Katherine Mansfield's Miss Brill

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In the short story Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield, the setting is what makes the whole story vibrant and interesting to read. Settings are used to set a tone or theme to a story. In Miss Brill, the setting helps the reader know what Miss Brill is feeling. We first start out with the image of a lovely Sunday afternoon spent in the park. Miss Brill interacts with both the people around her and the environment she has created in her mind. The band playing loud and upbeat music and the general atmosphere helps sculpt the creation of how she sees herself and how she thinks others see herself. "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." She uses the setting as her stage and the other characters in the park as her actors. Both the characters and the setting make her seem like the star of the show in her mind. To Miss Brill, she sees everyone as background characters, and that the show couldn't go on if she wasn't there.…show more content…
The setting is continued to be described elegantly "Behind the rotunda the slender trees with yellow leaves down drooping, and through them just a line of sea, and beyond the blue sky with gold-veined clouds". The band plays beautiful music while she listens to an old couple and watches young girls walk arm and arm with young soldiers. Miss Brill believed that every single one of those people were just part of the play. The same with herself. She was convinced that if she hadn't been there somebody would notice. She made the park her stage, her theater, and better yet she was the director of her

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