Miss Brill - Book Report/Review Example

Miss Brills By using the third person omniscient point of view, Mansfield effectively displays that Miss Brill was attempting to shun loneliness without creating a feeling of compassion. Thus, without harboring Miss Brill’s own standpoint in the third person point of view, this understanding of Miss Brill’s antipathy to loneliness would not be possible. Another idea that can be demonstrated from Miss Brill’s standpoint, which is concealed in the third person point of view, is that she has a habit of going to the park every day as a way of escaping from reality.

Mansfield brilliant use of point of view permits us to share Miss Brill’s perceptions and to acknowledge that those perceptions are exceedingly romanticized. Characterization of Miss Brill is presented indirectly. By narrating the legend in this way, Mansfield is capable of representing Miss Brill’s loneliness, lack of assertiveness and naivety. The story does not give details of Miss Brill’s past, permitting the reader to draw his or her own conclusion. Next, Mansfield offers discernments into Miss Brill’s character and lifestyle that articulates the subject of the story.

Miss Brill is a romantic and an idealist, who apparently does not communicate with actual people and has lost touch with reality. She intentionally tries to experience life sympathetically, and her inexperience only leads to her own pain. An ermine toque in the story symbolizes Miss Brill’s Youth. When Ms. Mansfield establishes the term in the story, she establishes Miss Brill’s who is wearing the fur hat as a symbol that helps in outlining the relationship of loneliness that Miss Brill’s has with her own fur.

Through Miss Brill description of the women in the ermine toque, it is apparent that Miss Brill perceives the woman in relation to the fur she dons. The explanation of the “shabby ermine” proposes that Miss Brill is creating an unconscious link with herself. Ironically, it is with her own type, the old people on benches, that Miss Brill refuses to identify.Work CitedKatherine, Mansfield. Miss Brill. A study Guide from Gale’s Short Stories for Students. New York: Anchor, 2008. Print.