At the start of her short story, Katherine Mansfield characterizes the title character Miss Brill as observant and optimistic. Miss Brill prides herself on her skill "at listening as though she didn't listen" to others' conversations and finds the park scene "fascinating [....] like a play." However, she sees herself as not only an observer, but a participant, optimistically believing that "No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn't been there."
Unfortunately, Miss Brill's perception of her role in the Sunday park scene shatters when she overhears a young man discount her as a "stupid old thing" who should "keep her silly old mug at home." In her earnestness to take in her surroundings, Miss Brill fails to observe that because she does not directly interact with people, she is like the other bench-sitters, "odd, silent, [and] old."
Because of the "Jardins Publiques" setting and reference to Miss Brill's "English pupils," Miss Brill may be an English woman living on her own in France, thus contributing to her role as an outsider. She goes to the park in an effort to belong and interact people and her surroundings, but her silence and inaction keep her lonely and disappointed.
Miss Brill's desire to belong cannot be realized because rather than ignore the young man and go about her usual post-park bakery ritual, she chooses to mope on her bed in "her room like a cupboard." All in all, her lack of speech or interaction with others make Miss Brill a lonely, defeated character.
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