2.2.1 Lexical features—Vague words and expressions Among the diverse salient stylistic features of the text, what particularly deserves attention, on the lexical level, is the writer’s marked preference for words and expressions, with vague meanings, provoking vague feelings. Recurring throughout the story, these expressions help create an aura of drifting and uncertainty, foreshadowing the story’s heartbreaking ending. Elizabeth Bowen, when commenting Mansfield’s artistic accomplishment in short story writing, attached even greater significance to writer’s unique talent of being vague: “It is her trademark ambiguities that enriches her narratives and almost deceptively fuel her stories forward.” (Bowen, 1956: 9) It seems that throughout the story of predicament. Little is said about the sordidness of her “little”, “dark” room, a room “like a cupboard” (Mansfield, 1981:
335). It is not until the very end of the story that the final epiphany arrives. It is only at that moment that the “secret” is given away, only at that juncture that we readers, together with the heroine herself, come to the bitter realization that she
is nobody but an old woman, loneliness-stricken, poor and miserable. However, after a second reading, even the most callous reader cannot help noticing the sense of unease haunting the narrative throughout. As a matter of fact, ever since the point the story unfolds, an air of discomfort has already been there, to anticipate ominous consequences:
Although it was so brilliantly fine…The air was motionless, but when you opened your mouth there was just a faint chill, like a chill from a glass of iced water, before you sip, and now and again a leaf came drifting—rom nowhere, from the sky. (Mansfield, p. 330)
It is apparent that Miss Brill is disturbed by an inexplicable restless, which stems partly from the “faint chill” she somehow senses in the motionless air. In this reiterated phrase—“a faint chill”, the pre-modifying adjective “faint” is itself a rather vague term. In this context, it could mean “lacking clearness, brightness or strength”, connoting that the
“chill” is a feeling rather elusive, a sensation defying further articulation. As “faint” is semantically associated with
of coldness. Also compiled in most dictionaries are meanings exploiting the psychological and sociolinguistic dimensions of the word. “Chill” could as well be interpreted as “an unpleasant sensation of coldness, especially from fear or discouragement”, or “coldness of manner, (a state) of unfriendliness. ( Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 1998: 241). Yet what that “chill” indeed is the writer does not specify. Even when the story reaches its very end, there remain questions as to how the “chill” comes into being and why it is repeatedly mentioned. Mansfield seems content, as it were, to leave these questions open and unanswered deliberately. She would rather let the enigma linger, because she apparently see no need in clarifying it. By virtue of that vagueness, a reader’s imagination is given free rein. He may look at that “chill” in a dry, literal light, and surmises from it that the story is set in fall, a season characterized by slight coldness and drifting leaves (This explains why Miss Brill decides to wear her beloved fur). Or, he may understand it metaphorically. The “chill” could well be an indicator of Miss Brill’s forlornness and loneliness, of a miserable feeling she is always unconsciously aware but consciously denied. And above all, it is repeatedly mentioned throughout as an indelible shadow. Even when the heroine’s moods, with the tunes of the band, starts to flit, float, and fly, this faint chill somehow manages to make its way into her heart, coloring an otherwise perfectly blissful moment with an inauspicious nuance.
Apart from the “faint chill”, “Words with blurred edges” such as “nowhere”, “somehow”, “something” also contribute to foster a pervasive sense of uncertainty:
1. And now and again a leaf came drifting, from nowhere, from the sky.
2. It must have had a knock, somehow.
3. And when she Breathed, something light and sad—o, not sad, exactly—omething gentle seemed to move in her
bosom .
4. And what they played was warm, sunny, yet there was just a faint chill— something, what was it?— something that
made you want to sing.
As a matter of fact, two contradictory points of view about vague language have long been present, both in everyday life and in literary criticism: one, that vagueness in language is a bad thing, the other, that it is a good thing. Among thevarious inherited beliefs about language , an important one is that “good” usage involves(among other things) clarity
and precision, hence it is believed that vagueness, ambiguity, imprecision, and general wooliness are to be avoided, making vagueness, like many other linguistic phenomena, pass unnoticed. Ullmann (1962), in a section entitled “Words with blurred edges”, traced from Plato to Byron a recurrent feeling of the inadequacy of language to express thought,
particularly because of its lack of precision. But he also noted the converse feeling among poets and creative writers, that such vagueness is in fact an advantage. (Channell 2000: 7) This idea has also been reflected by Wittgenstein (1953) who suggests that words are like blurred photographs and adds, “Is it ever always an advantage to replace an indistinct
picture by a sharp one? Isn’t it the indistinct one often exactly what we need?” (Channell 2000: 11) Appreciating “Miss Brill” is exactly like appreciating “an indistinct picture”. It is saturated with vague words and phrases to trigger imagination. In it, much is left undefined, open to diverse interpretations. Moreover, this art of being vague enables the writer to stealthily infuse into the narrative an aesthetic beauty, a beauty most elusive and misty, a beauty peculiar to Mansfield’s writing.
