Miss Brill

Mansfield’s “Miss Brill” Miss Brill is a short story about an old lonely woman, but instead of being depressed she creates a world of her own in which she is important and valued. She enjoys going to the park on Sunday, but an unkind couple she overhears will change the way she sees herself. As the story begins, she is preparing for her first Sunday trip of the new season. In honor of this …

…puts her fur back quickly without looking. Miss Brill still denies some of her emotions when “she thought she heard something crying” at the very end of the story, when the tears are obviously her own. Miss Brill is a very sympathetic character due to her loss of connection to the world and to her own feelings. At the end when her whole world is shattered by two uncaring youths, I could only pity her.