Miss Brill

“The air was motionless, but when you opened your mouth there was just a faint chill, like a chill from a glass of iced water before you sip.”

Miss Brill’s talent for observing the details of her surroundings indicates her keen mind and desire to absorb all she can through all her senses during her outing in the park. These poetic, detailed descriptions are characteristic of Miss Brill. However, the simile also functions as foreshadowing, hinting at the chill that overcomes Miss Brill by the story’s end, when she is disparaged by the young couple.

“Dear little thing! It was nice to feel it again. She had taken it out of its box that afternoon, shaken out the moth-powder, giving it a good brush, and rubbed the life back into the dim little eyes. ‘What has been happening to me?’ said the sad little eyes.” 

Miss Brill treats the fur as an old companion, but it symbolizes her state of being just as much as her need for connection. Like Miss Brill, the fur is well preserved, taken out of moth-powder and brushed up for a good appearance at the park. Every Sunday, Miss Brill rubs the life back into herself. However, just as with the beautiful day with a chill in the air, the fur has sad eyes. Just below the surface of Miss Brill’s life lies sadness.

“Little rogue! Yes, she really felt like that about it. Little rogue biting its tail just by her left ear.” 

In her loneliness, Miss Brill turns her fox fur into a companion with a personality. The fur is a friend and a sympathetic sharer of her life, someone she can converse with and someone she can take care of, providing both camaraderie and purpose.

“She could have taken it off and laid it on her lap and stroked it.” 

Miss Brill’s sensuality reveals itself here. She takes pleasure in many things: the beauty of the changing season, the warmth and tactile softness of the fur. She is a woman built to live a rich inner and outer life.

“And when she breathed, something light and sad—no, not sad, exactly—something gentle seemed to move in her bosom.” 

A keen observer, Miss Brill reveals that she is aware of all that happens to her. She knows herself, and her feelings, intimately. This comment shows that Miss Brill knows herself; she is not deluded about her situation. Still, she dismisses the sadness and tries to recognize only the beauty of things. These feelings foreshadow the sadness she feels at the end of the story.

“There were a number of people out this afternoon, far more than last Sunday. And the band sounded louder and gayer.” 

Again, Miss Brill doesn’t miss a single nuance of life in the park, observing it all. The first day of the season brings more people to the park, giving Miss Brill more to observe and delight in.

“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.” 

Ready to be amused and entertained, Miss Brill enjoys the music just as she enjoys the other elements of this day. Though she observes the bad just as well as the good, she focuses on the pretty and pleasing things in life.

“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.” 

Miss Brill reveals one of her favorite parts of Sundays in the park: eavesdropping on other people so she can feel like she belongs and is part of something.

“No, nothing would please her. ‘They’ll always be sliding down my nose!’ Miss Brill had wanted to shake her.” 

Miss Brill’s impatience with the English woman who talks about needing spectacles but refuses to get them exposes her judgmental side. She is made particularly impatient by the way in which the English woman takes her husband for granted. Miss Brill sees a patient and kind husband and a demanding and unreasonable wife. Miss Brill incorporates strangers into her life, developing relationships with them in her own mind, to the point that she wants to “shake” this woman. This passage reveals the depth of Miss Brill’s preoccupation with others and how she lives her life through other people. How empty her own life must be for her to care about this woman’s spectacles.

“Other people sat on the benches and green chairs, but they were nearly always the same, Sunday after Sunday, and—Miss Brill had often noticed—there was something funny about nearly all of them. 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 reader immediately picks up on the irony of Miss Brill’s observation about the other people in the park: she is one of the odd, silent group she describes. She even calls her own apartment a “cupboard” later in the story. She fails to group herself with these sad, pathetic creatures; she is not one of them in her own mind. She is special and different. Both delusion and optimism allow Miss Brill to escape reality into a world where her contribution is valued.

“Oh, how fascinating it was! How she enjoyed it! How she loved sitting here, watching it all! It was like a play. […] They were all on the stage. They weren’t only the audience, not only looking on; they were acting. Even she had a part and came every Sunday.”

Miss Brill reveals the central theme of the story here: As Shakespeare observed in As You Like It, “All the world’s a stage.” Each being in the park, even the little dogs, has a part in the play of life. Without each person, the play would not be the same; it would be lessened somehow, according to Miss Brill’s way of thinking.

“If he’d been dead she mightn’t have noticed for weeks; she wouldn’t have minded.” 

Miss Brill shows an uncharacteristic callousness and perhaps a sense of humor. The old invalid man to whom she reads the newspaper four days a week sleeps while she reads to him, ignoring her contribution.

“But suddenly he knew he was having the paper read to him by an actress! ‘An actress!’ The old head lifted; two points of light quivered in the old eyes. ‘An actress—are ye?’ And Miss Brill smoothed the newspaper as though it were the manuscript of her part and said gently; ‘Yes, I have been an actress for a long time.’” 

Though she imagines this conversation, it reveals a truth about Miss Brill. She is indeed an actress playing a part, though perhaps not in the way she imagines it. Here, she pretends that she is an important actress, contributing to the play that is staged every Sunday in the Jardins Publiques. In reality, she really is an actress, creating her own world where she has dignity, importance, and value to offer the world. Miss Brill is not aware of the dual nature of this irony; however, the readers see it. Miss Brill is both pathetic in her insignificance and brave in her insistence that she sees herself as a valued member and participant in her society.

“The tune lifted, lifted, the light shone; and it seemed to Miss Grill that in another moment all of them, all the whole company, would begin singing.” 

In her imagination, the band’s music carries her away with its beauty. In her imaginings, the whole company of actors in the park’s play—as she sees the people in the park—are joined by this music to each other, creating something inspiring together.

“Just at that moment a boy and girl came and sat down where the old couple had been. They were beautifully dressed; they were in love. The hero and heroine, of course, just arrived from his father’s yacht.” 

Carried away by her imagination and her yearning for connection with others, Miss Brill assigns this young couple, complete strangers to her, the starring roles in her internal drama.

“‘But why? Because of that stupid old thing at the end there?’ asked the boy. ‘Why does she come here at all—who wants her? Why doesn’t she keep her silly old mug at home?’” 

Just a few devastating and insulting words from the hero of her internal play destroy Miss Brill’s illusions and her beautiful day. Seeing herself now through his eyes, she becomes an old, unwanted woman. All of her cheerful rationalizations and yearning for an uplifting connection and harmony with others are demolished by the reality of this thoughtless young man’s views.

“‘It’s her fu-ur which is so funny,’ giggled the girl. ‘It’s exactly like a fried whiting.’” 

The young girl, anxious to keep her young man from being angry with her, distracts him by laughing at Miss Brill’s fur. Between them, these two young people ruin Miss Brill’s day and force her to see herself in an unflattering and depressing light. Miss Brill’s beloved companion becomes a mottled, old relic, just like Miss Brill herself.

“Sometimes there was an almond in her slice, sometimes not. It made a great difference. If there was an almond it was like carrying home a tiny present—a surprise—something that might very well not have been there.” 

Miss Brill’s joy at such a small thing—an almond in a slice of cake—reveals both her optimistic focus on the good things in life and the smallness of her expectations. Further, this quotation shows Miss Brill’s continued spirit and hopes for her future, as well as the rather pathetic level of her desires for her life.