Miss Brill Symbolism

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In Katherine Mansfield’s short story, “Miss Brill,” Mansfield develops the characterization of the protagonist by using various literary devices. Miss Brill is a lonely lady who treats materials, such as her fox fur, as humans and spends time judging people at the park on a regular basis. Imagery, parallelism, and symbolism expose Miss Brill’s true identity. These three devices work together to strengthen the evidence of Miss Brill’s personality. Mansfield includes imagery to help characterization by vividly explaining Brill’s routine during her free time. When Miss Brill settles herself into her “special seat,” next to an elderly couple, the author describes Brill as disappointed because, “Miss Brill always looked forward to the conversation” …show more content…
The same quote previously quoted about the fox symbolizes Miss Brill herself because of the shine that she has lost through old age. Miss Brill is no longer shiny and new like the fox use to be. As Miss Brill and the fox fur got older, their good qualities slowly disappeared. Although Brill does not recognize it in the beginning, the fox represented who she is and how unimportant she is to others.
Mansfield then includes parallelism to tie the characterization all together. In the beginning before her unfortunate epiphany, she judges the elderly as “odd, silent, nearly all old, and from the way they stared they looked as though they'd just come from dark little rooms or even cupboards” (Mansfield 2). This quote reveals that Miss Brill thinks so highly of herself that she is unaware of the fact that she is similar to the people she judges. At the end, Mansfield writes, “But to-day she passed the baker's by, climbed the stairs, went into the little dark room her room like a cupboard,” to show that she is like the odd, old people. Mansfield includes “little dark room” and “cupboards” two different times to form parallelism to place Miss Brill in the same category as the old people once she realizes it
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