Miss Brill Isolation

The short story “Miss Brill” by Katherine Mansfield follows the isolated life of Miss Brill as she is forced to come to terms with her reality.
Lonely and isolated, Miss Brill is a French woman who only looks forward to her weekly Sunday outings to the Jardins Publiques. One of Miss Brill’s key characteristics is her red eiderdown which she cares for greatly. “She has taken it out of its box that afternoon, shaken out the moth powder, give it a good brush, and rubbed the life back into the dim little eyes.” The red eiderdown symbolizes Miss Brill and how these Sunday outings are the highlight of her week, showing just how isolated and out of touch she really is from the world. “She had really become quite expert, she though at listening as though she didn’t listen, at sitting in other people’s lives, just for

a minute while they talked around her.

Rather than engaging in conversations of her own, Miss Brill prefers to observe the other people and listen in to their conversations instead. Although she is constantly surrounded by people in the park, she is still very isolated. She takes pride in the fact that she has gotten so good at listening to other people’s conversations, rather than realizing how she is further isolating her and preventing herself from living life to the fullest. Another defining characteristic of Miss Brill is that she is very concerned with the way she looks and her age. “They were odd, silent, nearly all old, and from the way they stared they looked as though they’d come from dark little rooms or even-even cupboards.” This shows how insecure Miss Brill is about her age and not fully aware of everything in her life. Both Miss Brill and the old people in the park are silent, not engaging in any conversation, and just observing others going about their daily lives. She looks down at the other old people at the park, and fails to realize how similar she actually is to them. She seems to think that by showing disdain towards the other old people will prevent her from being like

them. Miss Brill isolates herself from society and has become so caught up with other people’s lives that she is not fully aware of her own reality.
Miss Brill’s warped views of the world are shattered when she hears a young couple mock her. “Why does she come here at all-who wants her? Why doesn’t she keep her silly old mug at home?” These comments have pulled Miss Brill out of her own world and back into reality. It comes as a large shock to her that these people would find her old. “It’s her fu-ur which is so funny,” show how the eiderdown Miss Brill considered fashionable was actually considered old and out of style. The eiderdown represents how Miss Brill thought she was fashionable and young where as everyone around her thought the exact opposite. Miss Brill is awakened to what others see of her and struggles to come to terms with it. “But today she passed the baker’s by, climbed up the stairs, went into the little dark room-her room like a cupboard.” Miss Brill slowly realizes that she is just like the other old people from the park and ironically continues on to describe her room the same way she described the rooms of the other old people. “But when she put the lid on she thought she heard someone crying.” However, it is safe to say that Miss Brill has not yet fully come to terms with reality as she refuses to acknowledge that it is herself she hears crying.
It was extremely easy for Miss Brill to get caught up in the lives other irrelevant people and neglect her own. This shows that it is sometimes necessary to rem