Miss Brill And Eveline Essay
In Katherine Mansfield's short story "Miss Brill" and James Joyce's short story "Eveline," both protagonists are heartbroken by their current situation. In contrast, Eveline has the opportunity to shed her present and embrace a profound future. Eveline fails to take the chance for a better future because she is too scared. Miss Brill isn’t given a choice. She is left to accept the fact that her future looks dim due to circumstances that are beyond her control.
In Mansfield's short story, at one point in time, Miss Brill was wealthy but is now struggling through financially hard times in her older age. Proof she was once wealthy in her younger days is seen in the fact that she owns a fox fur she adores and a red eiderdown duvet. For example, …show more content…
Her family lives in poverty; her father was always known for his cruel temper though she believed him to be "not so bad" when her mother was still alive; and since her mother's death, he has become a very abusive alcoholic. Also unlike Miss Brill, we learn towards the beginning of the story that Eveline has been offered the prospect of a potentially much more positive future: she has been proposed to by a sailor who wants her to leave with him overseas that day. She contemplates how much better and safer she would be away from her father's presence, yet she also feels too afraid, too insecure to leave the home she has known all her life. She reflects that "in her home anyway she had shelter and food; she had those whom she had known all her life about her." She further reflects that she promised her deceased mother that she would continue to raise her two youngest siblings. By the end of the story, unlike Miss Brill, she turns away from the prospect of a promising future in order to hold onto the bleak life that has been her past and will continue to be her present. Also, unlike Miss Brill, Eveline's lack of courage and sense of duty leads her to cling to her bleak present, whereas Miss Brill is in her bleak present simply due to external circumstances beyond her
In Mansfield's short story, at one point in time, Miss Brill was wealthy but is now struggling through financially hard times in her older age. Proof she was once wealthy in her younger days is seen in the fact that she owns a fox fur she adores and a red eiderdown duvet. For example, …show more content…
Her family lives in poverty; her father was always known for his cruel temper though she believed him to be "not so bad" when her mother was still alive; and since her mother's death, he has become a very abusive alcoholic. Also unlike Miss Brill, we learn towards the beginning of the story that Eveline has been offered the prospect of a potentially much more positive future: she has been proposed to by a sailor who wants her to leave with him overseas that day. She contemplates how much better and safer she would be away from her father's presence, yet she also feels too afraid, too insecure to leave the home she has known all her life. She reflects that "in her home anyway she had shelter and food; she had those whom she had known all her life about her." She further reflects that she promised her deceased mother that she would continue to raise her two youngest siblings. By the end of the story, unlike Miss Brill, she turns away from the prospect of a promising future in order to hold onto the bleak life that has been her past and will continue to be her present. Also, unlike Miss Brill, Eveline's lack of courage and sense of duty leads her to cling to her bleak present, whereas Miss Brill is in her bleak present simply due to external circumstances beyond her