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Loneliness In Katherine Mansfield's Miss Brill

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A person who is lonely is defined with various depressing feelings that are caused by being by oneself. “They did not speak. This was disappointing, for Miss Brill always looked forward to the conversation.”(Mansfield 183) In “Miss Brill”, time and time again Miss Brill earns for a companionship, which in the end leads to her heart getting broke. Katharine Mansfield’s character, Miss Brill, encounters a realization in life everyone fears: loneliness and aging, due to the hurtful words of people. Katherine Mansfield’s “Miss Brill” is based in a time and place where many people were going through a state of chaos: Europe in the 1920s. Still recovering from one World War and in the midst of another, unlike other European countries’ people, France’s …show more content…

“Although it was so brilliantly fine–the blue sky powdered with gold and great spots of light like white wine splashed over the JardinsPubliques–Miss Brill was glad that she had decided on her fur.” (Mansfield 182) Miss Brill even had a weekly routine of appearing at the town park and eating a honey cake.Midway through Miss Brill’s day, her confidence takes a blow. This positive mindset is lacerated by the harsh words of couples, including the fur coat and being called “a stupid old thing” (188).After the devastation of her pride, Miss Brill decides to leave the park and the promise of finding a companionship in her dark life. She even skips out on her Sunday honey cake, which further shows the devastation that Miss Brill is experiencing. Even though this is a poignant predicament in the story, Miss Brill does what is least expected of her: putting the fur coat away. This is the low point in the story and Mansfield even goes along to say, “She unclasped the necklet quickly; quickly, without looking, laid it inside. But when she put the lid on she thought she heard something crying.” (Mansfield 189) This shows how attached Miss Brill is to her aged fur

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This conveys that an individual may experience deep feelings of sadness and depression caused by loneliness and not being listened to, thus enforcing the importance for a transition to occur in life to enable her to experience positive

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It is known that loneliness sometimes makes us senseless. In Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of her Peers” loneliness made Minnie Foster irrational. Mrs. Hale assumes that Mrs. Wright is guilty of killing her husband because of her nonchalant answers she gives when being interrogated about her husband’s location. During the story the reader will learn more about Mrs. Wright, or Minnie Foster, and how her personality changed drastically through her twenty years of marriage with John while Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are covering up the tracks that they presume led to murder. They conclude that loneliness made her lose herself which is evident throughout the short story.

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She wore this old and shabby fur coat that she loved dearly. The coat of fur was a part of her life, she treated and spoke to the coat as if it was a live. Miss Brill loved to listen and watch her surroundings in the park. She even found herself eavesdropping on people in

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Katherine Mansfield wrote about an aged woman, Miss Brill who is isolated from the real world. Miss Brill attempts to build a fantasy life to protect herself from the harsh facts of her existence. The short story “Miss Brill” is very descriptive and has decent examples of imagery to help readers better understand and see what is happening. Robert Peltier mentioned that “Miss Brill” has a rise and fall in each paragraph, so in his overview of “Miss Brill”, he also “chose the rise and fall of every paragraph to fit her, and fit her on that day at that moment” (Peltier), to help readers picture what is happening. The character Miss Brill does not look past what is present, which causes her to be narrow minded and not understand why things happen

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