a feminist stylistic analysis of Miss Brill_学霸学习网
a feminist stylistic analysis of Miss Brill
选题： A Stylistic Study on Katherine Mansfield's & Miss Brill&:a feminst stylistic approach 本选题的意义及国内外研究状况： Although Katherine Mansfield never claimed herself as a feminst writer, and not did she achieve the fame of a great feminst writer as Virginia Woolf at the turn of the 20th century, many researches on her short stories show that there really exists the feminist ideology in her works. Most of the researches on her works, however, focus on the perspective of feminist literary criticism or psychoanalytical theory, which in most cases relatively subjective. Employing feminist stylistics as a tool for analysing Mansfield’s short story “Miss Brill” provides a new insight on the researches on her works. There have been some thesises concerning Mansfield’s “Miss Brill”, most of which focus on the feminst ideas presented or some general linguistic features about the work. The feminist stylistic approach may provide a new angle to objectively look into this novel and find out how the linguistic features are related to the novel. 研究内容： Chapter1 Introductinn 1.1Previous Research on Katherine Mansfield 1.1.1 an Introduction to Katherine Mansfield Katherine Mansfield is one of the best female writer in the world, being called &the master of short stories& in the world. She was born on October 14, 1888. in Wellington, New Zealand. As the third daughter of her family, she enjoyed a comfortable, privileged life in her childhood. She was sent to London to attend Queen’s College with her two sisters. They returned to New Zealand after three years in London. However, she decided to escape from the restrictions of family,colonial life, and bourgeois social conventions, returning to London to pursuit her artistic career in 1908. Mansfield had written 90 short stories which were compiled in Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield(1980). There were three books published in her lifetime, including In a German Pension, Bliss and Other Stories and The Garden Party and Other Stories. And two books were published posthumously―The Dove’s Nest and Other Stories and Something Childish and Other Stories. The most disordered time of her life was the first three years when she became independent, in which she experienced several love affairs and pregnancy and abortion. Mansfield got married to a critic John Middleton Murry in 1918. But their relationship was intense and filled with conflict. And they were long aparted, especially in those years when she went abroad to control the advancing of her illness. She ended her eventful but tragically short life for tuberculosis in 1923 when she was only 34 years old.Mansfield was greatly influenced by Anton Chekhov, sharing his warm humanity and attention to small details of human behavior. Her influence on the development of the short story as a form of literature was also notable.1.1.2 critical responses to Katherine MansfieldThe early critical response to Mansfield’s work was testimony to her promise, but her varied life and her tragically early death from tuberculosis ensured that the growth of her reputation was tempered by the growth of a legend.1However, as more and more of the focus on Mansfield’s work were on the style and form , it gave a rise to a tendency that what had been achieved were undervalued, especially among English critics. Sam Hynes had concluded that Mansfield’s work fails to provide the requisite Horatian blend and, therefore, ultimately fails as art. As new approaches to Mansfield’s life and personality existed , new approaches to her work accompanied. Mansfield’s work responded well to the new critical practice, including feminist critical practice, and a process of consolidation began. During the period of consolidation, Regarding Mansfield’s work as a major innovator in the art of the short story, and as an necessary part of the development of modernism was without question. More recently, a few critical books of Katherine Mansfield has been published ,of which Robinson’s Katherine Mansfield: In From the Margin(1994) Provided a new assessment of Mansfield, locating her as “a substantial and crucial figure” in twentieth century culture. In all, critical responses in western world to Mansfield has gone through a period when people tend to concerntrate most on her biography to a period when evaluation of her work became the focus of Mansfield. Critical responses to Mansfield’s works in China are mainly through three aspects: 1) focus most on the influence of the author’s persona 2) focus most on the artistic form of Mansfield’ 3) focus on the feminst idea of Mansfield’s short stories. 1.1.3 1.2 1.2.1 1.2.2 1.3 1.3.1 1.3.2 1.3.3 previous researches on Mansfield’s “Miss Brill” Theoretical basis for the analysis Stylistics Feminst stylistics Methods adopted in the thesis Transitivity analysis Contextual factors analysis Stylistc features analysisChapter2 general stylistic features of “Miss Brill” 2.1 phonetic features 2.2 lexical features 2.3 grammatical features 2.4 creation of image and symbols 2.5 summary of the general features of “Miss Brill” Chapter3 feminst stylistic analysis of “Miss Brill” 3.1 transitivity analysis of “Miss Brill” 3.2 contextual factors analysis of “Miss Brill” 3.2.1 socio-historical factors 3.2.2 personal factors Chapter4 Conclusion2Chapter1 Introductinn There have been some thesises concerning Mansfield’s “Miss Brill”, most of which focus on the feminst ideas presented or some general linguistic features about the work. The feminist stylistic approach may provide a new angle to objectively look into this novel and find out how the linguistic features are related to the feminst idea of the novel. 