“Miss Brill” and Shame PDF

Preview

Summary

Download “Miss Brill” and Shame PDF

Description

Santiago 1

14 December 2017 “Miss Brill” is a short story that was written by Katherine Mansfield. The short story was about a school teacher who had sudden realization in a very particular society in which she cherishes a lot. On the other hand, the essay “Shame” that was written my Dick Gregory. This Essay talks about humiliation in school which he had brought later in his life. These two reading were both about sudden awareness that causes their lives to experience such different way of living than everyone else in the society. To begin with, the short story “Miss Brill” is about a woman on her middle age who loves to spend each day being a teacher to children and a reader to an old man yet, they do not listen to her and hardly recognizes her existence. Each week she visits to the park where is loves to hang out and this is one of the causes of her loneliness and alienation and her eagerness to exist and interact and fit in to the rest of the world. When Miss Brill went to the park she loves to watch and secretly listens to other people’s conversations around her, she does this so she could fit in to the community. While she was sitting on the bench with two old man and woman who also do not speak she still gets to manage to include herself in what she is seeing. While at the park, there are many group of individuals who have their own interactions for the stage play going on. And Miss Brill things differently and she does not put herself as an audience yet, she also thinks she’s a performer too. The reason why Miss brill wants to think that she is part of the productions is because she wanted attention from everyone else. Miss Brill thought that if she was gone missing someone would be responsible to look for her and notice her. As we know, Miss Brill is really not part of the community and we can feel the pain that she has to go through when she overhears the boy and the girl mock her fur coat and talks to her like she has no right to be there. With that said, the community where Miss brill thinks she belonged does not welcome her. Her interest and willingness to connect with these people makes her vulnerable but it ended up her leading to an alienation from the people she saw from the community as a reason to live every day. Secondly, the short story "Shame” distinctively shows that the poverty can cause many hardships as well as shame which can come from the people around us. Though, there are still

Santiago 2

many ways to earn happiness and being able to fit in. The story “Shame” is about a person who tries to copy someone you admire, even a person who is very unhealthy can get fulfilment and happiness. Richard is a poor boy in the story who does not have a father and lives in an isolated area. Richard has a crush on one of his school mates named, Helene. Helene is a girl who is the opposite to Richard, comfortable, smart and wears clean clothes everyday to school. Richard admires her a lot and wanted to be just like her. In fact, Richard melts the ice water from the grocery so he should be able to wash his clothes for the next day of school. Everyone criticizes him with how Richard is acting little they do not know Richard is very different from everyone else. Richard wakes up every morning not having to eat breakfast because they do not afford to. Nobody realizes that he is just another boy who wants to be recognized and seen as just a normal kid like everyone else. People around him do not realize that how much Richard wanted to fit in and trying to be part of the community. Richard’s classmates are having fun after school like a normal kid would do but he is out working at a little age to get some spare money so he could live everyday and When the day comes where pledge their father's money to the Community Chest, Richard wants to match Helene's pledge. But, whenever he gives the same amount the teacher would be upset at him because the money is from his hard work not from his father. But Richard does not have a father in the first place. The story shows many different points of view in which poor people suffer, and also many things that they may obtain. In conclusion, the short story “Miss Brill” and “Shame” are both about of alienation. “Miss Brill” is very well alienated character. She is isolated from the world around her and from the people in the park she sees. She even seems to suffer from self-alienation as she does appear to be fully in touch with the reality of her own appearance or image that she presents to the world. “Shame “describes Richards experiences both externally and internally kind of shame. Richard, who is innocent and unaware of social differences. All he knew was he is very unhealthy but he does not realize how different he is. He began to feel shame when his teacher humiliated him in front of his class and peers. No one should ever feel isolated from everyone else as we are all the same in this world. Each person has to learn to be more accepting with people no matter where they came from and their unique characteristics....