At the start of the story, Miss Brill speaks fondly to her coat as if it is alive. This strange behavior can be seen as reflecting her nostalgia for a lost youth, when her coat was new and she was at the hopeful age of marriageability At the end of the story, she puts it back into its box, “without looking”, and “she thought she heard something crying”. This arc from fond engagement with her fur coat to her final rejection of it mirrors how she feels about her own place in society over the course of the story: at first she thinks she is part of the community, a participant in the scene she sees around her, but at the end of the story, after she is rejected by the boy, she concludes that she is not important to anyone else at all. The fur coat in which she delights, she sees in that moment, is actually rather shabby and old, and Miss Brill puts away her coat with the same callousness exhibited by the boy, while its “crying” reflects her own despair. Garments in general in the story – such as the ermine toque, the conductor’s coat, or the boy and girl’s beautiful clothes – serve as a marker of class and importance in the story: if you are not well-dressed, you are not well-regarded either.
Fur Coat and Garments Quotes in Miss Brill
The Miss Brill quotes below all refer to the symbol of Fur Coat and Garments. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Miss Brill
Quotes
And when she breathed, something light and sad—no, not sad, exactly—something gentle seemed to move in her bosom.
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The ermine toque was alone; she smiled more brightly than ever. But even the band seemed to know what she was feeling and played more softly…What would she do? What was going to happen now?
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“Why does she come here at all—who wants her? Why doesn’t she keep her silly old mug at home?”
“It’s her fu-ur which is so funny,” giggled the girl. “It’s exactly like a fried whiting.”
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She unclasped the necklet quickly; quickly, without looking, laid it inside. But when she put the lid on she thought she heard something crying.
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Fur Coat and Garments Symbol Timeline in Miss Brill
The timeline below shows where the symbol Fur Coat and Garments appears in Miss Brill. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Miss Brill
...Jardins Publiques (Public Gardens) in a French town on a marvelously fine day, wears a fur coat . It is autumn. She touches her coat repeatedly, her “dear little thing”, which she...
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...have come. “Who wants her?” he asks. Then the girl makes fun of Miss Brill’s fur coat and compares it to a “fried whiting.”
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...straight to “her room like a cupboard” and sits on her bed. She puts the fur coat back into its box, which was left on the bed, and “without looking” puts it...
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