Wonder About the Other Parts

¶ … wonder about the other parts of life? How many times have we thought of strange questions and asked them to ourselves? - Questions like "What will happen or what should be happening at this point of time if I were not born?," "How does the world exist and how are things happening before I was born?," or "Are we part of something, like a television show perhaps, which people watch?

One instance where such kinds of question were creatively exhibited was the movie "The Truman Show." At the last part of the movie, the audiences were revealed with the fact that the movie's lead character was in fact in a show being watched by the world. Without the lead character knowing that fact, he and the audiences just keep on wondering about the events in the character's life. There are in fact a lot of questions that one may be able to ask about our existence and to wonder is sometimes a time spent that develops and demonstrates a lot of our creative ideas. Or, did we ever wonder these things at all?

The Truman Show somehow has similarity to the major conflict in the story of Miss Brill. The events that she has been watching every Sunday in the park, observing the happenings in the strangers' and peoples' lives as well as examining how their personalities and attitudes will affect the upcoming events are parts of the major conflicts that will soon be found in the later part of the story. Moreover, even those things that have no life were somehow given with life by the thoughts of Miss Brill, imagining that they are also part of a story that may have been - a story of the people and events around her, or even a story of her own life.

The major conflict in the story of Miss Brill was the thought that the events around her, even her life, are part of a stage show. In that, everyone is not just an audience of the things happening around him, but are also actors of a show. Everyone including her may be just actors and actresses who are playing by how the manuscript dictates them. From the first part of the story where the reader may be just entertained with the events in the life of Miss Brill turns into an interesting one at the later part because of the creative idea that she had thought about everything. Such ideas became the turning point of the story, providing fascinating illusions to the readers while reading every part of the story.

The Major Conflict in the Story

At the first parts while reading the story, I found no conflict in the events narrated. This is because everything was just a narration of the things that Miss Brill does, from the time she was preparing for her Sunday habit which is going to the park up to the time when she is already observing and analyzing everything that she sees while in the park. The author vividly described everything as how things are commonly are. As how it was indicated in the story, the author revealed some comments on how Miss Brill sees people and things around her.

She glanced, sideways, at the old couple. Perhaps they would go soon. Last Sunday, too, hadn't been as interesting as usual. An Englishman and his wife, he wearing a dreadful Panama hat and she button boots. And she'd gone on the whole time about how she ought to wear spectacles; she knew she needed them; but that it was no good getting any; they'd be sure to break and they'd never keep on. And he'd been so patient. He'd suggested everything-gold rims, the kind that curve round your ears, little pads inside the bridge. No, nothing would please her

"They'll always be sliding down my nose!" Miss Brill had wanted to shake her.

However, just about past half of the story, the conflict was started to reveal by the author. How interesting did the author turn the story into a new dimension, a one different from the narration of events around the setting where Miss Brill was sitting during the story's first parts. This conflict was the thought of Miss Brill that everything around her were just a play and that even her self was part of the stage show where is currently at.

Oh, how fascinating it was! How she enjoyed it! How she loved sitting here, watching it all! It was like a play. It was exactly like a play. Who could believe the sky at the back wasn't painted?

The detailed mentioned above only showed how at first Miss Brill thought of everything as common events that she has been seeing in her Sunday habit of spending time outside her home and watching things and people around her.

Miss Brill had the idea that everything was really a stage show when she saw a dog that trotted and acted like a dog in a real show. From there, the interesting thought that everything was a show conflicted with the reality that was being narrated and revealed by the author at the first half of the story about the things happening around Miss Brill. This was indicated in the following part of the story.

But it wasn't till a little brown dog trotted on solemn and then slowly trotted off, like a little "theatre" dog, a little dog that had been drugged, that Miss Brill discovered what it was [Page 187] that made it so exciting. They were all on stage. They weren't only the audience, not only looking on; they were acting.

Even she had a part and came every Sunday.

Such conflict made the story interesting because the same event in Miss Brill's Sunday habit is in fact a kind of reality in our life. Sometimes, we also wonder the same as how Miss Brill wondered about the events around her. Based from my experience, the same thought intrigued me more after I watched the movie "The Truman Show." Questions such as "What makes me do what I do now?," or the fascination of how things are happening because of one decision that I made, or the wondering of what could have been. In the part of Miss Brill, after realizing that everything could have been just a stage show, the author indicated the following.

How strange she'd never thought of it like that before! And yet it explained why she made such point of starting from home at just the same time each week-so as not to be late for the performance -- and it also explained why she had a queer, shy feeling at telling her English pupils how she spent her Sunday afternoons.