Author

1. Author • Katherine Mansfield Beauchamp was born in New Zealand in 1888. • She struggled to define her sexuality in the Victorian period. • She wrote no novels; only short stories. • Bliss (1920), The garden party and other stories (1922). • Miss Brill was written in 1922.

2. Plot • Miss Brill is an older woman and she enjoys going to a public park each Sunday. It is a autumn day and there is a faint chill is the air. Miss Brill takes wears her fur to the park. She is a lonely lady. She finds comfort at the park. She has a revelation that she and everyone there is part of a play. A young couple comes and sits by her special seat. They tell her to go away and mock her fur. Miss Brill goes home devastated and puts away the fur perhaps for ever.

3. Events of the Story • Miss Brill takes out her fur and is excited to finally wear it again. • She goes to the park and encounters many different people. She makes up her own assumptions about them. • She has a idea that she and every one at the part are part of a play. She briefly finds purpose in her routine park visits. That she needs to be there and is important. • This is relevant to the theme because she has found refuge at the park.

4. The climax • The climax in the story is when the young couple sit by her special seat and mock her. • They tell her to go home and mocked her prized fur that she values greatly. • This is relevant to the theme because she looses her place of refuge and ideas about her self.

5. The conclusion • Miss Brill goes home devastated. She doesn’t get her Sunday treat from the baker's. • She put her fur in its box with out looking at it and hears something faintly crying. • This is relevant to the theme because she has lost her refuge and her escape from her loneliness.

6. Theme • Solitary people need a place of refuge to try combat loneliness.

7. Characterization • Miss Brill is excited about her weekly visits to the park. • She is unmarried and speaks of no family or friends through out the text. • She lives a routine life, she finds comfort and escapes her loneliness by her routine. • She doesn’t realize that she is like the other the other old people at the park. • This is relevant to the theme because is demonstrates why she goes to the park.

8. Setting • It is a Autumn day. It is a bright and clear day . • The park has a band that plays each Sunday. The conductor has a new coat. • It is the first Sunday of the start of the season at the park. • This is relevant to the theme because everything is new and more people go to the park. She has more opportunity to observe the people and escape from her own problems.

9. Tone and style • It is in third person, omniscient. • The tone is companionate and sympathetic. • This is relevant to the theme because it allows the reader understand her loneliness and the situation even if Miss Brill isn’t aware of it. The reader understands her need for a place if refuge.

10. Symbol • Her fur necklace is a major symbol in the story. • She gives the fur human qualities and is excited to be able to wear it. • When the young couple insult her fur it deeply hurts her. • The fur is a representation of her. • This is relevant to the theme because it is her only thing that she can show affection to. The fur is an extension of her loneliness and giving the fur human qualities can help combat it.