Download For each of the texts, analyse techniques that made you feel

For each of the texts, analyse techniques that made you feel sympathetic to a main character.
Katherine Mansfield’s “Miss Brill” and Janet Frame’s “The Bath” have many things in common. One of these things
is the author’s use of symbolism and minor characters to make the reader feel sympathetic to a main character,
in both cases an aging woman.
In “Miss Brill” Katherine Mansfield uses minor characters to create a contrast between age and youth, highlighting
Miss Brill’s own age. Katherine Mansfield said about this short story that she “chose not only the length of every
sentence but even the sound of every sentence” so that it would “fit [Miss Brill] on that day at that very
moment”. This attention to detail is obvious in her description of minor characters. When she is describing the
“little boys with big silk bows” and the “little children…swooping and laughing” she uses short vowels which give
the description a bouncy and lively feel. This reflects the minor characters themselves, who are young; full of
vitality and hope.
When describing the older characters, on the other hand, Katherine Mansfield creates contrast by using long,
slow vowel sounds. This reflects the choice of words: where the young are “swooping and laughing” the old “sat
on the bench, still as statues”.
Katherine Mansfield deliberately creates this contrast to show the reader the contrast between what Miss Brill
believes her life to be – full of life and love like the young in the story – and the harsh reality: her life resembles
that of the aged more than that of the young. Katherine Mansfield’s contrasting descriptions of the young and the
old mean that the reader realises this before the truth is thrust upon Miss Brill and it is this irony which makes the
reader pity Miss Brill in her naivety.
Another technique that Katherine Mansfield uses to show the reader Miss Brill’s false beliefs of her own life is
symbolism. The main symbol of “Miss Brill” is the extended metaphor that the main character herself presents to
us: her life as a play at the theatre. This highlights the fact that what Miss Brill believes her life to be is quite
different to the reality.
Katherine Mansfield explores this idea of a fantasy built to salve Miss Brill’s loneliness through the extended
metaphor comparing the mundanities of a Sunday afternoon in the park to the excitement of the theatre. “Who
could believe the sky at the back wasn’t painted?” As Miss Brill’s imagination runs away with her she begins to
believe that those out enjoying the park of a Sunday were not just a passive audience at the theatre, but that
“they were all on stage”: the Sunday afternoon strollers; the band; herself. She imagines that she is an actress
with an important role in the fabrication of reality that is the theatre and that “no doubt someone would have
noticed if she hadn’t been there”.
Miss Brill’s fantasy of the theatre highlights the fantasy that Miss Brill has created of her life. When Miss Brill
thinks that her absence would have been noticed in the context of the theatre, the reader realises that this is just
another part of her fantasy and that the reality is that no one would have missed her. This fantasy reinforces her
loneliness. It is almost like an imaginary friend created to comfort Miss Brill, an image which reinforces her
vulnerability and again makes the reader feel sorry for her.
Janet Frame’s “The Bath” also uses minor characters and symbolism to make the reader feel sorry for the main
character. The bath of the title is a symbol of her elderly body’s demise and her struggle to continue living. Mrs.
Harroway finds it almost impossible to get herself out of the bath and only manages to do so after a good halfhour of struggling. The fact that many of us would view taking a bath as a fairly mundane task reinforces Mrs.
Harroway’s loss of control of her body “that showed treachery” and refuses to do as she wants; is incapable even
of what may seem to us the most every-day actions. This gives the reader such a complete sense of Mrs.
Harroway’s age-given frailty that they cannot help being moved to pity.
The bath is also a symbol of Mrs. Harroway’s struggle to continue living. The shape of the bath is very similar to
the shape of the coffin and Janet Frame further reinforces this link at the end of “The Bath” when Mrs. Harroway
“saw only her husband’s grave… then it vanished and she was left with the image of… the narrow confining
bath”.
This is a symbol of Mrs. Harroway’s diminishing will to live. Once it was easy for her to get out of the bath but
now she must struggle to complete this once easy task, showing the reader how it was once easy for her to shun
the clutches of death but now, as she ages, she must struggle to get out of the coffin-bath as death increases its
grip. This is further emphasised when she describes the draining water as “trying to draw her down, down into
the earth” where coffins are traditionally found.
Through the symbol of the bath the reader begins to understand how death can seem preferable to the frail,
lonely existence of old age. They understand that this is how Mrs. Harroway is beginning to feel and through this
they feel sorry for the old woman who has fewer and fewer things to hold her to life.
Mrs. Harroway’s loneliness plays a large part in her diminishing will to live and this is something that Janet Frame
accents with minor characters. There are very few minor characters in “The Bath” and the majority of these are
dead, and it is Mrs. Harroway’s relationship with her deceased family that shows the reader the depth of her
loneliness as an old woman. It also shows us her desire to join them.
Mrs. Harroway finds those closest to her – her husband and her parents – in the cemetery. It is here that she
finds friendship and she speaks of the dead as if the were still alive but sleeping, describing her parent’s grave as
a double-bed “with room… to turn and sigh and move in dreams”. Not only does this show the reader that her
most significant relationships are with those who have already passed-on but it also gives an insight into how she
views death: a peaceful sleep from the trying mundanities of life. Again the reader sees her desire to join them in
this sleep when Mrs. Harroway says that “she longed to find a place besides the graces, in the soft grass, and fall
asleep”.
Mrs. Harroway’s relationship with dead minor characters highlights her loneliness. She can no longer relate to
those who are still living. It also shows the reader that she views death as a peaceful sleep as opposed to
something to be feared or avoided. This gives the impression that Mrs. Harroway’s existence is already based
more in death than in life, a sad state of existence that moves the reader to pity.
Sympathy can mean many things but in the case of “Miss Brill” and “The Bath” it is an expression of pity, or of
feeling sorry for the main character. Both Katherine Mansfield and Janet Frame use minor characters and
symbolism to trigger this emotion towards the main character.