Himawan Pradipta

180410120025

1

THE REALITY DENIAL AND THE ROMANTICIZED ILLUSIONS IN

THURBER’S “MITTY” AND MANSFIELD’S “BRILL”

In Katherine Mansfield’s “Miss Brill” and in James Thurber’s “The Secret Life of

Walter Mitty,” both main characters, Miss Brill and Walter Mitty, are represented as lonely,

contemplative figures who are prone to project and romanticize things surrounding them

as they experience a deeper stage of, say, psychological illness. Both characters, in fact,

depend on their imagining things they perceive, smell, see, or feel, which intertwines the

story’s themes to be much more predominant as the story progresses. However, the

similarities in both stories lie on the way they view their both microcosm and macrocosm

spheres, on the way they project it to a greater chance of mirrorring the natural

equivalence, and on how they respond to it.

Much of the resemblances on both stories develop on how both characters see

their world inside and that of outside. Walter Mitty is described to be less superior to his

wife, Mrs. Mitty. The way he reacts and counters everything does intersperse his reality.

His being obsolete also affects his feeling of insecurity around his wife. For instance, his

imagining he is a commander in a war while in fact he is driving his wife to a saloon,

shows that of insecurity. The use of word “afraid” in “The Old Man ain’t afraid of hell!” (1)

leads him back to the reality followed by a spontaneous jargon mumbled by his wife.

Likewise, he meets, as they arrive at the place where his wife gets her hair done, a nurse

after driving past a parking lot in a hospital, and then imagines becoming a specialist

handling over VIP’s serious case.

...They slipped a white gown on him, he adjusted a mask and drew on thin gloves; nurses handed him shining... (2)

The use of word “shining”, which simply denotes a sense of imaginary and crystal-clear

admiration, brings him back to the reality, encountering the parking lot attendant shouting

directly at him. The hasty changes of characterization described within Mitty, from his

imaginings to the reality, elaborates the fact that the word “Mitty” itself derives from the

word “Mittyesque,” which is defined, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, as

“someone who is an absent-minded dreamer.”

Himawan Pradipta

180410120025

2

The feeling of insecurity is also expounded through Miss Brill characteristic. Brill

is illustrated as a forlorn woman, making her someone with a limited access upon her

surroundings. First of all, her undergoing to be a breadwinner of her own life by becoming

an English teacher may perhaps be the main reason of why she never gets married. Her

projecting the need of superiority by becoming a teacher leads to her tendency of

romanticizing things around her. Reader may likely to frown along the story as Miss Brill

always sees people and her natural elements incessantly, aggravates it by talking to

herself, and eavedrops total strangers’ talk continously. This feeling of exaggeration and

uncertainty will ultimately make her become fearful of being in a part of something bigger,

such as social status, of being rejected, and of her being naive.

...there was something funny about nearly all of them. They were odd, silent, nearly all old, and from the way they stared they looked as though they’d just come from dark little rooms or even—even cupboards! (2)

The use of words “funny,” “odd,” and “silent,” followed by an exclaim of disgust, is a

reflection of her strong feeling of not wanting to be neglected by the social community—or

a larger part of a group of people, and thus manipulates it by talking to herself, showing,

indeed, her own personality. This is somehow a sole form of her limited perspectives

upon her surroundings, tending to involve her emotional feelings into the scope of her

social reality. Also, a scene when she sits down on her “special seat” (1) with two

strangers—an old couple, is another emergence of her stuck-up, narrow-minded way of

thinking by exclaiming that that is “disappointing” (1) since the couple have no talk to

each other. It may, of course, turn out to be disappointing for Brill, for she is afraid of

looking at her own reflection, simply projected by the old couple thereof. Thus, she

manipulates her fearness by looking away out of the old couple’s sight, leaving them

behind, merely symbolizing what an old, single, psychologically-disturbed, easily-

pestered woman has to offer.

The projection of both characters to their natural equivalence is developed

through the way they romanticize things. Both characters are in the need of romanticizing

what surrounds them, which affects their own life, relationship, and perspective of other

people. While Mitty is urged to elaborate only things he has romanticized, Brill undergoes

it not only to her natural surroundings, but also to other people’s conversation. Mitty is

described as the one who never gets associated with his wife at his elderly age, from

which he will have to associate with his own imagination to keep on living. His feeling less

superior to his wife makes him inaccurate and inconstant, allowing him to a greater step

of imagination of being more sensitive than ever before, and thus manipulates it by

Himawan Pradipta

180410120025

3

interconnecting it with his reality. For instance, as he fantasizes being an expert in

analyzing criminal cases, the “District Attorney” (5) insinuatingly mocks him off by saying

“You miserable cur!” (5), bringing him back to the reality as he utters, “puppy biscuit” (5).

