In addition to the theme of pain in loneliness, there is Miss Brill’s painful human need to belong. Mansfield’s skillful intervention between what Miss Brill literally sees and what her imagination invents happens with her attempt to participate in life as more than a spectator. Miss Brill tries to live her life through complete strangers. She looks forward to eavesdropping on people’s conversations, thinking that she is going unnoticed. The fact that Miss Brill can’t live her life and keep to herself also impresses the tone of lonesome on the reader. While listening to peoples’ conversations, Miss Brill sometimes becomes antagonistic towards the women she listens to, like the wife that was talking with her Englishman husband on the bench
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She suffers in the beginning because she longs for comfort and companionship. Throughout the story, she later on becomes self-aware of some of her problems but then quickly goes back to denying them. The tone of the story remains consistant throughout, which allows the reader to feel sorrow for Miss Brill. Mansfield creates the tone through the protagonists’ thoughts, feelings, and actions. By having the tone the same from beginning to end and the foreshadowing of Miss Brill’s thoughts showing how she actually is, displays that Mansfield knew how she wanted the piece to end and carefully assembled her work to relay the specific message she wanted to get across. Mansfield’s influence on the structure of the short story is built upon ‘her technique, which includes her using small, seemingly inconsequential moments of decision, defeat, and minor triumph, to reveal the psychological depths of her characters’ (Mansfield 371). A significant theme that she had in her works was the dame seule, the “woman alone”(Mansfield 371). The point of view also have to be controlled from within the character so that the indefinability of life’s meaning can be captured through an epiphany. Her originality inspired many writers by her techniques which became substantial (Mandel …show more content…
Author of Hemingway’s “Death in the Afternoon”, Mariam B. Mandel, expressed her appreciation of Mansfield’s writing style and techniques. She expressed that the short story, “Miss Brill”, had “a highly functional application of figurative language which enables the reader to understand and evaluate the character... “Miss Brill” relies on sense imagery, with which Mansfield regularly expounds the familiar themes of helplessness and of preying.” Mandel discusses the application of figurative language in the short story “Miss Brill”. Mansfield was able to give the reader a deeper understanding and evaluation of the character with the story’s reliance on sense imagery (Mandel 2002). Miss Brill was able to connect with the reader by focusing on sight and
She suffers in the beginning because she longs for comfort and companionship. Throughout the story, she later on becomes self-aware of some of her problems but then quickly goes back to denying them. The tone of the story remains consistant throughout, which allows the reader to feel sorrow for Miss Brill. Mansfield creates the tone through the protagonists’ thoughts, feelings, and actions. By having the tone the same from beginning to end and the foreshadowing of Miss Brill’s thoughts showing how she actually is, displays that Mansfield knew how she wanted the piece to end and carefully assembled her work to relay the specific message she wanted to get across. Mansfield’s influence on the structure of the short story is built upon ‘her technique, which includes her using small, seemingly inconsequential moments of decision, defeat, and minor triumph, to reveal the psychological depths of her characters’ (Mansfield 371). A significant theme that she had in her works was the dame seule, the “woman alone”(Mansfield 371). The point of view also have to be controlled from within the character so that the indefinability of life’s meaning can be captured through an epiphany. Her originality inspired many writers by her techniques which became substantial (Mandel …show more content…
Author of Hemingway’s “Death in the Afternoon”, Mariam B. Mandel, expressed her appreciation of Mansfield’s writing style and techniques. She expressed that the short story, “Miss Brill”, had “a highly functional application of figurative language which enables the reader to understand and evaluate the character... “Miss Brill” relies on sense imagery, with which Mansfield regularly expounds the familiar themes of helplessness and of preying.” Mandel discusses the application of figurative language in the short story “Miss Brill”. Mansfield was able to give the reader a deeper understanding and evaluation of the character with the story’s reliance on sense imagery (Mandel 2002). Miss Brill was able to connect with the reader by focusing on sight and