What Is The Allusive Phrased In Katherine Mansfield's Miss Brill

In the story “Miss Brill” by Katherine Mansfield, the titular protagonist, Miss Brill, an older woman, struggles to reconcile with depression brought on by the continuity of an increasing generational divide and her own unbearably lonely life. The subtle technique by which this is brought about in the consciousness of the reader can be explained as such: Firstly, a first person perspective gives the reader a completely subjective account of events; secondly, a third person perspective gives the reader a definitively objective account of events; thirdly, because “Miss Brill” fails to adhere exclusively to either definition, a new category is necessary. The characteristics of this hybrid perspective are shifting narrative attention, the use of

By parsing each of these excerpts through the previously introduced functional characteristics of our “hybrid perspective”, this projection can be better understoond in terms of the thesis. The characteristic most dominant in each relevant composite is allusive phrasing. Allusive phrasing weaves itself into observations made by Miss Brill as unnecessary qualifiers that evince an awareness that can be attributed to aspects of both third and first person perspective; specifically, an objective observation and/or a subconscious awareness of the motive behind her own cognitive biases. References to earlier phrasing are also examples of this, especially since they come about after an overwhelming reality check that would reasonably cause her grasp on these devices to slip a little. Using them as if they were objective remove any hint of her architectural involvement – seeing herself pulling the strings would ruin the whole façade. Here is where the fox fur is first

Phrases applied include that she’d bought it “when her hair was yellow,” calling it “shabby,” and the sentence “The ermine toque was alone; she smiled more brightly than ever.” The first is a reference to Miss Brill’s loss of youth, and the second is her feelings on how this deteriorates her value a person. The experience the prostitute finds herself in after the altercation recounted also parallels Miss Brill’s own denial through overemotional compensation. At the end of the story, Miss Brill is left with this tactic as her only final defense. She succumbs to making the link between the elderly she has observed as seeming to come from cupboards and her own condition with the phrase “…her room like a cupboard” (4), which is used to describe it only at the end. When Miss Brill takes off her fur, it happens like this: “She unclasped the necklet quickly; quickly, without looking, laid it inside. But when she put the lid on she thought she heard something crying” (4). Although she doesn’t fully acknowledge that she herself is the one crying and not the fur, it is a step in a different direction from the original tone of the story. Allusive phrasing, as seen in some part already,