1.1Previous Research on Katherine Mansfield 1.1.1 an Introduction to Katherine Mansfield Katherine Mansfield is one of the best female writer in the world, being called &the master of short stories& in the world. She was born on October 14, 1888. in Wellington, New Zealand. As the third daughter of her family, she enjoyed a comfortable, privileged life in her childhood. She was sent to London to attend Queen’s College with her two sisters. They returned to New Zealand after three years in London. However, she decided to escape from the restrictions of family,colonial life, and bourgeois social conventions, returning to London to pursuit her artistic career in 1908. Mansfield had written 90 short stories which were compiled in Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield(1980). There were three books published in her lifetime, including In a German Pension, Bliss and Other Stories and The Garden Party and Other Stories. And two books were published posthumously―The Dove’s Nest and Other Stories and Something Childish and Other Stories. The most disordered time of her life was the first three years when she became independent, in which she experienced several love affairs and pregnancy and abortion. Mansfield got married to a critic John Middleton Murry in 1918. But their relationship was intense and filled with conflict. And they were long aparted, especially in those years when she went abroad to control the advancing of her illness. She ended her eventful but tragically short life for tuberculosis in 1923 when she was only 34 years old.Mansfield was greatly influenced by Anton Chekhov, sharing his warm humanity and attention to small details of human behavior. Her influence on the development of the short story as a form of literature was also notable.1.1.2 critical responses to Katherine MansfieldThe early critical response to Mansfield’s work was testimony to her promise, but her varied life and her tragically early death from tuberculosis ensured that the growth of her reputation was tempered by the growth of a legend. However, as more and more of the focus on Mansfield’s work were on the style and form , it gave a rise to a tendency that what had been achieved were undervalued, especially among English critics. Sam Hynes had concluded that Mansfield’s work fails to provide the requisite Horatian blend and, therefore, ultimately fails as art. As new approaches to Mansfield’s life and personality existed , new approaches to her work accompanied. Mansfield’s work responded well to the new critical practice, including feminist critical practice, and a process of consolidation began. During the period of consolidation, Regarding Mansfield’s work as a major innovator in the art of the short story, and as an necessary part of the development of modernism was3without question. More recently, a few critical books of Katherine Mansfield has been published ,of which Robinson’s Katherine Mansfield: In From the Margin(1994) Provided a new assessment of Mansfield, locating her as “a substantial and crucial figure” in twentieth century culture. In all, critical responses in western world to Mansfield has gone through a period when people tend to concerntrate most on her biography to a period when evaluation of her work became the focus of Mansfield. Critical responses to Mansfield’s works in China are mainly through three aspects: 1) focus most on the influence of the author’s persona 2) focus most on the artistic form of Mansfield’ 3) focus on the feminst idea of Mansfield’s short stories. 1.1.3 The story of Miss BrillThe story is about Miss Brill.It follows her on a regular Sunday afternoon in the park, which she spends walking and sitting in the park, wearing an old but beloved fur. She sees the world as if it were a stage, and enjoys watching the people around her, often judging them condescendingly. However, she then overhears a young couple's cruel remark about herself, and the story ends with her realizing that she is not really needed in the busy world, and she thinks that she heard the fur crying.1.1.4previous researches on Mansfield’s “Miss Brill”1.1.4.1 Femenist analysis of Miss Brill In The Characters of Female Subject in Mansfield’s Short Story（曼斯菲尔德短篇小说的女性主题特征） written by a Chinese researcher Niu Jianwei(2002), he claims that Miss Brillillustrates the disillusionment of women, which shows her feeling for life and at the same time tells readers the women’s thinking about their own lives, representing her feminst idea. Similarly, in another author He Yahui’s essay Mansfield’s Feminst Ideas(曼斯菲尔德的女权主义思想)，she demonstrates that Miss Brill tried her best to merge herself into the society,however, the disillusionment made her return to her dark and small house to live a miserable life on her own. This also represents Mansfield’s concern about women’s misery and loneliness, which show a strong feminist sympathy for women in society. 1.1.4.2 Literary analysis of Miss Brill Besides those research work concerntrating on the feminist ideas of Miss Brill, there are also some literary approaches to analyse this short story, including the artistic angle and the stylistic angle. In a writing skill analysis of Miss Brill by Chinese Researcher Yang Hong(2007), it is said that Mansfield had used “Glimpse”, a “third-person narrative angle of vision” and different lengthes of sentence to successfully represent Miss Brill’s inner world. (孤寂心灵的顿悟―简析 《布里尔小姐》的写作技巧) Another essey by Chinese author Yang Hong and Yi Lijun(2007) illustrates that the use of environment description, momentary details in Miss Brill 4appropriately depict the subject’s thought and personality, and the use of external details well interact with the charater’s internal feelings.