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At a glance:
- Author: Katherine Mansfield
- First Published: 1920
- Type of Plot: Character study
- Time of Work: About 1920
- Setting: A coastal city in France
- Characters: Miss Brill, A youth and his girlfriend
- Genres: Short fiction, Character study
- Subjects: Exile or expatriates, Emotions, Loneliness, Pretensions, Aging
- Locales: France, Europe
The Story
An aging, lonely woman living in Paris and maintaining herself by teaching English is the subject of this character portrait by Katherine Mansfield. Miss Brill’s life is one of shabby gentility and pretense; this impression commences in the opening paragraph as she lovingly takes an old-fashioned fox fur out of its box for her usual Sunday outing to the gardens. Looking forward to the new Season, she is, however, distracted by a peculiarly ominous feeling that seems to be in the air and for which she does not know how to account—“like the chill from a glass of...
(The entire page is 1739 words.)
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Recommended Questions
- How does the literary device "point of view" operate in Mansfield's "Miss Brill"?
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