Compare And Contrast Araby And Miss Brill

Compensation is a crucial necessity that humans need to use for overcoming obstacles. These obstacles, which consist of fears, loss of innocence, and internal and external wars, occur throughout every stage in a person’s life. “Araby”, written by James Joyce, and “Miss Brill”, written by Katherine Mansfield, are two fictional short stories that consist of subtle alterations or experiences in people’s lives during the dawn of the 20th century in European countries. The protagonists share many similarities and differences throughout their experiences and solutions to their problems, consisting of the creation of fallacious relationships during difficult times. Miss Brill and the narrator from “Araby” suffer obstacles in their everyday lives
The age difference impacts how the two cope and or grow from their problems. Miss Brill’s acts of concealing her age by criticizing old people in the park clearly represent how her greatest insecurity is her age. When the teenage boy exposes Miss Brill’s insecurity, he incites a blunt reality check in Miss Brill. Miss Brill’s lack of resilience causes her to suffer a long, confusing pain that is difficult to cope with. On the other hand, the narrator from “Araby” is perceived as a teenager experiencing “puppy” love. The narrator lives with his aunt and uncle, plays with his friends outdoors, and goes to school, all of which are characteristics that an adolescent would contain. Unlike Miss Brill, the teenager from “Araby” suffers his first fall of innocence. The new knowledge of the capability of acting as a, “...creature driven and derided by vanity…” is a painful idea for the boy (Joyce 4). However his resilient personality will allow him to cope and understand much faster than Miss Brill. Age has a great impact on how one reacts to life-changing experiences. The voids, created by the amount of time it requires for people to cope, are filled with uncontrollable emotions and unrealistic
In “Araby”, the narrator suffers two ongoing events: war and adolescence. As a teenager the narrator tries to hide the fact that the world is changing, so he attaches himself to the idea of innocence and purity, qualities found in Mangan’s sister. The long glances and short conversations shared between the two provide the boy a source of hope and security, even though Mangan’s sister interprets the relationship as an innocent acquaintanceship. The narrator creates a fictitious yet strong love for the girl to compensate for the loss brought by the Irish Wars. Similarly to the young love in “Araby”, Miss Brill creates a false relationship with an entire community to compensate for her loneliness and fear of aging. The idea of being in a play gives Miss Brill a purpose in life and a way to fill her void of loneliness. When the author states, “No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn’t been there, she was part of the performance after all,” Miss Brill is given a responsibility and a role in her community (Mansfield 310). The many relationships formed in both stories provide the protagonists a distraction from their ongoing fears and wars. As well as, these bonds, though are false, allow the characters to make up for the voids found the stages of their