Emily and Miss Brill: Living in the Past vs. Reality
This essay compares and contrasts two literary characters — Miss Emily from William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" and Miss Brill from Katherine Mansfield's short story of the same name — both of whom refuse to accept change and retreat into delusional fantasy worlds. The paper argues that Emily symbolizes the stubborn resistance of the past against an inevitable future, embodied through her relationship with Homer Barron as a metaphor for industrialization and Reconstruction-era America. Miss Brill is examined as a parallel figure whose distorted perception of reality leads to painful self-discovery. Together, the two characters illustrate how denial of change produces loneliness, misery, and ultimately tragic self-deception.
- Introduction: Refusing Change: Both women symbolize decay and resistance to change
- Miss Emily and the Romance of the Past: Emily's psychology amid massive historical change
- Homer Barron as a Symbol of the Future: Homer represents industrialization; Emily clings to the past
- Miss Brill and Delusional Perception: Miss Brill's fantasy world and distorted self-image
- Parallel Escapes from Reality: Both characters retreat from harsh truths similarly
- Conclusion: Denial of change leads to loneliness and tragedy
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper sustains a clear thematic lens — refusal to accept change — and applies it consistently to both characters, keeping the comparison focused rather than episodic.
- Direct textual quotations from both stories are woven into the argument to ground claims in evidence, giving the analysis credibility.
- The essay moves beyond plot summary to interpret the characters as cultural symbols (past vs. future, industrialization, Reconstruction), adding analytical depth appropriate to literary study.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates thematic compare-and-contrast analysis: rather than treating each text in isolation, it identifies a shared theme (denial of change leading to delusion and isolation) and traces how each author develops it through characterization, symbolism, and narrative revelation. This "lens" method — using one concept to illuminate multiple texts — is a foundational technique in undergraduate literary analysis.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with a thesis introducing the shared theme, then devotes the largest section to Miss Emily, reading her story as a historical allegory of past versus future. A transition to Miss Brill follows, analyzing her perceptual delusions and painful moment of self-recognition. The closing section draws the two characters together, noting their parallel strategies of escape. The structure is linear and thematically unified throughout.
Introduction: Refusing Change
Miss Emily and Miss Brill are two highly interesting yet complex characters who refuse to accept change and are thus stubbornly — or naively — living in the past. Both women symbolize the destruction and decay that befall those who refuse to move forward with the times and prefer instead to inhabit their own fantasy worlds. The past is meant to perish because the forces of change are more powerful than the memories of yesteryears. Those who refuse to acknowledge this fact lead lonely lives and become as rusty a figure as the past they cling to.
References
Mansfield, Katherine. "Miss Brill." An Introduction to Fiction. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 7th ed. New York: Longman, 1999.
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