Comparing Eveline And Miss Brill

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The stories “Eveline” by James Joyce and “Miss Brill” by Katherine Mansfield are ultimately about hope and despair and how the circumstances one is presented and how one reacts can shape the course of a person’s life. The women in the stories are both heartbroken and stuck in the lives they are in. One of them has been overtaken sadness and now must accept the knowledge that her life will always consist of loneliness and despair due to the outside circumstances that are out of her control and the other has made the choice to stay in the darkness despite the chances to move on due to her lack of courage and false sense of responsibility.
The tale of Miss Brill is about an elderly English woman who lives in France. She works as an English tutor. The story takes the readers along with her on her weekly adventure to the concert in the park. Here she sits in a special seat and watches the people around. Here is where she listens to those around her almost inputting herself in their lives …show more content…

For Miss Brill, this moment is in the park when she is sitting listening to the young couple talk initially she was excited to hear them, in hopes she could for a moment live through them. That is when she heard the women was disgusted to look at her fur. She was so disgusted she did not even want to kiss the boy at that time. This is when the boy started to talk about how he did not understand why such an old woman would keep coming to the park. How someone like that should keep herself locked up. At this moment, she realized her life was over and that it was time to stop pretending to be something she is not. She locked away her fur which was the last bit of memories of her younger life. For Eveline, it was the moment on the dock where she made the choice to stay behind. She watched Frank ship off this was the last bit of hope for a new and happy life leaving her

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