This last sentence is revealing because it hints at something which we, as readers, may pick up on but which the story’s protagonist appears to be oblivious to: namely that if the other people in the gardens ‘understand’, but what they understand Miss Brill doesn’t know, then she clearly doesn’t understand them, nor they her. Yes, we understand, we understand, she thought though what they understood she didn’t know. And another moment, related to Miss Brill’s realisation that everyone is playing a part, comes shortly after this when she imagines everyone in the garden singing along as the band play:Īnd Miss Brill’s eyes filled with tears and she looked smiling at all the other members of the company. In Mansfield’s stories there actually tend to be several epiphanies, or miniature moments which suggest some kind of new awareness in the mind of the story’s protagonist. How strange she’d never thought of it like that before!’ But the dismissive exchange between the two young lovers on the bench suggests that, if anyone did notice she wasn’t there, they wouldn’t be bothered: indeed, they’d be relieved she wasn’t there. And there are several hints that Miss Brill’s epiphany is flawed or even misguided.įor instance, we are told, ‘No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn’t been there she was part of the performance after all. But epiphanies in modernist fiction are often ambiguously poised between capturing genuine enlightenment (the protagonist has a life-changing realisation) and temporary change of mood (the protagonist thinks they have undergone a life-changing experience, but they are deluded about this).
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