In "Miss Brill," Katherine Mansfield has captured one of her most poignant heroines.  Pathetic, endearing and vulnerable, Miss Brill wrings our hearts and reminds  us once again how Mansfield has managed to make such a profound mark upon a genre with such a relatively small canon of work.

The story is an exercise in loneliness.  Miss Brill is one of those isolated old folk who live vicariously through the lives of others.  Every Sunday (especially during band season) she visits the local park, where she participates in the unfolding drama of other people´s lives, telling herself she is an actor in that drama simply by virtue of over-hearing it.

Her own life, by comparison, is dull, monotone and largely without meaning.   Follow the link and read more about one particular detail of this very precise story, the fox fur.  It is the only dash of color in an otherwise grey landscape of Miss Brill´s life.  With it, Miss Brill transforms (it is like a kind of armor or an amulet of protection), and with it draped across her shoulders she is ready for the adventure of the partly glimpsed, partially imagined lives of the people who unwittingly provide the drama of the park on a sunday afternoon while the band underscores everything with its accompanying music.

The moment of epiphany in this story comes in an unforseen clash of generations.  Miss Brill sees herself, as others see her, through the eyes of a young pair of lovers who sit beside  her by chance.  The supreme irony is that she is thrilled when they do sit beside her, because they are the hero and heroine in the unfolding romance.  Only they have no time for the old woman sitting beside them, and only impatience for her passive interference in their lovers´ trist.What she discovers in herself is a decrepid and pathetic old woman.  In an instant, the mood collapses and gone is the spirit of romance and the shared vivacity that she has hitherto taken from the park and the young lovers. 

What is the symbolic value of the fox fur?  Why is Miss Brill so obviously attached to it?  What part does it play in her downfall?

How significant are the others in the park?  Are there any who shed light on Miss Brill's own position?

What do you think Katherine Mansfield's intention is in this story?