Author Question: Where and in what season does Mansfields story take place? Would theeffect be the same if the story ... (Read 76 times)

jho37 · **on:** Jul 20, 2018

Where and in what season does Mansfields story take place? Would theeffect be the same if the story were set, say, in a remote Alaskan village in the winter?

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

What is the point of view in Miss Brill? How does this method improvethe story?

What will be an ideal response?

asware1 · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 20, 2018

Answer to Question 1

In the opening paragraph Mansfield makes clear that Miss Brill is in the Jardins Publiques and, therefore, somewhere in France: in a small town, it seems, since the Sunday band concert is a big feature of local life. In paragraph 6 we learn that the sea is visible from the park. We also know that the season is autumn. Miss Brill has taken her fur out of its box for the first time in a long while. The trees are covered with yellow leaves down drooping (par. 6). A chill in the air foreshadows the chill of Miss Brills dashed spirits at the end of the story.

Answer to Question 2

Miss Brill is written with selective omniscience: from the third-person viewpoint of a nonparticipant, but one who sees events through the eyes of the storys protagonist. In paragraph 5, Miss Brill notices that there is something funny about her fellow park sitters: They were odd, silent, nearly all old, and from the way they stared they looked as though theyd just come from dark little rooms or even even cupboards (That she might look the same to them never enters her head until she is forced to see herself as others see her.) Because we as readers experience the days happenings from the perspective of Miss Brill, we come to understand and to sympathize with the sweet old dear, even going along with her sudden view of herself as an actress in a play performed every Sunday. To an intense degree we share her dismay and hurt when she overhears herself called a stupid old thing and her furpiece ridiculed as exactly like a fried whiting.