( 细腻刻画 节描写) The stylistic point of view provides us a more objective way to analyse Miss Brill. A literary stylistic analysis of Miss Brill describes some features on the level of lexical, grammar,and figure of speech in order to present us the beauty of the language of Miss Brill. A functional stylistic analysis of “Miss Brill” by Chinese Researcher Hu Kun tells how those language features prominent reflect the miserable life of Miss Brill and her unwillingness to face reality. 传神表达―――析《布里尔小姐》中的细1.1.5 Current focus This thesis concerntrates most on the feminist stylistic features of Miss Brill, that is how the stylistic features reflect the feminist idea of Mansfield in this short story. Since both feminist evaluation and literary evaluation have been adopted in the anaylisis of Miss Brill, this thesis provides a way to combine stylistic analysis with feminist evaluation, which has never been done by others. 1.2 1.2.1 Theoretical basis for the analysis Stylistics Stylistic is a study of style, that is, a discipline that studies the ways in which language is used. It has two subdivisions: General stylistics, which studies the stylistic features of the main varieties of language,and Literary stylistics, which concerns only the unique features of various literary works. 1.2.2 Feminst stylistics With the advent of feminism and critical stylistics in the late 1970s and early 1980s, feminist stylistics established itself as a branch of stylistics. 1995 saw the development of feminist stylistics as a discipline as Feminist Stylistics by Sara Mills published. In this book, Mills defines “feminist stylistics” as “an analysis which identifies itself as feminist and whitch uses linguistic or language analysis to examine texts”.(Mills. 1995:1). It is also said that feminist stylistics focuses on the solution to two questions, that is, why authors have chosen certain ways to express their ideas on gender issues, and how certain effects related to the tow sexes are achieved through language. (Mills. .3 1.3.1 Methods adopted in the thesis Transitivity analysis Transitivity analysis “distinguaish[es] the types of process represented by the English clause, and the various participant functions that are associated with each”(Halliday. 2000:16) Generally there are three processes concerning transitivity analysis, that is material, mental, and relational. Mills in her book said that the study of transitivity is concerned with how actions are represented: what kind if actions appear in a text, who does them and to whom they are done. It can tell readers the ideological message where there are strong heroines and where there are passive victims.51.3.2 Narrative analysis Narrative analysis concerns the basic structure of a novel. For analyzing how a narrative text is formed, narratologists suggest a three-layer distinction: text, story, and fibula. Narrative point of view catches a lot of attention in the field of narratology and stylistics. 1.3.3 Foregrounding analysis Foregrounding is one of the basic concepts in Functional Stylistics. Halliday defined &foregrounding& as & artistically motivated prominence&, which suggests that not all the prominences are foregrounding. When analysing a text's foregrounding features, it is suggested that each level of the text be examined to find out those prominent and unusual language features. After that, an interpretation process should be conducted to see if those features are related to the theme and the scene of the text. If so, those features are foregrounding language features, otherwise they are of no stylistic value. 1.3.3 Contextual factors analysisWe cannot examine a text without considering the relevant contextual factors, which, in fact, could affect how a text is created. In this thesis, extra-linguistic context, including socio-historical and personal factors, are taken into account.Chapter 2 Linguistic Description of &Miss Brill&2.1 Phonetic Features Some specific sounds have specific effects. Those symbolic sounds show the author’s intention in writing the text. Mansfield aims to present a combination of happiness and sorrow to hightlight the desperation behind Miss Brill's own imagination of peace and joy. The author prefer to use some monophthongs like [/\], [?] and [], and a few consonants such as [z]and [s], reflecting a cheerful and peaceful tone of Miss Brill's sitting in the park. However, the frequent use of diphthongs like [?u], [au]and [ai] and some back vowels such as[],[],[u:]and [u] depicts a completely different solemn tone of the text. 2.2 Lexical FeaturesMansfield seems like to use a lot of repetition to emphasize what she wants to express. The repetition of &sad & and &old& is probably the most important one to emphasize the misery of women in the society. Another striking feature of Mansfield's diction is that her words are not only ordinarydescription, but full of those words that show color and light. The frequent use of color words like &gold&,&blue&,&white& show the readers the sorrow and hopelessness in life with beautiful scene weaved by beautiful words.2.3 Grammatical Features In terms of transitivity choice, Mansfield tends to employ a lot of material and mental process to present the character of Miss Brill, and the actually miserable situation of this old woman. It is obvious from the transitivity choices of the author that many of Miss Brill’s actions towards the people around her are within mental processes, indicating that she didn’t actually have any interaction with them. From another aspect, there exists a change of meterial processes and mental processes from at the beginning of the text to at the end of the6text when Miss Brill was at home, depicting the change of Miss Brill’s feeling ater she came back from the park. 2.4 Narrative