Sample Responses to Short Stories on ‘Spunk’ and ‘Ms.Brill’
The plots of Zora Neala Hurston’s “Spunk” and Katherine Mansfield’s “Ms.Brill” stories are shaped by their main characters. The characters’ actions slowly and creatively unwrap the events in the story eventually bringing an unexpected outcome. The ‘Spunk’ is a story about a love triangle that goes terribly wrong while Miss Brill story is about a development process that drastically changes at the end. The two stories are properly built by the functions played by the main characters.
In the story,’Spunk,’ we largely rely on the conversation of the characters to understand what is going on. Spunk’s and Joe’s characters as portrayed by the author perfectly correlate to create a love story with a grim ending. Spunk is portrayed as a dominant man in the town, and he is very arrogant and controlling. Lena who is Joe’s wife is probably attracted to him because of this dominance she is ready to leave her jealous and angry husband, Joe who is also afraid of Spunk. Elijah is clear to describe the situation by his statements that Spunk is unafraid of anything in the “God’s here footstool,” and Joe is a “rabbit-foot colored man” (Hurston 2).The fact that Joe is aware of his wife’s affair and everybody in the town knows makes us feel bad for him. His pride is at stake, and the only option he is left with is to take action against Spunk. He represents those people taken advantage of in a society because they do not have the ability to take their stand. Joe uses his only weapon, a razor which is incomparable to Spunk’s gun and takes the initiative to attack Spunk (Hale 398). His actions are largely influenced by the strong urge to stop being the laughing stock of the town. The arrogant Spunk who is capable of anything announces, “Joe come out there wide a meetax an’ made me kill him” (Hurston 3). The reader has to show how powerful emotion of revenge can be when Spunk ends up dead mysteriously. Elijah’s moves to push for a confrontation between Joe and Spunk and his close connection to the story’s outcome including his believe that Joe killed Spunk helps bring the story to its grim conclusion
In Katherine Mansfield’s story “Miss Brill’ is portrayed as a self-contained and contented woman who though not a victim of her circumstances but a rather a satisfied creator. She is a lonely English teacher to French students. The author uses Ms. Brill to explain how adversities in life should not bring us down, but a positive attitude is the key to happiness. However, discouragements from people can bring down such efforts. Miss Brill does not let her life misfortunes shatter her life but instead starts to view everything positive including herself. She observes the Sunday theatrical performance as beautiful and a life charming event and starts to spend most of her time their having fun and enjoying life (Mansfield 12). This self-developmental process comes to a drastic end on the realization that she is unable to relate with other people in a meaningful way because regardless of her efforts they just look down upon her.
Conclusion
The authors of the two stories structure the events such that the flow keeps one motivated to know what happens next. Most importantly is the eventual turn of events which are not only unexpected but educative. In the Spunk, readers learn how society’s expectations can push one to take initiates that do more harm than good. Also in Miss Brill’s story, the society is accountable for killing dreams and people’s happiness. The society is portrayed as a unit lacking support and sets expectations that are costly to achieve.
Works Cited
Hale, David G. “Hurston’s” Spunk” and Hamlet.” Studies in Short Fiction 30.3 (1993): 397-399.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Spunk. Zulma, 1993.
Mansfield, Katherine. Miss Brill. Penguin UK, 2015.