THE UNEMPLOYED "BLASÉ ATTITUDE" AND THE ARTIST FIGURE: READING KATHERINE MANSFIELD'S "MISS BRILL"

This paper investigates the lives of individuals in an urban setting by analyzing Katherine Mansfield's 1922 story "Miss Brill", applying Georg Simmel's "The Metropolis and Mental Life" as a significant contribution to social theories that tackle individuals' manners and psychological states in metropolitan life. In addition, we apply Charles Baudelaire's "The Painter of Modern Life", particularly his central term the "Flâneur" which defines the artist figure as "the man of the crowd." Simmel claims that the city dwellers endure a coping mechanism called the "blasé attitude" that leads them to neglect the hustle and bustle of the city in order to cope with the rush and instability of modern life and preserve their sanity. Therefore, a city dweller employs the "blasé attitude" as a marker of modernity to assist him/her function in this life and look more intellectual and civilized. On the other hand, Baudelaire asserts that the "Flâneur" is a "stroller" in the city of Paris, feeling minute differences and observing every detail. In Mansfield’s story, Miss Brill's socially abortive existence could be understood in terms of two senses: the first as an artist in the Flâneur sense who consciously observes the crowded city life; the second as an artist who fails to employ the "blasé attitude". It is concluded that Miss Brill resists the employment of the "blasé attitude" for being an artist in the "Flâneur" sense. Nevertheless, her attitude of depression and destruction in her room at the end is partly due to her awareness that being a city dweller contradicts her very artistic being. Against the established stylistic brilliance of Mansfield’s writing, our work offers new thematic insights into her rich characterization and social relevance.