs of the story. The crisis that brings our protagonists illusions to a sudden halt occurs when two young people sit on her bench and express a very different perspective of her than she believes. Their first impression of her appearance is of an old, strange and shabbily dressed women and it conflicts with how the reader has come to know Miss Brill through her thoughts and actions. This is the first time the reader is able to view Miss Brill from the outside and it supports the growing suspicions that she is not living in reality. What

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they see is similar to how she described the old man she reads the paper to during the week. If hed been dead she mightnt have noticed for weeks; she wouldnt have minded (Par. 9). Now, suddenly shes being called old and her precious fur stole is being compared to fried fish, and her world begins to fall apart. Through this crisis, Miss Brills fantasies crumble around her and she comes to the realization that her own perception was far from the truth. The recognition of the short story gives us full perspective of how significant the two young people were to the story. Miss Brill, being stripped from her beautiful perceptions of the world, returns to her room and puts away her fur. The tone of this last paragraph is very different than the previous paragraphs of the story. She realizes that she is old and alone like the other old people she sees sitting on the benches every Sunday afternoon. Her precious fur, who she so lovingly described before, is quickly shoved back into its box without caress. Miss Brill is a wonderfully thought provoking short story which gave its readers a chance to see how important our perception of the world is. We have the ability to change the world around us by changing how we view it. This short story also taught us that people are not always as they seem. A shabbily dressed, silent and staring old woman may be taking in the beauty of the world or grandly participating in her own version of reality.

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Works Cited

Mansfield, Katherine. Miss Brill. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 6th compact ed. New York: Longman, 2010. 84-87. Print.