Leah Vetsch
Intro to Literature
October 5, 2008
Short Fiction
“Finding my place”
The story by Katherine Mansfield “Miss Brill” is a short story about a lady that is looking for her place in this lonely, big world. Towards the end of Miss Brill’s life, she believes that there is a place for her in this world and life does have meaning. She ignores the fact that she is lonely and aging however, these thoughts are shattered when a couple says that she is old and unwanted, she then realizes that her beliefs have been a complete illusion all a long.
Miss Brill is an elderly, lonely lady who treats a faux fur that she owns as if it were human and her only companion. The fur is old, but she thinks that it is elegant. Mansfield states that Miss Brill takes the fur out of the box that afternoon and shakes off the moth powder, and she rubs life back into its “dim little eyes”(Mansfield 83). Miss Brill ignores that she is an elderly woman. When she starts to think of herself as old, she brushes that thought away, very quickly. She has tingling in her hands and arms, but says to herself, “It must have been from walking; she supposed.” (Mansfield 83). She also thinks that, “When she breathed, it was something light and sad – no, not exactly – something gentle moved within her bosom.” In this part, she immediately says, “no, not exactly” and she changes her words, not letting herself think these thoughts because then that would be evidence to herself that she was old(Mansfield 83). She is constantly changing her words and actions to prove to her self that she is not old as well as not lonely in this big world.
All Miss Brill is looking for is a place in this world; a place where she feels loved and
most importantly needed. Duri ...