payment page
Although it was so brilliantly fine—the blue sky powdered with gold and great spots of light like white wine splashed over the Jardins Publiques—Miss Brill was glad that she had decided on her fur. The air was motionless, but when you opened your mouth there was just a faint chill, like a chill from a glass of iced water before you sip, and now and again a leaf came drifting—from nowhere, from the sky.
Mansfield does not directly describe the setting. Instead, she implies it. Because the location is “the Jardins Publiques,” readers can infer that Miss Brill is in France. The capitalization tells readers that this is not an ordinary public park but instead something large and official. The chill in the air and the falling leaves tell readers that it is autumn. Mansfield uses similes to make the atmosphere familiar to almost any reader. She then draws readers into the story by incorporating direct address: “when you opened your mouth” and “before you sip.” The effects of these descriptions transcend an introduction to setting alone; they almost immediately create a sense of sympathy for Miss Brill, although little is known about her.
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.
Mansfield reinforces the idea that the story takes place in autumn, symbolic of Miss Brill’s age and declining condition. The drooping yellow leaves hint that they have changed color and will soon be falling, like the leaves that drift “from nowhere, from the sky” in the opening paragraph of the story. Mansfield also reveals that the French town or city is near the sea, since it is visible through the trees. The autumnal setting is thematically appropriate for the story of a woman realizing that she is approaching old age and leaving (or has already left) the summer of her youth.
But to-day she passed the baker’s by, climbed the stairs, went into the little dark room—her room like a cupboard—and sat down on the red eiderdown.
After describing Miss Brill’s usual stop at the bakery for a treat on her way home from the park, the narrator indicates that she breaks that routine after being driven out of the park by the young couple’s rude comments. The narrator describes Miss Brill’s apartment as “the little dark room” and “like a cupboard,” the same words she uses to describe the places from which the “odd, silent, nearly all old” people at the park—those who sit on the park’s benches and chairs—emerge. The description emphasizes that Miss Brill is in fact one of those people, though she is only now admitting this truth. The “little dark room” is also like the box into which Miss Brill puts her fur. Miss Brill stores herself away from the world at the same time that she stores the fur.
The narrator mentions the red eiderdown coverlet on Miss Brill’s bed twice, so this detail deserves some attention. The eiderdown is a rather luxurious bed covering for a woman who lives in a tiny apartment on a teacher’s salary. Eiderdown tends to be expensive because the filling comes from the feathers of nesting eider ducks, which are costly to collect. Like the fur, the red eiderdown might hint at Miss Brill once having more money than she does now. The eiderdown also represents physical and emotional warmth and comfort to Miss Brill. Its red color might add a touch of vibrancy to her otherwise dark room and certainly contrasts with the washed-out color of the ermine toque’s accessories and the gentleman’s grey clothing.
