Short Story Of Miriam

751 Words4 Pages

Mrs. Miller was a reclusive elderly widow who goes to the theater and meets a little girl named Miriam. The strange girl keeps popping up over and over again into Mrs. Miller’s life trying to manipulate her to dote on her whims and fancies. Finally it’s revealed that Miriam was a figment of her warped imagination caused by her isolation the entire time. Capote uses Mrs. H. T. Miller to show some of the mental consequences of excess solitude. The 3rd person limited point of view fully reveals the truly disturbing aspects of the story better than any other point of view. Mrs. Miller’s madness began when Miriam first appeared at the movie theater and asked to buy a ticket for her. Afterwards in theater while Mrs. Miller was contemplating whether or not it was okay to let a child inside the movie theater when she asked for the girls name, “Mrs. Miller offered a peppermint. ‘What’s your name, dear?’ ‘Miriam,’ she said, as though, in some curious way, it were information already familiar. ‘Why, isn’t that funny—my name’s Miriam, too. And it’s not a terribly common name either. Now, don’t tell me your last name’s Miller!’ ’Just Miriam.’ ‘But isn’t that funny?’ ‘Moderately,’said Miriam, and rolled a peppermint on her tongue.’”(Capote …show more content…

H. T. Miller lived alone in an overly stuffed apartment in a remodeled brownstone near the East River. She’s been a for many years widow and Mr. H. T. Miller had left a sensible amount of insurance money. Her interests were narrow, and she had no friends to speak of. In fact, she rarely journeys beyond the corner grocery store. Her neighbors never seemed to notice her: her clothes were matter-of-fact, her hair iron-gray, clipped and casually waved; she did not use cosmetics, her features were plain and inconspicuous, and on her last birthday she was sixty-one. Her activities were seldom spontaneous: she kept the two rooms immaculate, smoked an occasional cigarette, prepared her own meals and tended a canary named

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