FREE ESSAY ON CONFLICT IN MISS BRILL BY KATHERINE MANSFIELD

CONFLICT IN MISS BRILL BY KATHERINE MANSFIELD

PART II:
CONFLICT IN "MISS BRILL"
Katherine Mansfield's short story "Miss Brill" outlines an old woman's lack of
understanding for a world that she observes so intimately. The story is told from the
point of view of an aging insignificant character, who on this particular Sunday is
cruelly forced to see herself in a different light. This essay will study Miss Brill's
forced development, and the conflict(s) she must face in this story.
The story is so completely the language Miss Brill uses to describe her world, that it is
left difficult to discuss. In fact, the inclination is to just quote the brilliantly
written sentences. The protagonist on the other hand, Miss Brill herself, is not
brilliant at all. Miss Brill is the audience to a 'play' pretending like she is starring
in it, when really she is barely one of the most insignificant roles. "No doubt somebody
would have noticed if she hadn't been there; she was part of the performance after all"
(100). The woman, likely 55 or older from Mansfield's physical descriptions, lives her
life and thrives in it through other people's experiences. After all, "she had really
become an 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" (98). Miss Brill's
inauthentic yet darkly happy view on life comes to an abrupt halt when a young woman
loudly insults her, describing her fur as "like a fried whiting", and then the young
man's attack of "who wants her? Why doesn't she keep her silly old mug at home?" (100).
Miss Brill appears to be her own antagonist. So fictitious is her life, made up of
secondhand experience (and secondhand furs!), that she "imagines she hears something
crying in the box" (101) but really she is just incapable of recognizing the root of her
tears, which today is grief and humiliation. Miss Brill's development is minimal, even
after her little rude awakening in the park. In the story's descriptive beginning, she
wanders around somewhat aimlessly playing her role as the observer. At the mood-darkening
end Miss Brill still appears to be an observer, but this time one that is close to
understanding her own hopeless situation. This time much closer to the truth than earlier
the same day.
Bibliography
miss brill by Katherine mansfield