Miss Brill seems to lack an accurate sense of self-awareness, she is very emotional, and she is old-fashioned. She looks around at the old people at the park and feels as though they looked "as though they'd just come from dark littler rooms or even—even cupboards!" The older people seem to stare around them in an off-putting way, and Miss Brill evidently does not realize that she is just like them, staring around her at everyone else. Then, at the end, she goes home to her "little dark room—her room like a cupboard." She must have the same look as the other old people, but it does not occur to her that she is one of them; she feels that she is somehow more vibrant and vital. Miss Brill is also very susceptible to the music being played at the park; it often makes her feel something like sadness, and her "eyes filled with tears and she looked smiling at all the other" people, people who she imagines to be fellow actors on a stage they share. Miss Brill is also quite old-fashioned (though she is, of course, unaware of this too). The boy and girl who sit on her bench make fun of her but especially her fur, a fur she thinks of as a "little rogue." The girl says it looks like a "'fried whiting,'" but Miss Brill thinks it's "dear," kind of fancy.
Miss Brill is delusional. She lives in a fantasy world of her own making in which everyone is nothing more than a bit player in the little drama that she's written for her own delectation. And it's the drama in the park that constitutes the main event of the narrative. One could also say that Miss Brill is other-worldly. That is to say she doesn't really belong anywhere in the regular, workaday world where most people live. As was once often said of the Church of England, she's in the world but not of it, almost like an alien from another planet who's been beamed down to earth by the mothership.
Miss Brill's other-worldliness establishes certain expectations which must be fulfilled in order for her to maintain the unity and stability of her private fantasy world. That such expectations are cruelly dashed impels the narrative towards its sad conclusion. And in that sad conclusion, as well as in the opening of the story, we share most keenly Miss Brill's sense of isolation. It is Miss Brill's isolation, her complete separation from the world around her, that causes her to construct a parallel universe all of her own. It causes her to venture forth into the park each week, where all the main threads of her eccentric character—as well as the story's narrative—are woven together.
Miss Brill is lonely, imaginative, and sensitive. These three characteristics are not the only characteristics that a reader could apply to Miss Brill, but they are important to the narrative.
Being a lonely, single woman, Miss Brill doesn't have much of a life outside of her jobs. To fill those lonely hours, she heads to the park to people watch. Being surrounded by all of those people makes her feel like a part of the vibrant community around her. She imagines that the people with her are all involved in an elaborate stage production, and she imagines that she also plays an integral role in the stage production.
Oh, how fascinating it was! How she loved sitting here, watching it all! It was exactly like a play. Who could believe the sky at the back wasn’t painted? They were all on the stage. They weren’t only the audience; they were on the stage.
Her imagination allows her to live vicariously through these other people, and she is driven to do this every Sunday because she is lonely. Finally, Miss Brill is sensitive, and this is why she is driven off of her bench back to her apartment by the hurtful remarks of the young couple.
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