Miss Brill

Katherine Mansfield's Miss Brill captures the fear most reader's possess, growing old and alone. However, it is through literary techniques that Mansfield captures the audiences attention and creates such sympathy for poor, elderly Miss Brill. For example, Mansfield uses personification several times throughout the story with regards to Miss Brill's fur. Miss Brill describes the fur as having eyes that say "What has been happening to me?" (Mansfield, 182). Miss Brill talks to the fur, and believes it to be talking back to her. This particularly saddens the reader, for it is clear Miss Brill must be exceeding lonely to reduce to speaking to inanimate objects as if they were people. Also, Miss. Brill's joy at the beginning of the story stems solely from the act of releasing the fur from storage and getting to wear it. That this simple act brings so much happiness to the women shows how dull the rest of her life must be in comparison. In the final scene, Miss Brill hears unfriendly remarks about her from some teenagers, and then believes to hear the fur crying. This personification of her feelings through the fur show the audience Miss Brill's true lonliness and despair.