“Miss Brill” by Katherine Mansfield and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner
Katherine Mansfield’s “Miss Brill” and William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” are two exceptional literary works that each tell the reader a story of loneliness and solitude in their own unique way. Both heroines of these stories make a conscious choice to withdraw themselves from the world around them, to set themselves apart from it, to become silent, passive observers instead of partaking in life in all its wondrous and endless forms. Both of their lives are shrouded in sorrow and tragedy that is directly connected to their solitude, yet in very different ways, and the endings of their stories are facilitated by their departure from the real world, each in their own distinct manner.
When it comes to Miss Brill, the principal character of Katherine Mansfield’s story, one would be right in coming to the conclusion that she did not choose to withdraw from the world surrounding her because she despises or loathes the people around her, feels alien in this world, or desperately seeks solitude. Ironically, it would be quite the opposite. Miss Brill adores all things living: the people, the nature. She finds beauty in music, in human interactions of any kind – in a mother teaching her toddler how to walk, in an old married couple lovingly bickering, in a pair of young lovers flirting. She loves watching the life unfold before her and she feels no desire to abandon it. Yet the problem is that she has an inadequate perception of life: for her, it is nothing more than a play, a brilliant and detailed one, certainly, but a play nevertheless. And her own participation in this performance is limited to attending it every Sunday, having an occasional conversation and leaving until next week. By perceiving the real world as nothing more than a stage, where everyone has assigned parts, Miss Brill justifies her lack of actual participation in it, beyond what she believes to be her part. It was only a matter of time before that illusion would shatter, and the finale of Miss Brill’s story only serves to prove it once again. In a way, her choice of solitude caused her own sorrow, and even she knows it: “She had quite a queer, shy feeling at telling her English pupils how she spent her Sunday afternoons” (Mansfield).
On the other hand, Miss Emily Grierson, William Faulkner’s heroine, had an entirely different attitude to the world around her, and this very attitude commanded her choice to abstract herself from it. She detested the people that surrounded her and her loathing was in part due to her belief that they were beneath her, as a result of her noble birth, and in part – due to her all-consuming self-hatred. This woman’s whole life reminds us of a tragically vicious circle. From her very birth she had been closed off from the world not on her own accord, but at the will of her recluse father, who raised her in the spirit of the same hostility towards everyone and everything. And then, just when Miss Emily thought she could break the circle by finally finding someone worth opening her heart to, she was met with rejection, which led her to commit a horrendous crime: murder her beloved. How could she possibly face the world after this? Every face that she saw would reflect the same disgust and hatred she felt towards herself, and she could not bear to deal with the crowd’s ruthless judgement, when she had already been subject to so much scrutiny her whole life. So she built her own prison and sentenced herself for life, partially to repent for what she did, partially because life no longer had any other meaning or purpose for her.
For Miss Brill, the world was a stage and she struggled to find her place on that stage. For Miss Emily, it was nothing but a cage, a trap she was stuck in, cursed to relive the agony of her loss, over and over again. Miss Brill wanted to live, yet did not know how, and that was the epitome of her defeat. Miss Emily had no desire left in her at all: neither to live, nor to die. Her only wish was oblivion and in this respect her finale was her triumph.
Works Cited
Mansfield, Katherine. “Miss Brill.” Katherine Mansfield Society, 1920. Web. 3 March 2016.
Faulkner, William. “A Rose for Emily.” The Forum, 1930. Web. 3 March 2016.