2.2.2 Grammatical Features
A: Sentence types
The sentence is the highest rank of grammatical construction. In terms of their communicative functions, sentences may be divided into four categories: statement, commend question, and exclamation. (Zhang Zhenbang 1999: 171) Most of
the sentences of the short story “Miss Brill” fall into the former two types, namely, statement and commend. But it is particularly noteworthy that this textual web, generally woven out of declarative and commentary sentences, is also densely interspersed with exclamatory sentences. When seeing a beautiful lady, so elegantly clad, should dismiss a little boy running after to hand to her a bunch of violets she had dropped, Miss Brill simply cannot help exclaiming, “Dear Me!” (Mansfield, 1981: 333) Again, as she sees a woman, with a shabby ermine toque, being brutally spurned away by a gentleman, Miss Brill’s whole heart cries out for her. In her vigorous imagination, “even the band seemed to know…and played more softly, tenderly, and the drum beat ‘The Brute! The Brute!’” (Mansfield, 1981: 333) In addition to exclamatory sentences indicative of judgment and evaluation, in the text there are also those inducing ironic effects. Notice how Miss Brill observes the old people sitting on the benches: “they were odd, silent, nearly all old” “as though they’d just come from dark little rooms or even—ven cupboards!” (Mansfield, 1981: 332) Such an exclamation, with a glimmering of gloat—et not without deep compassion—ight very well have yielded the anticipation that Miss Brill were a young woman, vital and blooming. The conjecture, however, as the reader comes to the very end of the story, is smashed into pieces by the
No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn't been there; she was part of the performance after all. How strange she'd never thought of it like that before! …No wonder! Miss Brill nearly laughed out loud. She was on the stage. She thought of the old invalid gentleman to whom she read the newspaper four afternoons a week while he slept in the
garden…But suddenly he knew he was having the paper read to him by an actress! "An actress!" … At the very beginning of the passage there lies a succession of three short exclamations: “On, how fascinating it was! How she enjoyed it! How she loved sitting here, watching it all!” The parallel structure applied here no doubt magnifies Miss Brill’s intense happiness at finding the value of her existence, which makes her believer that she is needed –t least in someway! In the same paragraph exist more vivid examples: “How strange she’s never thought of that before!” “No wonder!” Almost all these sentences are invariably short, emphatic, creating a powerful and strong rhythm. Yet with the
thought in mind that her sweet dream is destined to smash itself against the cold hard stone of reality, how poignant a feeling these sentences will produce in the reader’s heart!
B: Subordinate clause
In terms of syntactical complexity, Mansfield’s style is also drastically distinguished from those of her contemporaries. Her syntax is generally simple, by no means intricate. In this particular text, the ratio of dependent clauses to
independent clauses is approximately 1:10. And a considerably large proportion of the dependent clauses are in fact –ng and –d participle clauses, which act as adverbials of accompany circumstances:
1. Only two people shared her “special” seat: a fine old man in a velvet coat, his hands clasped over a huge carved walking-stick, and a big old woman, sitting upright, with a roll of knitting on her embroidered apron.
2. (They were) an Englishman and his wife, he wearing a dreadful Panama hat and she button boots.
3. Little children ran among them, swooping and laughing.
4. And sometimes a tiny stagger came suddenly rocking into the open from under the trees…until its high-stepping mother, like a young hen, rushed scolding to its rescue.
5. Two peasant women with funny straw hats passed, leading beautiful smoke—olored donkeys.
6. …and her hand, in its cleaned glove, lifted to dab her lips, was a tiny yellowish paw.
In the sentences listed above, Mansfield omits “and”, “but” and “or”, to be replaced by a prolific use of the –ng and –d participle clauses which she uses to depict the fragmented and inconsequential sequence of a thought pattern. This technique also allows layer by layer of images to construct rapidly in front of the reader's eyes, as in “At the Bay”:
Standing in a pool of moonlight Beryl Fairfield undressed herself - letting her clothes fall, pushing back with a languid gesture her warm heavy hair. ( Mansfield, 1981: 216)
Here, by means of two successive ing- participle clauses, Mansfield miraculously compresses a handful of images into a single sentence, which consists merely of 24 words. “A pool of moonlight”, a woman by the name of “Beryl Fairfield”, “falling clothes”, “ her warm heavy hair”, these images are aroused, one by one, at a speed so breathlessly fast. Perhaps it is for this reason that Mansfield’s writing style, at least in short stories, is more poetic than narrative, since novels, as a rule, cannot reach this concentration of experience as it has the burden of facts and explanation. Mansfield avoids the
anecdotal, and instead focuses on the direct impact of words or—o put it more exactly—he images these words suggest. By arranging the above sentence into the recognizable form of a poem, the similarities between her writing style and that of the poet become all the more apparent:
Standing in a pool of moonlight
Beryl Fairfeild undressed herself-
Letting her clothes fall,
Pushing back with a languish gesture
especially I want to write a kind of long elegy to [my brother]. Perhaps not in poetry. Not perhaps in prose. Almost
certainly in a kind of special prose."