The word “cur,” as a matter of fact, retorts his memory from the microcosmic world to that

of microcosmos by relating it to a dog. This indeed becomes palpable that just after

saying so, he purchases dog food.

Miss Brill, on the other hand, pretends her macrocosmos as a life of drama, or a

“theatre,” which is “much more than just feelings and social problems, but it goes as far

as our fears and misunderstandings” (Rodriguez, 1). Her pretensions, as watching people

talk, quarrel, or fall in love, are elaborated by her romanticizing the most minute details,

such as the air, sunshine, water, or a feeling of exhilaration, from which allows her to be

twice as likely to be fearful or neglected by the social if what she feels shows the

opposite. These worries, indeed, originate from the fact that she, being elderly,

“become[s] redundant and increasingly isolated or pushed to the margins” (Galley, 3). For

instance, she tends to overstate things around her but one thing: the quiet, dull, old

couple. She feels discontent being around them, for it is a reflection of herself having the

same criteria. Brill attempts to see her imaginary world by manipulating it to a form of

drama, in which she plays roles as both the actress and the audience. This ambience is

equivalent to the “ancient greek theatre, ending in either tragedy or comedy” (Rodriguez,

2).

An exclusion, as well as inclusion, is a predominant idea of the responses,

through which both characters implement to any kind of human interaction in the story.

Both Mitty and Brill are encountering an alteration of their psychological state of some

kind of illnesses, which brings both to a more dangerous risk in becoming a part of social

life. From Walter Mitty, through his fantasies and uncontrolled desire to contemplate,

readers may potentially infer that Mitty is represented not only as someone who depends

on his extraordinary insight of microcosmos, but also as someone who has low self-

esteem. Likewise, from his dreamings, it can be concluded that Mitty is the total opposite

of the characters in his dreams: proud, brave, intelligent, charming, etc. The problem of

the depiction of such character finally achieves its peak when the story opens, and also

closes, by his imaginations, indicating some kinds of an exclusion of his macrocosmos,

and also an inclusion of his microcosmic realm to the reality.

This is what also happens in “Miss Brill.” Brill is portrayed, at the ending, after

being mocked by a young couple, to be “pass[ing] the baker’s by, climb[ing] the stairs,”

and “[going] into the little dark room” (4), as she lays her necklet to a box, while at the

same time, she “hear[s] something crying” (4). It clearly indicates “another representation

of an exclusion” (Rodrigues, 3). Thus, it can be inferred that what Brill hears, or what she

Himawan Pradipta

180410120025

4

thinks she hears, is a conjugation coming either from her own subconscious or something

that is inside the box. Moreover, the ending of the story is an obvious proof of a fear of

negligence and fearness encountered by old people. “Whether it is her [own

subconscious] or not, this story is meant to represent social issues and fantasies we face,

and how our fantasies may fall apart” (Rodrigues, 3).

Lastly, it can be concluded that both Mitty and Brill have a vast tendency to reject

their own reality, involving instead their psychological disturbances. Even though the

rejection of their macrocosmos genuinely affects their own life and relationships with

other people, that is what makes the projection of their surrounding becomes crucial

throughout the storyline. Thus, this kind of denial against their own real world may have

developed on the limited, short-minded ways of thinking that the characters are described

to possess. At the ending, readers may suggest that Mitty has no choice but to live a life

of imagination, while Brill has the other: to move on to the next stage of her nondescript

atmosphere. However, what they romanticize and exaggerate may be an essential

subject to both characters since they have lived by it.

Works Cited

Foucault, M. (1990). What Is an Author?

Galley, J. (1990). "Miss Brill Summary". Literary Summaries.

K., A. D., Intan, C., Wulandari, C., Bilal, D., & Rismar, N. (2011). The Mad Fantasies of

Walter Mitty. Madiun: English Teaching Department IKIP PGRI Press.

Mansfield, K. (1920). Miss Brill. Kentucky.

Parton, J. (1969). The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Boston:

Houghton Mufflin Publishing.

Rodrigues, F. (1990). "Literary Analysis: Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield". The Literary

Analyses..

Theory before Theory. (t.thn.). New Jersey: Cambridge University Press.

Thurber, J. (1939). The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. New York.

Himawan Pradipta

180410120025

5

V., Roberts Edgar. (1964). "The Précis Theme, or Abstract". Writing Themes about

Literature (hal. 35 - 39). New Jersey: Cambridge Press.

Wood, K. M. (2002). "Literature Analysis: Symbolism in Miss Brill's". Literary Summaries.