FeaturesIn contrast to the traditional omniscient narrative angle of vision, Mansfield flexibly uses various angle of vision, especially the third-person limited angle of vision, to narrate the story. The use of free indirect thought is not only a means to change the narrative angle of vision from a omniscient one to a limited one, but also a way to express the awareness of herself of the femalesubject. Also the author uses accretion with a lack of a climax in the story to narrate her story, which is a resistance against the male mode of narrating a story. With the central role of the poor old woman in the text, Mansfield also goes against the traditional organization of a story which is centrolized around the male characters, showing her own sympathy for the misery of females in the society.Chapter 3 Stylistic analysis of “Miss Brill”― A foregrounding analysis 3.1 Sound EffectAt the beginning of the text, Mansfield describes such a scene: in a late autumn morning, Miss Brill got ready to go to a park as usual. Although it was so brilliantly fineCthe blue sky powdered with gold and great spots of light like white wine splashed over the Jardins PubliquesCMiss Brill was glad that she had decided on her fur. The air was motionless, but when you opened your mouth there was just a faint chill, like a chill from a glass of iced water before you sip, and now and again a leaf came driftingCfrom nowhere, from the sky. Miss Brill put up her hand and touched her fur. Dear little thing! It was nice to feel it again. She had taken it out of its box that afternoon, shaken out the moth powder, given it a good brush, and rubbed the life back into the dim little eyes.(paragraph 1) There are totally 127 words in this part, with a lot of diphthongs in it.It can be seen that the author has shown preference for diphthongs such as [?u], [au]and [ai], comparing to other diphthongs. [?u](words that are underlined), with an eight-time appearance in this part,accounts for about 6.3% in this text, and [au](words that are overstriking), appearing 4 times, which accounts for about 3.1%. [ai] (words that are underlined and overstriking)appears 11 times, which accounts for about 8.7% in this part of text. These diphthongs which need the mouth opened greatly when spoken are all long and loud, so that they need to be spoken slowly, which lead to a solemn atmosphere. On the contrary, Mansfield prefer to usemonophthongs such as [/\], [?],[], accounting for about 22% in this part of text, is short in pronunciation, which represents a happy and cheerful feeling. Monophthongs like [i:]、[i] , which take up a percentage of about 21.3% in this text, are front vowel, indicating a chilly late autumn that was experienced. The contrast of those phonetic features depicts a scene that combines gay and a little bit sorrow, establishing the keynote of the whole text, and indicating the misery behind Miss Brill’s imagining happiness. Another great contrast can be seen in the following extracts, which also depict a contrast between Miss Brill’s imagination and the real world. [1]Little children ran among them, s little boys with big white silk7bows under their chins, little girls, little French dolls, dressed up in velvet and lace. And sometimes a tiny staggerer came suddenly rocking into the open from under the trees, stopped, stared, as suddenly sat down &flop,& until its small high-stepping mother, like a young hen, rushed scolding to its rescue. Behind the rotunda the slender trees with yellow leaves down drooping, and through them just a line of sea, and beyond the blue sky with gold-veined clouds. (paragraph 5) [2] But today she passed the baker's by, climbed the stairs, went into the little dark roomCher room like a cupboardCand sat down on the red eiderdown. She sat there for a long time. The box that the fur came out of was on the bed. She unclasped quickly, without looking, laid it inside. But when she put the lid on she thought she heard something crying.(paragraph18) In part [1], Miss Brill sat on the bench, seeing people pass by, and listening to others‘ talking,imagining herself as an inevitable part of the world.There are 92 words in this part , which show the author’s preference in [z]、[s]. As can be seen, a series of [z]、 [s], such as boys, bows, chins, girls, dolls, sometimes, trees, as, appear in the text. In the total 92 words, there are 26 words that have a [s] or [z] sound, accounting for 28% of the whole selected text. [z] sound and[s] sound are usually regard as the symbol of wind and water and a scene of silence, thus the frenquent existence of these sounds imply the agreeable and quiet feeling of Miss Brill when enjoying the sunlight in the park, among the crowd, thinking herself as part of this peaceful scene. However, in part[2], on Miss Brill’s way home, with all her imagination destroyed by the young boy and young girl, she felt desperate. In this part, there are 147 words altogether, approximately 13% of which have a sound of [ ]、[ ] that sounds grave and indicate a sad and desperate feeling of the old woman. Also there are [u] and [u:]sound, accounting for about 7% in the text, which are like the deep and sorrow sobbing of people. 14% of the words have a [au] sound or a [ai] sound, which are long and loud, illustrating adepressed atmosphere on her way home. All those sounds implying sadness and desperation take up most of this selected part. Besides, there are 12 words that have a [k] sound in this seventy-one-word selected part. As is know, this velar [k] needs an obstruction audibly released and the air passing out again from the throat, which symbolizes difficulty, indicating the heavy steps of Miss Brill on her way home. Considering the contrast between these two selected part, we can easily see that the mood of Miss Brill had changed from happy and peaceful to sorrow and desperate after realizing her painful situation of being a useless and old woman in society.3.2 Lexical Effect 3.2.1 The effect of repetition Mansfield uses a lot of repetition to emphasize what she wants to express. In the first three paragraphs, there are repetitions to emphasize something important to the whole theme. [1] &What has been happening to me?