When an old man and old woman sit down next to Miss Brill on her "special" seat in the park, she is disappointed when they don't speak, because she
always looked forward to the conversation. She had become really quite expert, she thought, at listening as though she didn't listen, at sitting in other people's lives just for a minute while they talked round her.
This line shows that Miss Brill is so often alone, and so often without the ability to have a conversation with anyone around her, that she actually looks forward to listening to other people's conversations; for her, this feels satisfying because she has so very little interaction of her own. She cannot help but be lonely.
Soon, Miss Brill begins to think that she and everyone present are actually in a play.
Even she had a part and came every Sunday. No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn't been there; she was part of the performance after all.
Miss Brill thinks that "even she" has a role to play, implying that someone might think that she does not because she does not seem like an active participant in the scene. She seems to assure herself that she would be missed, making it seem as though there is certainly is some question as to whether this is the case. The implication is that she is lonely.
There is no one quotation in this short story in which it is stated outright that Miss Brill is lonely. However, it is implied throughout. Note how, when Miss Brill is in the park, the people she is watching seem to appear in pairs—the older couple, the young couple on the bench, and even people simply walking past. Miss Brill is a "stupid old thing" on her own, who, the young girl says, "nobody wants." Miss Brill tries hard to pretend that this does not bother her, taking small pleasures in such things as her honeycake which she buys as a Sunday treat. However, as she returns to her little room with her fur—of which she is so proud, but which has been mocked by the young girl—it is as if she is symbolically returning herself to her box, just as she is returning the fur.
At the end of the story, when she puts the fur back into its box, Miss Brill "thought she heard something crying" as she sets the lid on. Of course, the fur itself is not crying, but we can infer that Miss Brill is projecting her own loneliness onto the fur, another lonely, old thing which is worse for wear and is confined, stifled and unloved.
They did not speak. This was disappointing, for Miss Brill always looked forward to the conversation. She had become really quite expert, she thought, at listening as though she didn't listen, at sitting in other people's lives just for a minute while they talked round her.
A significant quote showing Miss Brill's loneliness...
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is seen above. It describes for us how Miss Brill conducts her conversations: she is on the fringe and only listening in while pretending to be keeping to herself. In order for Miss Brill to even have a chance at not being lonely, she would need to engage in active conversation with the other concert attendees. The fact that she keeps isolated yet eavesdrops delicately ("She had become really quite expert, ... at listening as though she didn't listen ...") indicates her loneliness.
It must be acknowledged, though, that Miss Brill doesn't deeply feel this loneliness because of the turn of her disposition and the traits of her personality. This natural or deeply bred tendency is illustrated in her pleasure and thoughts while listening to the concert:
Now there came a little "flutey" bit--very pretty!--a little chain of bright drops. She was sure it would be repeated. It was; she lifted her head and smiled.
Nonetheless, she does feel slight stirrings caused by her loneliness, although she seems unable to identify the nature of these stirrings:
And when she breathed, something light and sad--no, not sad, exactly--something gentle seemed to move in her bosom.
What are some quotes demonstrating the theme of loneliness in "Miss Brill"?
While Mansfield never states that Miss Brill is lonely, the story illustrates it in a number of ways. We learn, for example, that Miss Brill lives all alone. She takes her Sunday walk to the park by herself. She never meets anyone she knows at the park: in fact, she doesn't seem to know anyone socially.
While she is in the park, Miss Brill has no one to talk to. She is so lonely that she looks forward to eavesdropping on other people's conversations. Showing she has been doing this sort of eavesdropping for a long time, she thinks,
She had become really quite expert . . . at listening as though she didn't listen, at sitting in other people's lives just for a minute while they talked round her.
We learn that one of Miss Brill's jobs is to read the newspaper to an older man who is so unresponsive he might as well be dead: another evidence of her social isolation.
Finally, the contemptuous words of the young woman Miss Brill is watching near the end of the story show again that she is isolated and unwanted, one of society's disposable discards:
Why does she come here at all—who wants her? Why doesn't she keep her silly old mug at home?
Miss Brill is a person whom other people don't want to be around. She perhaps reminds them of the possibility that they too will end up poor, old, odd, and alone.
What are some quotes demonstrating the theme of loneliness in "Miss Brill"?
There are two central quotes that any analysis of the theme of loneliness in this brilliant short story must identify and comment upon. What is interesting about these two quotes is the way in which they are actually related, as the first quote is used by Miss Brill to describe the lonely lives of others, whereas the second uses the same words to describe her own lonely life at the sad ending of this tale.
Note the way that Miss Brill describes the people that sit around her who she notices come every weekend without failure to sit on the benches:
They were 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--even cupboards!
The way in which Miss Brill refuses to identify herself with the "strange" people amongst which she sits shows how she is unable to see the truth of her condition. Her description of the loneliness of others is strengthened by imagining that they emerge from "cupboards" to come out and sit down. However, note the way that at the end of the story, after overhearing the cruel words of the young couple, she comes to apply the same description to her own life:
But today she passed the baker's by, climbed the stairs, went into the little dark room--her room like a cupboard--and sat down on the red eiderdown.
This quote shows that at least at some level she recognises that she is just like those other people who lead lives consumed by loneliness. In spite of all of her elaborate fantasies, she is forced to recognise the way in which she has an empty life and is incredibly lonely.