Girl In Reference To Miss Brill example essay topic

Michelle Hoover English 1023 Katherine Mansfield's "Miss Brill" describes an aging English teacher who routinely visits the Jardins Publiques. The park is where Miss Brill spends her delightful Sunday afternoons "visiting" with the people whom she hardly knows. Miss Brill lacks self-awareness and no information is offered about her apparently empty life. Miss Brill is starving for tenderness and companionship. The lack of children and husband echoes her need for warmth and compassion.

Mansfield uses Miss Brill's actions to illustrate her suffering, pain and bitter loneliness and shows her attempts to experience life through total strangers and their life experiences. Miss Brill is a voyeur, observing, not actually participating in the life at the Jardins Publiques. Miss Brill thinks of herself as "quite expert" (319) in the eavesdropping, she does. She feels accomplished at "sitting in other people's lives just for a minute while they talk around her" (319). Miss Brill's need for companionship is evident in her perception of the band that plays at the Jardins Publiques. "It was like some one playing with only the family to listen" (319) denoting Miss Brill considers herself as a member of the family instead of the audience.

The lack of respect and value others demonstrate for family and male companionship angers Miss Brill. This assumptive observation becomes apparent when she is critical of those she observes. Miss Brill views the man who shares her "special" seat as "a fine old man" (319) while the woman is referred to as "a big old woman" (319). She even takes a hostile attitude when she remembers an event that occurred the previous Sunday. The husband, a patient Englishman, has a difficult wife and the conversation disturbed Miss Brill to the point she " wanted to shake" (319) the ungrateful wife.

These observations suggest that Miss Brill shows envy and disgust for the women at the park who have male companionship. Miss Brill looks forward to her "Sunday after Sunday" (319) ritual where the people theatrically contribute to her pleasure. The band is playing the musical score for the play. The gossip is the dialogue of the play. The actors are the crowd and they are wearing costumes for their parts.

The little boys are wearing "big white silk bows under their chins" (319) and little girls, "French dolls, dressed up in velvet and lace" (319). Miss Brill notices there is "something funny about nearly all" (319) of the people who sat on the benches and green chairs. She even believes she is an actor also when she tells the invalid, "Yes, I have been an actress for a long time" (320). Finally, Miss Brill disillusioned by denial, faces the agonizing existence she lives.

Her enlightening experience involving a young couple in the park is overwhelming. The boy tries to get the young girl to do something in public and she refuses repeatedly. The young boy gets agitated and questions the girl in reference to Miss Brill who is sitting at the end of the bench, "Because of that old thing? Why doesn't she keep her silly old mug at home?" (321) Miss Brill is shocked and appalled by the comments. The realization of her age, looks, and persona is more than she can accept.

On the way home, she did not stop at the bakery as usual for her "slice of honey cake" (321). Instead, she climbed the stairs, went to her dark little room and sat for a long time. Miss Brill is unable to accept her identity as revealed to her. Just as life mimics art and art mimics life, for Miss Brill, the actor, her play is over and she cannot paint her life, as she wants forcing her to accept herself for whom she is in reality.

At the end of the story, Miss Brill "thought she heard something crying" (321) it is she that is crying.