& said the sad little eyes. ...And when she breathed,something light and sadCno, not sad, exactlyCsomething gentle seemed to move in her bosom.(paragraph 1)8...yet there was just a faint chillCa something, what was it?Cnot sadnessCno, not sadnessCa something that made you want to sing. (paragraph 10) [2] She was sure it was new. ...She was sure it would be repeated. I she lifted her head and smiled.(paragraph 2) [3] Only two people shared her &special& seat: a fine old man in a velvet coat, his hands clasped over a huge carved walking-stick, and a big old woman, sitting upright, with a roll of knitting on her embroidered apron.(paragraph 3) As can be seen from above, of the two sentences selected text[1], the word &sad& appears 3 times, the noun &sadness& appears 2 times,accounting for 8% of the whole selected text. Though the author use &not& to express a seemingly denial meaning, it can still be strongly felt the sadness of the old woman in the text. Also, the repetition of &sure& emphasizes Miss Brill's regular presence in the park and herconvictionof being included in the society. Had it not been for her regular presence, she wouldnot be so certain about the wear of the band conductor. She was sure of everything in this small community that she felt like part of the community. The word &old& has been used 12 times in the whole passage, emphasizing the miserable situation of being old and useless of the old heroine. The author mentions &old man&,&old woman& for many times to show that people around Miss Brill are all old and neglected, suggesting that Miss Brill is in fact one of those poor old things in the world. 3.2.2 Adjectives Feature The most striking feature of Mansfield's diction is, as Woolf once said, that her words are not only ordinary description, but have color and light. At the beginning of paragraph 1, and from the description of the surrounding of paragraph 6, it can be clearly seen that color and light are used in the desperate story of the old woman, depicting the sorrow and hopelessness in life with beautiful scene weaved by beautiful words. [1]Although it was so brilliantly fineCthe blue sky powdered with gold and great spots of light like white wine splashed over the Jardins PubliquesCMiss Brill was glad that she had decided on her fur. (paragraph 1) Behind the rotunda the slender trees with yellow leaves down drooping, and through them just a line of sea, and beyond the blue sky with gold-veined clouds.(paragraph 6) Color words are frequently used by the author. In the total 65 words in the two selected part, color words have appeared 6 times, and those words such as &brilliant&, &light& have appeared twice, both accounting for 12% in the selected part.These warm color words are all sprightlyand vivid, causing readers to establish a picture full of warm and refreshing atmosphere. The author makes every effort to play up the pleasant weather, reflecting MissBrill's joyful mood in an indirect way. [2] But to-day she passed the baker's by, climbed the stairs, went into the little dark roomCher room like a cupboardCand sat down on the red eiderdown. She sat there for a long time. The box that the fur came out of was on the bed. She unclasped quickly, without looking, laid it inside. But when she put the lid on she thought she heard something9crying. Besides, the author use adjectives, especially subjective adjectives, for example &brilliant fine&, &great&,&glad&, at the beginning of the text, showing more about Miss Brill's inner world and personal feeling, while in the later narration of the text, she turns her narrative words from emotional ones to plain ones, using more verbs to narrate her story rather than adjectives. Table 1 Lexical distribution in selected text[1] and [2]. Total words in text[1]:65 Total words in text[2]:73 Adjectives in text [1]: 10(15%) Adjectives in text [2]: 4(5.4%) Verbs in text[1]:5(7.7%) Verbs in text[2]:13(17.8%) From the above table it is clear that in the selected text[1], the author uses lots more adjectives than verbs to narrate the story, while it is obviously opposite in the selected text[2].The contrast indicates a great difference in atmosphere, deepening the theme which shows the miserable situation of women.Chapter 4 Stylistic Analysis of “Miss Brill”― A Transitivity Analysis 4.1 Transitivity Analysis of Miss Brill before she goes to the park(paragraph 1) In the first paragraph, the number and the proportion of the six process are as follows: Table 2 Total processes : 28 Material process: 16(57.1%) Mental process: 6(21.4%) Relational process: 4(14.3%) Behaviour process:0(0%) Verbal process :1(3.6%) Existential process: 1(3.6%) It can be seen from the table that Material process accounts for over 50% in the paragraph, followed by mental process and relational process. There are few behaviour process, verbal process,and existential process in the text. Material process is the objective description of the world by the author, depicting everything of the objective world. Of the 16 material processes, there are eight processes with Miss Brill as the actor. 