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"." by Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) Katherine Mansfield was born in to a socially prominent family and moved to England at the age of 19 to attend University, in her case Queen’s College. Though originally thinking she would be a cellist, she contributed to the school newspaper, eventually becoming its editor, and began writing fiction seriously in 1906, shortly after returning to New Zealand following a tour of continental Europe. She quickly grew tired of the provincialism of New Zealand, however, and returned to London in 1908. Her most famous work, a collection of short stories called The Garden Party – which includes “Miss Brill” – was published just one year before she died of in 1923. From: The Garden Party, and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield. 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. The way that Miss Brill talks to her coat – a decidedly odd thing to do – suggests to the reader that she might be crazy. Yet the precision of her observations quickly makes it clear that she isn’t really crazy, while the details about bringing her coat out of storage and “rubbing the life into it” clearly refer to Miss Brill herself as well. And so it becomes clear that Miss Brill is someone who has herself been in a kind of “storage” – who is intensely alone and lonely – and these trips to the park are what “rub the life into her.” Yet her loneliness 2 seems not entirely evident to her, and she seems to intensely love this trip to the park, and to feel a kind of power in her connection to what’s going on. Whether it really is amazing that she can predict the next note, she feels that it is.

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.

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. Miss Brill doesn’t just sit in a seat. She sits in a particular, “special” seat. On the one hand, this shows how the park-going is a ritual for her. On the other, note her sense of her own specialness. Miss Brill is remarkably curious. She tends to insert herself into the lives of others, as she judges people for what she hears. Her disappointment at the old couple’s silence stems from her inability to connect with them in any meaningful way.

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 curve round your ears, little pads inside the bridge. No, nothing would 3 please her. "They'll always be sliding down my nose!" Miss Brill had wanted to shake her.

The old people sat on a 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! Endlessly curious, Miss Brill pays very close attention to the world around her and notices the minute interactions people have with one another. Miss Brill’s observation of the people in the stands shows the distinction between those in the stands and those on the field. The people in the field are all differentiated and lively, whereas those in the stands are meek, lonely, old. In one way or another, Miss Brill notices, life has passed these people by. Yet at the same time that Miss Brill makes such acute observations, it is obvious to the reader that she has no such ability to observe herself. She, too, is in the stands. But she sees herself as different from those seated around her.

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.

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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 whether to admire that or not! And now an ermine toque and a gentleman in gray 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 someone 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. Not are all the people glamorous: the ermine toque—the white hat that is the sole descriptor applied to a woman, as if to indicate the centrality of clothing to one’s appearance and even social position—turns out to be shabby. Again note how Miss Brill’s observations of others are so precise, while she has no such ability to recognize how she might appear to others. This part of the story is foreshadowing. It turns out that not every human interaction that Miss Brill notices around her is a positive one. The woman’s kindness is not acknowledged, and in fact it is rebuffed.

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 5 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 [Page 187] that made it so exciting. They were all on 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 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 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." Miss Brill is imaginative and optimistic about the way she sees the world. Though she has only spoken to her fur coat so far in the story, her idea of a kind of universal play displays her sense of deep connection between all people. And she asserts her own essentialness in this world as well—if all the world is a play, then every actor is important, is critical to the scene.

She is frustrated by her employment, and her theory gives her a way to imagine that even as she is reading to him while he ignores her, that she is at the same time part of something greater than herself. Miss Brill’s self-delusion becomes more evident to the reader as she has these self-justifying, self-protective thoughts, which she does not recognize as self-justifying or self-protective.

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– 6 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.

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 chère–"

"No, not here," said the girl. "Not yet." The boy and the girl replace the old couple, indicating the way younger generations replace older. Miss Brill instinctively romanticizes them—she sees them as rich, glamorous heroes of the play, who are in love, because they dress nicely and because they are young, fitting the stereotype of romantic heroes in films and books. Miss Brill is attracted to their conversation and includes them in the all-inclusive theory she holds about humanity.

Nonetheless, the boy and the girl, who seem so perfect at first, turn out to be arguing. The boy wanting something and the girl saying not here. The boy, in anger, then lashes out at Miss Brill, and the two young people then unite against Miss Brill in mockery. 7

Rejecting Miss Brill, they find a way to agree with each other. Yet in doing so they also break the romance of Miss Brill’s illusion of people united in a universal play, and of her own important role in that play. Through the eyes of the boy and girl, Miss Brill finds her sense of her own specialness punctured. Her beloved fur coat is actually shabby, like the ermine torque.

On her way home she usually bought a slice of honeycake 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. The climax of the story, the revelation to Miss Brill of how others see her. She can no longer delight in the small surprises that she waits for. The repetition of the “cupboard” image demonstrates that Miss Brill now sees herself as the boy and girl see her: as just another of the people in the stands, as “odd, silent, old.” Her fur coat, which before seemed to connect her to a time when it was new and she was younger, now becomes a symbol of her shame and loneliness. When she presses it back into its box she commits the same sort of rejection of which she is herself a victim. No longer can she believe the illusions of inclusiveness and grandeur that always accompanied her on the way back and forth from the park every Sunday. And the sound of crying that she hears suggests that she knows that in shutting away the fur coat she is committing also to shutting herself up in her “room like a cupboard,” in her lonely life.

