Miss Brill And Eveline Comparison
In 1966, American singer James Brown scored a Billboard #1 single with his song “It’s a Man’s World.” Years earlier, James Joyce and Katherine Mansfield wrote “Eveline” and “Miss Brill” about two females across the ocean who were trapped in the “man’s world” life presented them with. Both tales are about characters who attempt to escape the unique circumstances around them. While both Eveline and Miss Brill seek different escape routes to avoid the negativity of their environment, both of their failures reveal the sad state of women in European society during that time period. On the surface, Miss Brill and Eveline are two vastly different characters living in different settings. However, both are similar in the manner in which they are subjected
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In the case of Joyce’s Eveline, her attempt to escape to a foreign country with a new lover simply does not materialize. She becomes indecisive, ultimately doing nothing. She is left a victim to her environment: pale, “passive, like a helpless animal” (222). While Miss Brill’s struggle may be different, she too, is powerless. Her attempts to impress others around her a fruitless. While fishing for compliments in the park, one man she meets “shook his head, lighted a cigarette, slow breathed a deep puff into her face” (184). She is left heartbroken because the attention she so desperately wanted comes, just not how she expected. At the end of the day, their efforts are not enough to change their surroundings. They are both in powerless positions not too different from the ones other women in similar European social structures were forced into. Even though Joyce and Mansfield set out to craft vastly different stories about their protagonists, they ultimately send the same message. Their characters are women trapped in the “man’s world” around them. Particularly in the setting of these texts, twentieth-century Europe, women had no voice in their lifestyles and lived for the approval of men. While decades have passed since that era, it is important to honor the rights women have so long fought for and appreciate the work of those who
In the case of Joyce’s Eveline, her attempt to escape to a foreign country with a new lover simply does not materialize. She becomes indecisive, ultimately doing nothing. She is left a victim to her environment: pale, “passive, like a helpless animal” (222). While Miss Brill’s struggle may be different, she too, is powerless. Her attempts to impress others around her a fruitless. While fishing for compliments in the park, one man she meets “shook his head, lighted a cigarette, slow breathed a deep puff into her face” (184). She is left heartbroken because the attention she so desperately wanted comes, just not how she expected. At the end of the day, their efforts are not enough to change their surroundings. They are both in powerless positions not too different from the ones other women in similar European social structures were forced into. Even though Joyce and Mansfield set out to craft vastly different stories about their protagonists, they ultimately send the same message. Their characters are women trapped in the “man’s world” around them. Particularly in the setting of these texts, twentieth-century Europe, women had no voice in their lifestyles and lived for the approval of men. While decades have passed since that era, it is important to honor the rights women have so long fought for and appreciate the work of those who