1.She A A 2.Miss Brill 3. and (she) 4. She had decided on Process:Material put up Process: Material touched had taken her fur. Goal her hand Goal her fur. Goal it out of its box that afternoon.AProcess: Material AProcess:Material Goal5. (She) (had) shaken out the moth powder10Actor 6. (She) Actor ActorProcess:Material (had) given it a Process:Material Process:MaterialGoal good brush Beneficiary Goal the life back into the dim little eyes. Goal7.and (she) (had) rubbedThe material processes show that Miss Brill had done many things before she went to the park. All these material processes are related firmly to Miss Brill's fur, and the receiver of these actions are all of the fur, showing Miss Brill's affection for the fur. But according to this paragraph, &the nose of her fur wasn't at all firm&, and she would give it &a little dab of black sealing-wax when it was absolutely necessary&, which indicates that Miss Brill was too poor to have another more beautiful fur. This suggests her poor situation in the society. 4.2 Transitivity Analysis of Miss Brill when she was at the park(paragraph 2-paragraph17 ) 4.2.1 Sentences concerning Miss Brill As is seen in the 16 paragraphs, there are totally 27 sentences concerning Miss Brill.the number and the proportion of the six process of these 27 sentences are as follows: Table 3 Total processes : 36 Material process: 7(19.4%) Mental process: 16(44.4%) Relational process: 2(5.6%) Behaviour process:9(25%) Verbal process :1(2.8%) Existential process: 0(0%) It can be concluded from the above table that mental processes account for the most of all the processes concerning Miss Brill, followed by behaviour processes and material processes. Whomever she was facing, the old, the young,or the woman in ermine toque, she never had real body contact with them, only having mental reaction to those people she saw. 4.2.2 Miss Brill's attitude toward the old and the young For deeper analysis, it can be first seen from the attitude of Miss Brill toward the old. Table 4 1. She Actor 2. MissBrill Senser glanced process:behaviour had wanted process: mental sideways circumstances: location to shake process: material at the old couple. circumstances: location her(the old woman).3. If he(the old man)'d been dead she mightn't noticed she wouldn't have minded. Circumstances: condition actor actor process: behaviourcircumstances: timeprocess: behaviourThe sentences shown in the table are all the responses that Miss Brill gave to the old11people, depicting her detestation and denial to those old. The word &glanced& is appropriatelyused to show her contempt to the old couple, in accordance to the previous analysis. She also had a material process &to shake& the old woman who would never be satisfied. However, notably, the material process is within a mental process of Miss Brill, representing that the material process is actually invalid. She just show denial and contempt to the old people in her own mind, but never put what she thought into action. Next we can see the young people in Miss Brill's eyes. Table 51. She(Miss Brill) lifted(process:material) her head(material goal)and smiled(process: behaviour). 2. The young girls in red came by (Process: Material) and two young soldiers in blue met (Process: Material) them(Goal), and they laughed (Process: Behavioural) and paired (Process: Material) and went off (Process: Material) arm-in-arm. 3. A beautiful woman came along (Process: Material) and dropped (Process: Material) her bunch of violets [Goal],and a little boy ran after (Process: Material) to hand (Process: Material) them [Goal] to her, and she took (Process: Material) them (Goal) and threw (Process: Material) them (Goal)away as if they’d been poisoned. 4. Little children ran (Process: Material) among them, swooping (Process: Behavioural) and laughing (Process: Behavioural); little boys with big whitesilk bows under their chins, little girls, little French dolls,dressed up (Process: Material) in velvet and lace. 5. And sometimes a tiny staggerer came (Process: Material)suddenly rocking (Process: Material) into the open from under the trees stopped (Process: Mateiral), stared (Process: Behavioural), as suddenly sat down (Process: Material)“flop”, until its smallhigh-stepping mother, like a young hen, rushed (Process: Material ) scolding (Process: Verbal) to its rescue.It is clearly from the above table that the young ones in the eyes of Miss Brill are all dynamic and lively, reflected by those all dynamic processes. It can be obviously seen from the total 22 processes that all the processes initiated by the young are material processes, behavioural processes, and verbal processes, which prove that the young ones are vigorous and full of passion.All these sentences also indicate Miss Brill's admiration for the young. However, these dynamic processes were just observed by Miss Brill, and she never took part in those young's activities. With the contrast between Miss Brill's attitude toward the old ones and the young ones, it is obviously that Miss Brill look down upon those dull and useless old people and appreciate and admire those energetic young people. From another aspect, no matter what people she was facing, Miss Brill never had real contact with them, only sitting on the bench in the park and thinking alone. From this angle, Miss Brill was the same with those whom she looked down upon, for they all didn’t have real action. However, she was completely different with those young, who were active and energetic, for she just admired those young in her own mind but seldom did anything. This also doom to the contradiction of story which would eventually lead to Miss Brill’s disillutionment. 4.3 Transitivity analysis of Miss Brill when she was back home(the last paragraph) The number of the six processes and the proportion are shown in the following table:Table 612Total processes : 11 Material process: 8(72.7%) Mental process: 2(18.2%) Relational process: 0(0%) Behaviour process:0(0%) Verbal process :0(0%) Existential process: 1(9.1%)The material processes take up the most proportion, which gives prominence to the left mental processes. 