2.2.3 Figures of Speech
A: Phonological Schemes
Mansfield does not neglect sound effects in impressing on us the different sensory qualities of each particular scene. The story’s opening sentence again stands out as a quintessential example. As is already touched upon in the above
analysis, this sentence features a detailed description of the congenial weather. What calls for further clarification is the fact that such a sense of agreeableness is communicated not only through visual effect, but also through the auditory imagery evoked by words which are intrinsically alliterative: “Brilliantly” and “blue” start with same consonant / b /;
“gold” and great” alike with the sound / g /. More interesting to observe is the coupling of “light” and “like”, “white” and “wine”. In addition to their respective repetition of / l / and / w /, these four words, which are placed adjacent to one another, share the same vowel sound / ai /. These juxtaposed words combine to create a tempo which is both light and
vivacious. The already finely-exploited beauty of the season’s day, as a result, is presented as dynamic and fluid and thus more fascinating. Other examples of alliteration and assonance, indeed, exist in fairly large numbers in the remaining parts of the story.
And occasionally, consonant and vowel repetitions are employed in a way which lends force to semantic connections: As the reader treads his way through the second paragraph, a conductor, brimming over with vigor and self-confidence,
recommends himself into the reader’s attention. He directs the playing of the band with a flourish, and “scraped” with his foot and “flapped” his arms like a rooster about to crow. The brevity of the recurrent stop consonant / p / ( found in
both “ scraped” and “ flapped”) no doubt plays a part in foregrounding the forceful and strenuous features of conductor’s gestures. By contrast , in the case of the old people, who “sat” on the bench, “still” as “statues”, the motionlessness and stiffness characteristic of their postures , to a certain degree, derives from the three successive occurrence of the beginning sound / s / ( in “sat”, “still”, “statues”) within the boundary of one single sentence. As more and more people throng into the park, with more and more co-players joining her in this grand drama of life,
the thrill of Miss Brill, step by step, begins to escalate. In correspondence with increasingly stirring passion of the heroine, the rhythm of the narrative also starts to gather momentum: In the description of the
× ⁄× ⁄× ⁄× noisy crowd in the park, regularities of rhythm (“the couples and groups paraded,
⁄× ⁄× ⁄× ⁄stopped to talk, to greet, to buy” (Mansfield, 1981: 332)), coupled with the clogging
⁄⁄⁄⁄effect of juxtaposed heavily stressed syllables ( “ white silk bows”, “stopped”,
⁄⁄⁄⁄“stared”, “sat down ‘flop’” (Mansfield, 1981: 332) give rise to a speeding-up effect, to which consonant clusters add vehement emphasis: / st) p /, / t): k /, / gri:t/, / sat /, / fl) p /. These are not gratuitous embellishments—hat’s integrated into the sound texture of the language is a scene full of hustle and bustle, as well as an aura saturated with noise and excitement.
C: Similes and Metaphors
Another distinctive feature of Mansfield’s writing style, as is revealed by a scrutiny of “Miss Brill”, is her generous use of figurative languages, metaphors and similes in particular. Among the myriad similes that occur in the text, there is one of special significance: But today she passed the baker’s by, climbed the stairs, went into the little dark room—er room like a cupboard—and sat down on the red eiderdown. (Mansfield, 1981: 334)
Though it would be much exaggeration to compare a room to a cupboard, the simile, nevertheless, is by no means out of place. The comparison enables us to draw a vivid mental picture of Miss Brill’s living conditions: it is a cramped little room, a poorly lighted place, probably without a window. No wonder she makes such point of going to the park every Sunday afternoon: Bathed in the brilliant sunlight, “sitting in other people’s lives for just a minute” (Mansfield, 1981: 331), She seems to utterly forget about the sordid place she comes from. The park has virtually become a bridge connecting her with the outside world. It is the only window through which light is occasionally allowed in to dispel the
darkness haunting her heart. But finally this window of communication is shut. It is well conceivable that Miss Brill, after realizing that who she really is, would never tread her feet again on the land of the Jardins Publiques. And the remaining days of her life is going to be spent exclusively in that dark little room— room like a cupboard. In addition to similes with like or as to indicate a comparison, metaphors, as another major type of figure of speech, also abound in the story. Take one in paragraph 2 for instance:
