賞析凱瑟琳娜·曼斯菲爾德MissBrill.doc

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A brief Appreciation of Miss Brill To other people, it is an illusion; to Miss Brill, it’s a dream. Miss Brill is a lonely old spinster. On the fine Sunday afternoon, she is very glad go to a park, which regarded as the Sunday treat by herself. She enjoys herself by watching the band play, by looking at various people in the park and listening to their conversations. She feels she is a member of the community and she would be noticed and missed if she fails to be there. However, the conversation between a boy and a girl made Miss Brill suddenly knows the truth that no one cares about her. Finally, she came back home to face the reality alone and sadly. Katherine Mansfield is a woman writer who enjoys the reputation of“a master of short stories”. She has made great contribution to the development of the modern short stories. Her language of novels has the unique feature, like poems. The ends of her novels, because of her extraordinary arrangement as well as the writing techniques, are often out of blue, like Miss Brill, which make her novel more impressive and her theme more touching. I want to analyze one of her masterpieces Miss Brill from two aspects of theme and techniques. 1. Theme Miss Brill can be described as miserable, lonely, old lady. However, compared with terrible living condition, I think Miss Brill is more afraid of loneliness. Her hopeless escaping from the reality is nothing but avoid of confronting the world alone. For example, “Miss Brill always looked forward to the conversation”, “even she had a part and came every Sunday. No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn’t been there; she was part of the performance after all.” She is so cheerful when she is sitting in the park to be a witness of all the people there. She is observing carefully, including every single actions and facial expressions, and sometimes she even makes up the dialogue between people. Maybe no one talks to her in daily life. I don’t think that young people will spend the whole afternoon sitting in a park to watch people. It is an action we regard as waste of time, while it is a banquet to Miss Brill. To some extent, she is old enough to have a rest and enjoy her later years. But we can also know that there’s nothing for her to do even care about. All the people she observes are companied by someone, including the aged people she slightly laughs at, except her. It can explain why the conversation between the boy and the girl hurts Miss Brill so deeply. She is so afraid of facing the truth that “who wants her?” Therefore, we can conclude that loneliness is the center theme of this novel. This also warns us about our society, which takes bad care about the aged people. Besides, the lives we will be confronted with in our latter years. 2. Contributive Techniques The reason why this novel can touch us so much is that the author thoughtfully arranged the plot and used some techniques. In my opinion, contrast and epiphany are the most important ones. First of all, we can find how beautiful the colors and pictures Miss Brill sees. For example, “brilliantly”, “the blue sky powdered with gold and great spots”, “the slender tress with yellow leaves down drooping, and through then just a line of sea, and beyond the blue sky with gold-veined clouds”, all these pictures are beautiful and peaceful. She is so content to see these. Besides, the adjectives used in the part before that turning conversation are all positive rather than negative. For example, “l(fā)ouder”, “gayer”, “delighted”, “fascinating”, “warm”, “sunny”, we can feel how enjoyable Miss Brill is. But all these beauty are turned into irony after we find the truth. Even though the author just use the word “dark” “quickly ” to describe Miss Brill’s misery and embarrassment at home, we can feel the hurt better. At the end of the story, only some small actions can reflect the theme. Different from the elegant and gentle move of Miss Brill, she just “hurried on the almond Sundays and struck the match for the kettle in quite a dashing way” and “unclasped the necklet quickly, without looking.” The actions forward and backward just contrast each other apparently, which helps to emphasize the theme. Another important technique used by Katherine Mansfield is epiphany. Epiphany is Mansfield’s favorite technique to reveal the truth about life. She is very conscious in her use of this writing technique as the focal point of her stories. Epiphany is a sudden spiritual manifestation. There are expectations in her stories. Then at the crucial moment, the expectations are sharply reversed or denied. In Miss Brill, the epiphany happened when the boy and the girl are talking beside her. Actually, it are the readers who shock by the truth I think, and to Miss Brill, it just uncovers what she denies to admit, forcing her to be faced with her real life. It is cruel of course. Miss Brill is a very famous work of Katherine Mansfield, which can reflect the author’s extraordinary techniques and penetration. After reading the novel, I can not help but care about the people around me. Some people say that every person is an isolated island. Compared with the boundless universe, human beings are so lonely in the world, let alone the single person. As the winter is coming, we’d better care more about people around us and warm each other in the cold and dead season.