1. (She) sat down on the red eiderdown. Actor Process: Material Circumstance: Location 2. She sat there for a long time. Actor Process: Material Circumstance: Location Circumstance: Extent 3. She unclasped quickly, without looking Actor Process: Material Goal Circumstance: Manner 4. (She) laid it inside. Actor Process: Material Goal Circumstance: Location 5. But when she put the lid on Actor Process: Material Goal Circumstance: Location 6. she thought she heard something crying . Senser Process: Mental Senser Process: Mental Phenomenon Compared to the processes that appeare in the beginning of the text when Miss Brill was still home before she went out to the park, the material processes here have a change. First the words “sat” and “sat down” indicate a static state but not a dynamic state, which replects the tireness of Miss Brill’ s mind and body back from the park. Second, the goal of the left meterial processes are sill concerning the fur, but the circumstances here are different from those in the first paragraph. She unclasped the necklet “ quickly, without looking”, which fully represents her denial to the fur, completely opposite attitude compared to that shown in the first paragraph when she hadn’t been to the park. The other two circumstances(inside, on) strengthen this effect. After a series of material processes, the two mental processes at the end of the text was foregrounded. The sentence “she thought she heard something crying” actually means that she was crying deep in her mind. The reason for the use of a mental process instead of directly using a behavioural process to end the text is because this shows an uncertainty of Miss Brill, reflecting that she was not willing to believe the fact of her miserable situation. Besides, the application of “thought” and “heard something crying” also contribute to this effect, showing her unwillingness to admit her disillutionment.Chapter 5 Feminist Stylistic Analysis of “Miss Brill”― A Narrative Analysis This story is a rejection of male modes, and this strategy is apparent in its all-over structure: its lack of a cenrtal climax, its concerntration on the female character, and its accretion. 5.1 Narrrative Angle of Vision13In contrast to the traditional omniscient narrative angle of vision, Mansfield flexibly uses various angle of vision to narrate the story. Through employing free indirect thought, she makes it poosible that the narrative angle of vision is changed , without the readers’ noticing it, from a looker-on point of view to a third-person limited point of view, smoothly changing from describing the outside world to describing Miss Brill’s own thoughts and feelings, which makes the thoughts and feelings of the character masterly intergrate into the narration. The third-person narrator can go into a character’s inside world without being noticed, presenting the complicated mental processes directly. The realization of alternatively using a third-person narration and a first-person internal monologue let readers to feel the character’s emotion from a shorter distance, which makes the narration more impressive, showing the process of Miss Brill’s disillusionment in a stronger and more direct way. The use of free indirect thought is not only a means to change the narrative angle of vision from a omniscient one to a limited one, but also a way to express the awaken of the consciousnessof female subject. By using free indrect speech to show the inner consciousness of subjects,the author can directly present the emotional ups and downs of the subjects, which makes the expression of the characters’ self conciousness strong and convincing. Therefore, through the use of free indirect speech, the process of Miss Brill’s self recognition is shown to the readers in a direct way, making it a more impressive process than just presenting it by an omniscient narration, for readers can feel Miss Brill’s inner change more directly.More importantly, the application of a third-person angle of vision to narrative the story is a way that is free from the critics and Intervention of an omniscient narrator which gives the reader freedom to think and imagine. It is different from the male narrative modes.5.2 Accretion Accretion is one of the prominent narrative method in “Miss Brill”. Though “Miss Brill ” follows a sequential time line, the time line is actually not so significant. In terms of plot, nothing is really added on. Mansfield gets rid of the traditional way of telling a story with a beginning, a central climax and an ending. Instead, she organizes her story around a park and Miss Brill’s little dark house, only discribing one of Miss Brill’s Sunday afternoons when she was watching the passers-by. There are no dramatic plots or sharp conflicts in the story. What were presented to the readers are just some fragmentary scenes from the eyes of Miss Brill and her own thoughts and feelings. Readers experience Miss Brill’s change in her inner world through those scenes in the eyes of her and the emotional experiences of her, seeing the poor situation of this lonely old woman and inevitably have a deep sympathy for this poor woman and the crying heart of her. It is a resistance against the male mode to narrate a story which always needs a central climax to make a “complete” story. 