illustration of Miss Brill crying and standing with her hand lightly resting on a fur around her neck

Miss Brill

by Katherine Mansfield

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Miss Brill Metaphor Activity

by eNotes

  • Released February 18, 2020
  • Language Arts and Literature subjects
  • 9 pages
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Grade Levels

Grade 10

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Grade 12

Grade 9

Excerpt

This activity gives students an opportunity to practice examining and analyzing metaphors. Metaphors express images, emotions, actions, experiences, and nuances through direct and indirect comparisons, allowing readers to access deeper levels of meaning in the text. In this activity, students will classify and analyze different kinds of metaphors in order to develop close reading skills and draw inferences from the text.

Katherine Mansfield’s short story “Miss Brill” tells the story of an English teacher living abroad in France as she makes her weekly trip to the public park to observe the people there. Because the story unfolds as a stream of Miss Brill’s consciousness, metaphors offer insight into her character, especially in terms of how she views the people and environment around her. These metaphors also hint at just how deeply Miss Brill longs for human connection, allowing her to feel, if only briefly, a connection to those around her.

Skills: analysis, drawing inferences from text, close reading, identifying the relationship between words

Learning Objectives:
In completing this activity, students will

  • examine metaphors in a text;
  • classify metaphors in a text as direct and indirect;
  • analyze metaphors by focusing on the two things being compared and interpreting how one of them is described through the comparison.

About

Our eNotes Classroom Activities give students opportunities to practice developing a variety of skills. Whether analyzing literary devices or interpreting connotative language, students will work directly with the text. The main components of our classroom activities include the following:

  • A handout defining the literary elements under discussion, complete with examples
  • A step-by-step guide to activity procedure
  • An answer key or selected examples for reference, depending on the activity

In completing these classroom activities, students will be able to classify and analyze different literary elements, thereby developing close-reading skills and drawing deeper inferences from the text.