Comparison and Contrast of “Miss Brill” Critical Analyses

The critical analyses “Miss Brill's Fragile Fantasy” and “Poor, Pitiful Miss Brill” take very different perspectives on the title character of Katherine Mansfield's “Miss Brill.” The former views Miss Brill as a character to be sympathized and defended, while the latter attacks and pities Miss Brill. While the essays have their similarities, “Fragile Fantasy” is much more successful in critically analyzing “Miss Brill” due to how it explained its view. The two critical analyses of “Miss Brill” share some commonalities but mainly differ in their organization, coherence, supporting evidence, and logical development. Both “Fragile Fantasy” and “Poor, Pitiful” have a commonality in their organization. The essays begin with an introduction containing a thesis, body paragraphs about the topics in the thesis, and a conclusion. That is where the similarities end. The “Fragile Fantasy” essay handles topics that are a few characteristics of the story, which are point of view, characterization, and plot development. The essay is organized so each topic is allowed more than one paragraph in order to fully explain what makes Miss Brill a character who “evokes our sympathy” (“Fragile Fantasy”). On the other hand, “Poor, Pitiful” only allows less than one paragraph per topic by combining the first two in one paragraph. The topics in question are characteristics of Miss Brill, and included “old, ugly, scared, and foolish” (“Poor, Pitiful”). Overall, the organization of the essays is more different than alike. Coherence is crucial in a quality essay. “Fragile Fantasy,” unlike “Poor, Pitiful,” is coherent on the sentence, paragraph, and essay level. The sentences and paragraphs flow from one topic to another easily with connections and smooth transitions. By doing this, the author ensures that each sentence is relevant and helps to thoroughly explain each topic. “Poor, Pitiful,” however, does not have as much coherence. The transition sentences between paragraphs are awkward, with all of them beginning with “Miss Brill is …” (“Poor, Pitiful”). Random jumps in sub-topic to sub-topic cause the essay to flow less and avoid fully explaining the sub-topic's relationship to the topic and essay as a whole. The differences in coherence help to make “Fragile Fantasy” the superior essay over “Poor, Pitiful.” Incidentally, “Fragile Fantasy” and “Poor, Pitiful” feature quotes in them. However, the quotes and how they are used are quite contrasting. “Fragile Fantasy” uses many quotes of varying length, for instance. Those quotes are applied so as to deepen the understanding of the novel and expand upon the points of the author. Conversely, the quotes in “Poor, Pitiful” are short and unfrequent. They are used as points on their own, left unexplained and not deeply applied. Another feature of “Poor, Pitiful” is supporting evidence comprising of false logic. The stressed “brill” in “brilliantly fine” could be coincidence, just as the dictionary definition of brill might not be applicable to the story as the author of “Poor, Pitiful” suggests. The fact that “Fragile Fantasy” applies quotes to deepen understanding of the author's points versus the quotes in “Poor, Pitiful” being used as points themselves and the appearance of false logic in “Poor, Pitiful” make “Fragile Fantasy” a better defended essay. The logical development in the two critical analyses differ as much as a cat differs from a dog. “Fragile Fantasy,” for instance, builds upon what has already been stated in its logical development. For example, the section on point of view is placed first so that the author could explain how “Miss Brill reveals herself to us thorough her perceptions of the other people” (“Fragile Fantasy”) in the section about characterization. The same can not be said for “Poor, Pitiful,” seeing as its logical development is flat in comparison. The essay does not acknowledge what has already been stated until the conclusion and the topics were placed in no particular order. While “Final Fantasy” has logical development, “Poor, Pitiful” lacks it, allowing for it to come up with strange conclusions, like Miss Brill has Alzheimer’s. The critical analyses “Miss Brill's Fragile Fantasy” and “Poor, Pitiful Miss Brill” have very different ways of analyzing Katherine Mansfield's “Miss Brill.” The organization, coherence, supporting evidence, and logical development are the points at which a few superficial qualities are similar between the two, but mainly many differences exist. What makes “Fragile Fantasy” so much more successful in critically analyzing “Miss Brill” is how is thoroughly and logically explains the short story. In comparison, “Poor, Pitiful” falls behind as a flat, incoherent analysis that only excels in showing the anti-example of a quality critical analysis.