5.3 The Central Role of Female In”Miss Brill”, it is the female character who hold the center of the story. In fact, the whole story is organized around Miss Brill only. Almost every surrounding described in the story is heard or saw or felt by Miss Brill, told by a third-person narrator, and others are all about Miss Brill’s feelings and thoughts.14The whole story is actually a process of Miss Brill’s insight and disillutionment, from Miss Brill’s imagination of herself being an impotant part of the society to her realization that she was in fact a useless old woman in the society. In conclusion, by analysing the narrative strategy of Mansfield in “Miss Brill”, it is clear that this short story is a feminist work which goes against the traditional male mode of narrating. Chapter 6 Feminist Stylistic Analysis of “Miss Brill”― A Contextual Analysis6.1 Social-historical factors 6.1.1 Women’s low status in the society At the beginning of 20th century, England witnessed the transfer from a stable capitalistic society to an imperial society which was full of various acute conflicts. Due to the continually expanding of colonization, large sum of capital flew outside of England and thus led to the large scope of unemployment in the country, speeding the poverty of underclass people. Women, especially those living at the bottom of society, were more miserable with no property, no status in the society. They were preoccupied with making a living and experienced every difficulity in life without being noticed. They were lonely and poor and they lamented their misfortune, however, they could do nothing to change the situation but put up with it. For comforting themselves, they gave expression to their feelings on things around them or dreams they created for their own. “Miss Brill” was created in such a background, with the character Miss Brill as a representative of female at the bottom of society. Mansfield’s “Miss Brill” is a simple, lonely, elderly woman. She is sitting on a bench in town on a chilly, fall, Sunday, afternoon. She has nothing to do but silently watching the town’s people while the band plays. She thinks she is interacting with the people around her in her own way, though no one speaks to her, or really even notices that she is there. In conclusion, she is living in a life of her own imagination, regardless of her actually miserable situation of being a useless old woman in society. Disillutionment is a literary theme that Mansfield presented in her many short stories such as “Bliss” and “The Garden Party”, which is also an important form to express her feminism idea. People in life will always have some expectation for a beautiful future, and they tend to draw a picture of reality according to their own model. Unfortunately, there always exists a conflict between the expectation for a bright future and the real cruel reality, which eventually lead to the ruined hope. Mansfield trys to use the character Miss Brill to express her concern for the female at the bottom of society. Through a description of disillusionment, she tell her reader the deep thought of women’s fate and the sympathy for them. Everyone will have an expectation for a good future, but those women at the bottom of society could have only the disillusionment of their hope. 6.1.2 Women’s movement At Mansfield’s time，women began to fight and srtuggle for their own liberation.They demanded the equal right with men in the aspects of education, politics, profession, and so on. They believed firmly that the right for women to vote would give women the chance to bring about other much needed changes in society. Their firm spirit had a profound effect on15Mansfield’s thought on women. Although she belonged to the upper-class of the society, she did concern with the miserable life of working-class women in her stories like “Life of Ma Parker”, “The Tiredness of Rosabel”, “Pictures”. Her general attention to women’s life to a large extent was due to women’s enlightenment at the turn of the century. In fact, Mansfield express a struggle of women to have a place in society in the story of “Miss Brill”. Although Miss Brill actually do nothing but watching the park goers, she did have a spirit to find a place for herself in the society. As she thought” they were all on stage. Theyweren't only the audience, they were acting.”, and “no doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn' she was part of the performance after all.”. Sheimagined herself as being an inseperable part of the society, which reflects her pursuit of a possision of her own in society. And the author also show her sympathy for women like Miss Brill. In the last sentence of the story, she writes: ” But when she put the lid on she thought she heard something crying.”. This “crying”, as far as I am concern, is not only a reflection of Miss Brill’s own crying, but also a crying of Mansfield herself for women like Miss Brill.6.2 Personal Factors 6.2.1 The Influence of Her Early Life The loneliness of Mansfield’s female characters shown in her stories is a result of her early experience when she was far away from home. Life to her was cruel and difficult. In order to make a living, she had done many jobs such as actress, teacher, and nurse. She was like a leave,fleeing from place to place, which gave her a deep feeling of loneliness. Therefore, the loneliness depicted in her stories is a mirror of her own life, which makes it easy for her to go deep intothese lonely feelings. In her works there are no complains or accussments to society of her female characters, but bitterly smiles. The cruelty of reality and the lack of love of people make them lose the courage and confidence to communicate with others. They just live in their own imagined life, comforting themselves with fake happiness. Miss Brill is one of those women who are the vitims of loneliness. She never communicates with people around her, only observing many thin the way they walk, what theyare wearing.16
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