A Multitude of People and Yet a Solitude: A Comparative and Contrastive Study of Mansfield’s ‘Miss Brill’ and Murakami’s ‘Kino

Abstract

Loneliness and isolation are major themes in modern fiction. Fiction writers have dealt with themes in different works irrespective of place, culture, age, and time.  While writers have presented these themes in their works, they have also shown that human beings cannot live alone. The present study explores the themes of solitude and isolation in the works of the writers Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) and Haruki Murakami (1949- till present) in their short stories ‘Miss Brill’ and ‘Kino.’ Though the two writers belong to two different countries, namely New Zealand and Japan, they have dealt with a recurrent motif in contemporary fiction— loneliness and isolation. The study will give an insight into how loneliness and isolation have been presented in the works of these two writers by analysing the themes and making a comparative and contrastive study between the two short stories 'Miss Brill and 'Kino.’