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Modernism is a literary movement that began in the early 1900s and continued through the early 1940s. Although some literary historians include some pre-World War I writers in the movement, modernism gained momentum following the war. As the war began, politicians and the media called it the Great War and, optimistically but incorrectly, the War to End All Wars. Around 20 million soldiers and civilians died, including Mansfield’s younger brother, Leslie. The brutality of the war contributed to the disillusionment and loss expressed in modernist literature, including in Mansfield’s short stories.
Setting aside the trauma of WWI, early 20th-century society experienced massive changes in a relatively short time. Cities exploded as the economy shifted away from agriculture to industrialization. Women began to enter the urban work force. The last quarter of the 19th century saw the invention of the telephone, light bulb, phonograph, and radio. In the first decade of the 20th century, the Wright brothers flew the first airplane, Henry Ford began mass production of the Model-T automobile, and Albert Einstein published his Theory of Relativity. Freud published his essays on dreams, the unconscious, and sexuality. These changes brought with them both excitement and anxiety, which modernist writing captures, comments on, and in some cases criticizes.
In this time of great societal upheaval, the modernists argued that traditional ideas and values could not apply to the new world. They wanted to break with the past and find new forms of expression. Modernist literature involved experimentation, such as stream-of-consciousness narrative and non-linear plot structures. Its themes included isolation, disillusionment, and loss. Modernist writers emphasized individual experience, including the perspectives of women. Mansfield published “Miss Brill” in 1922, two years after the end of World War I. For her, the war’s effects were still raw and immediate. She still grieved the loss of her brother, and her poor health prevented her from returning to her home and family in New Zealand. “Miss Brill” incorporates many modernist elements. The narrative does not follow a traditional plot with a clearly defined exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. Instead, the story begins in medias res, placing the reader in the middle of Miss Brill’s day. The narration focuses on a woman and her individual thoughts, feelings, and perspectives. The protagonist experiences an epiphany, a great realization about herself. Miss Brill’s epiphany, however, leads to disillusionment. The story also ends without a satisfying resolution, unlike the more satisfying “no loose ends” conclusions common in 19th-century stories. Like life in the post-WWI world, not all stories have a happy ending.