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Point of view: third-person point of view limited omniscient Exposition: Miss Brill remarks on the fact that there are many more people in the park than last Sunday, giving us the information that Miss Brill has been to the park on numerous Sundays. Rising Action: The rising action consists of Miss Brill's day in the park, which embodies the majority of the story. Miss Brill is sitting in the park participating in her own 'play'. Miss Brill goes through her day in the park listening in on other conversations and believing her role in being at the park is very important. Climax: The climax of the story is when Miss Brill is insulted by the two young lovers. Thus, Miss Brill walks directly past the bakery and back into her dark cupboard-like room. The denouement occurs when Miss Brill puts her fur coat in its box and she then claims she hears 'something' crying. Narration “Miss Brill” is told in a third-person, stream-of-consciousness narrative, a common device in Mansfield’s works which serves to heighten the story’s psychological acuity and perceptive characterization. Though the narrative is third-person, the stream-of-consciousness technique allows the reader full access to Miss Brill’s thoughts, but nothing more than Miss Brill’s thoughts. Thus, the thoughts of others in the story are revealed by dialogue (such as the young couple’s), or they are not revealed at all (like the couple seated next to Miss Brill who do not speak. The terms ‘stream-of-consciousness’ and ‘interior monologue’ are used interchangeably by some — but stream-of-consciousness refers more often to a first person narrative which mimics the jumble of thoughts, emotions and memories passing through a character’s mind. (That said, interior monologue is not necessarily written in first person.) Stream-of-consciousness tends to be less ordered than interior monologue. That’s because consciousness has no beginning and no end — thoughts move quite randomly from one thing to another. Stream of Consciousness: (presenting things going through the character’s mind). The stream-of- consciousness novel commonly uses the narrative techniques of interior monologue. Interior Monologue = a character talking/thinking, using words specific to that character, making assumptions, mistaken judgements, conclusions RIGHT FOR THAT CHARACTER. 9

Most interestingly, in her short story, Katherine Mansfield employs stream-of- consciousness with her protagonist Miss Brill. For, even though the plot is revealed through the medium of interior monologue. In "Miss Brill" by Katherine Mansfield, there is this passage: "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. (342) The author of "Miss Brill" is using the stream of consciousness in the story. This specific excerpt from the story shows the whole psychological process inside Miss Brill's mind.

Symbolism Instead, Mansfield reveals her main character through . For instance, Miss Brill's old fur serves well to represent Miss Brill, who like the fur taken from its box, leaves her "little cupboard" of a room. When she returns after having heard the mocking remarks of the young couple behind her at the concert, Miss Brill takes off the fur and "quickly, quickly," without looking at it, replaces the fur piece in its box, an act which symbolizes her refusal to recognize how she actually seems to others. Nevertheless, when the fur is in its box and Miss Brill "thought she heard something crying," Mansfield symbolizes the loneliness and alienation that Miss Brill experiences.

Setting: “Miss Brill” is set in the “JardinsPubliques,” the French term for “public garden,” or park. Miss Brill, through her name and the indication that she tutors students in English, is revealed to be a nonnative of France, and thus an outsider from the start. These factual references reinforce her emotional isolation, which she attempts to overcome by pretending that she is a cast member in a stage production. And, although the blue sky is "powdered with gold and great spots of light," there is a "faint chill" in the still air. And, while it is sunny at the concert, Miss Brill's little "cupboard" is a "little dark room." These details of chilly air and darkness suggest Miss Brill's loneliness and disassociation from 10 other people, even though she deceptively imagines them in a play together with her. While the pleasant weather, its crispness perfect for her fur collar, echoes Miss Brill’s good mood as she sits in the garden listening to the band and watching the people. When her illusion of understanding with the others in the park is shattered by the comments of the young couple, however, Miss Brill retreats to her “little dark room—her room like a cupboard.” This change of setting highlights the main character’s abrupt change in mood. Symbol: Fur At the start of the story, Miss Brill speaks fondly to her coat as if it is alive. This strange behavior can be seen as reflecting her nostalgia for a lost youth, when her coat was new and she was at the hopeful age of marriageability. At the end of the story, she puts it back into its box, “without looking”, and “she thought she heard something crying”. This arc from fond engagement with her fur coat to her final rejection of it mirrors how she feels about her own place in society over the course of the story: at first she thinks she is part of the community, a participant in the scene she sees around her, but at the end of the story, after she is rejected by the boy, she concludes that she is not important to anyone else at all. The fur coat in which she delights, she sees in that moment, is actually rather shabby and old, and Miss Brill puts away her coat with the same callousness exhibited by the boy, while its “crying” reflects her own despair. Garments in general in the story – such as the ermine toque, the conductor’s coat, or the boy and girl’s beautiful clothes – serve as a marker of class and importance in the story: if you are not well-dressed, you are not well-regarded either. Themes: Loneliness and Alienation Delusion and Reality Connectedness Youth and Age