赏析凯瑟琳娜·曼斯菲尔德 Miss Brill

A brief Appreciation of Miss Brill

To other people, it is an illusion; to Miss Brill, it

’

s a dream. Miss Brill is a lonely

old

spinster.

On

the

fine

Sunday

afternoon,

she

is

very

glad

go

to

a

park,

which

regarded as the Sunday treat by herself. She enjoys herself by watching the band play,

by looking at various people in the park and listening to their conversations. She feels

she is a member of the community and she would be noticed and missed if she fails to

be

there.

However,

the

conversation

between

a

boy

and

a

girl

made

Miss

Brill

suddenly knows the truth that no one cares about her. Finally, she came back home to

face the reality alone and sadly.

Katherine Mansfield is a woman writer who enjoys the reputation of

“

a master of

short

stories”.

She

has

made

great

contribution

to

the

development

of

the

modern

short stories. Her language of novels has the unique feature, like poems. The ends of

her novels, because of her extraordinary arrangement as well as the writing techniques,

are often out of blue, like

Miss Brill

, which make her novel more impressive and her

theme more touching. I want to analyze one of her masterpieces Miss Brill from two

aspects of theme and techniques.

1. Theme

Miss Brill can be described as miserable, lonely, old lady.

However, compared

with

terrible

living

condition,

I

think

Miss

Brill

is

more

afraid

of

loneliness.

Her

hopeless escaping from the reality is nothing but avoid of confronting the world alone.

For example,

“

Miss Brill always looked forward to the conversation

”

,

“

even she had a

part and came every Sunday. No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn

’

t

been there; she was part of the performance after all.

”

She is so cheerful when she is

sitting in the park to be a witness of all the people there. She is observing carefully,

including every single actions and facial expressions, and sometimes she even makes

up the dialogue between people. Maybe no one talks to her in daily life. I don

’

t think

that young people will spend the whole afternoon sitting in a park to watch people. It

is an action we regard as waste of time, while it is a banquet to Miss Brill. To some

extent,

she

is

old

enough

to

have

a

rest

and

enjoy

her

later

years.

But

we

can

also

know that there

’

s nothing for her to do even care about. All the people she observes

are companied by someone, including the aged people she slightly laughs at, except

her. It can explain why the conversation between the boy and the girl hurts Miss Brill

so deeply. She is so afraid of facing the truth that

“

who wants her?

”

Therefore, we can conclude that loneliness is the center theme of this novel. This

also warns us about our society, which takes bad care about the aged people. Besides,

the lives we will be confronted with in our latter years.

2. Contributive Techniques

The reason why this novel can touch us so much is that the author thoughtfully

arranged the plot and used some techniques. In my opinion, contrast and epiphany are

the most important ones.

First of all, we can find how beautiful the colors and pictures Miss Brill sees. For