Miss Brill
This is a beautiful short story by Katherine Mansfield, in which the main
character is a lonely, middle-aged teacher called Miss Brill. She spends every
Sunday afternoon at the Jardins Publiques and always sits on the same bench,
listens to other people’s conversations and judges them by their clothes or
their appearance. She lives her life as if it were a play, being her and the
people around her the actors.
It is the beginning of the Season, it is Sunday, and
as usual, Miss Brill is sitting once again on her bench. But something is
different this time: there are more people in the park, the band sounds greater
than ever, but her life still remains the same. Love is all over the place. A
beautiful young couple sits by her. While she is listening to them she notices
that they are mocking her for the fur she is wearing. Having her feelings hurt,
she decides to go straight home without getting her habitual Sunday treat, a
piece of cake. She enters to her dim room and returns the ermine to its box.
She thinks she hears something crying.
Lack of love is shown throughout the story, giving us
a sense of loneliness that is actually never expressed directly. But we, as
readers can see that Miss Brill tries to fill this empty space that love has
left by watching other couples and hearing their conversations. This story
makes us realize that love is one of the main factors in any person’s life
because it makes the world go around. Sometimes we complain about what we lack
and we do not appreciate what we do have.
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