Miss Brill

by Katherine Mansfield

Miss Brill: Unreliable Narrator 1 key example

Unreliable Narrator
Explanation and Analysis—Miss Brill:

The story illustrates Miss Brill's unwillingness to confront her own loneliness by establishing her as an unreliable narrator. 

Mansfield situates the reader close to Miss Brill's consciousness, telling the story entirely from her perspective and reproducing her thoughts through stream-of-consciousness monologues. But throughout her solitary expedition to the park, Miss Brill's explicit thoughts are determinedly positive. Because she's unwilling to acknowledge her own loneliness, even to herself, the reader has to deduce it from her observations and reactions. While watching the orchestra, Miss Brill reflects that:

"[...] what they played was warm, sunny, yet there was just a faint chill – a something what was it? – not sadness – no, not sadness – a something that made you want to sing.”