“Miss Brill”, written by Katherine Mansfield, is the somber short story of loneliness and disenchantment. Miss Brill, an elderly woman whose most treasured possession is the outdated fur she drapes over her neck, visits the town square to people watch. She has been doing this for so long now that she views the whole scene as a play, of which she believes she is an integral part of, but her world is shattered when two teenagers mock her and complain about her presence as a nuisance. Interestingly, very little popular literature contains an older person as the primary protagonist; in fact, it is a social grouping that often goes vastly unrecognized in the consciousness of the public. Yet through out the narrative, Mansfield is able to successfully
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Typically, children are the ones who fabricate imaginary friends to fill voids when they experience loneliness. Because the fur and the aging woman are basically analogous to a child and his/her imaginary friend, the reader is pushed to perceiving Miss Brill with the same type of patronizing empathy one would a child. As will be argued later in this essay, Miss Brill’s fur enables her to see the world as a spectacle through rose-colored glasses, where she can delude herself into contentment. That is why towards the end of the piece, when Miss Brill overhears a young couple mocking her, her idealized world is shattered. Specifically, a young man attempts to persuade his girlfriend into assumingly being affectionate with him in the public space, and when she refuses, the young man questions her: "But why? Because of that stupid old thing at the end there?...Why does she come here at all—who wants her? Why doesn't she keep her silly old mug at home?" The young lady then responds, “it's [Miss Brill’s] fu-ur which is so funny…It's exactly like a fried whiting" (Mansfield 3). The couple mocks the fur, which acts as the elderly woman’s safety blanket and as an extension of herself, therefore deeply insulting her. Where as before Miss Brill believed herself to be a crucial part in the social composition of the Jardins Publique, she now can no longer hide from the fact that no one cares about her presence. She is utterly alone. She puts away her fur and thinks she hears “something crying,” and the reader has no option but to empathize if he/she already perceives the protagonist as a naïve, ostracized character in need of saving (Mansfield
Typically, children are the ones who fabricate imaginary friends to fill voids when they experience loneliness. Because the fur and the aging woman are basically analogous to a child and his/her imaginary friend, the reader is pushed to perceiving Miss Brill with the same type of patronizing empathy one would a child. As will be argued later in this essay, Miss Brill’s fur enables her to see the world as a spectacle through rose-colored glasses, where she can delude herself into contentment. That is why towards the end of the piece, when Miss Brill overhears a young couple mocking her, her idealized world is shattered. Specifically, a young man attempts to persuade his girlfriend into assumingly being affectionate with him in the public space, and when she refuses, the young man questions her: "But why? Because of that stupid old thing at the end there?...Why does she come here at all—who wants her? Why doesn't she keep her silly old mug at home?" The young lady then responds, “it's [Miss Brill’s] fu-ur which is so funny…It's exactly like a fried whiting" (Mansfield 3). The couple mocks the fur, which acts as the elderly woman’s safety blanket and as an extension of herself, therefore deeply insulting her. Where as before Miss Brill believed herself to be a crucial part in the social composition of the Jardins Publique, she now can no longer hide from the fact that no one cares about her presence. She is utterly alone. She puts away her fur and thinks she hears “something crying,” and the reader has no option but to empathize if he/she already perceives the protagonist as a naïve, ostracized character in need of saving (Mansfield