Miss Brill Lesson Plan

Miss Brill, the story's eponymous character, visits a park where she sits at a bench and observes the people as they pass by. The short story is written in a modernist style, in which Miss Brill's subjective (and therefore unreliable) thoughts and perspective are dominant. Miss Brill initially speaks of the people she sees optimistically, almost as if she shares in their lives and all of the activity and buzz that their lives seem to imply. She imagines the passersby as characters in a play. The story takes a more negative turn, however, when two other characters who sit at her bench are introduced. One makes a rude comment about Miss Brill, and the fantastical bubble in which she lives...