5. Miss Brill

Miss Brill
Katherine Mansfield

"Odd, silent, nearly all old, and from the way they stared they looked as though they'd just come from little dark rooms or even - even cupboards,"(Mansfield. 183). It is obvious that Miss Brill does not fit into her routine setting at the park every Sunday. As a young couple peers in at Miss Brill in her usual spot, they seem to be taken back by her unusual clothing, and her unique look. She sits at the park every Sunday, listening to conversations and trying to feel included in the worlds of others around her. Miss Brill is a smudge on the frame of these stranger's worlds. She distracts those wandering in the park, it's as if she becomes a spectacle. Listening to the band seems to be so important to Miss Brill that she doesn't quite realize all the others are not the same as she. In this puzzled state of mind, after the couple's stares, she breaks down. Miss Brill returns home, to the sound of crying, because it seems all she did was go to the park in her same routine. It turns out that she realized that the one crying was her.