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Chapter 2
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in My Brilliant Career, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Womanhood
Class and Poverty
Ambition, Respectability, and Pride
Love
Maturity and Suffering
Summary
Analysis
Possum Gully is “stagnant,” like all old rural stations. It is inhabited primarily by married couples and young children, since boys usually leave home when they are old enough. The area’s monotony makes the days and years blur together, with the only excitement arising whenever a new resident comes to town. When someone new arrives, all the heads of the local households pay a visit to judge the new neighbors’ worthiness for local society. If the new arrivals make a good impression, the neighboring wives will then pay a friendly visit.
The residents of Possum Gully demonstrate predominant cultural norms for both Sybylla and the reader. The fact that only boys leave home when they come of age shows that ambition and career aspirations are gendered notions. The prevalence of gender norms also plays out in the older residents: the women do not welcome the Melvyns until the men judge the family worthy, which reveals how society prioritizes the opinions of men.
Themes
Literary Devices
After the move to Possum Gully, Mr. Melvyn is frequently away on business, so the responsibility of entertaining the family’s many guests falls on Mrs. Melvyn. The men are friendly and respectable, but they are “common bushmen farmers” who bore Sybylla’s well-educated mother. She tries to engage her guests with conversations about literature and current events, but her efforts fail, and “pointless” conversations stretch on for hours. The people of Possum Gully, Sybylla reflects, only “talk[] shop,” which is not a flaw but does not interest the Melvyns.
Mr. Melvyn’s masculine privilege is supposed to allow him to serve as the provider and protector of his family, but Sybylla points out that his absence leaves much of the emotional and social labor to Mrs. Melvyn. Mrs. Melvyn’s status as a refined lady of society prevents her from assimilating into Possum Gully, and Sybylla shares her mother’s distaste for talking to their neighbors. The description of these conversations as “talking shop” indicates that the citizens of Possum Gully are laborers who mostly discuss their labor, and the Melvyns’ refusal to partake in that escalates the class division. Sybylla notes, though, that she does not see the working people of Possum Gully as inferior––she merely sees them as irreconcilably distinct from herself and her family.
Themes
Despite her boredom, Mrs. Melvyn makes a good impression on the men of Possum Gully, and soon their wives come to visit with gifts of food. They spend the whole afternoon at the Melvyns’ house, talking about domestic subjects that fail to interest Sybylla. When they leave, the women invite the Melvyns to return the visit and ask Mrs. Melvyn to allow her children to play with theirs.
Mrs. Melvyn’s ability to entertain guests despite her disinterest speaks to her domestic skills, which are well-honed as a proper, traditional woman. The women of Possum Gully share Mrs. Melvyn’s understanding of their gendered role in society, and accordingly restrict their conversation to the home and their children. Sybylla does not share this quality, as her boredom with the local wives demonstrates.
Themes
After a month of living in Possum Gully, local law enforcement informs the Melvyns that the children are required to attend school. Mr. Melvyn is in favor of this, but Mrs. Melvyn believes that public school would “ruin” her “darlings.” Despite his wife’s misgivings, Mr. Melvyn insists that the children go to school. Sybylla and her siblings go to school, where their shoes and frilly dresses give them the reputation of “great swells” among their classmates, who are mostly children of poor farmers. The school is on a hill overgrown with vegetation, and the teacher is an alcoholic.
The debate between Mr. and Mrs. Melvyn once again demonstrates Mr. Melvyn’s authority as the man of the house, as he exerts his will over the family. This moment also reiterates Mrs. Melvyn’s belief in the importance of class and refinement. She describes her children as “darlings,” which infantilizes them and makes them seem too fragile for public education. The notion that public school would “ruin” the children implies that being surrounded by peasants will lower the status of the Melvyn children. The Melvyns’ attempts to combat this “ruining” and maintain the family pride leave the children awkwardly separated from their peers with no real benefit. They are dressed as swells, but they still attend the run-down school as the farmers’ children.
Themes
Literary Devices
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The neighbors at Possum Gully are friendly. One man, James Blackshaw, is a leader in the community and makes particular effort to befriend the Melvyns. He also has a romantic interest in the Melvyn’s servant, Jane Haizelip. Jane dislikes Possum Gully, and she dislikes Mr. Blackshaw even more. She argues with Blackshaw about the monotony of Possum Gully, all the while cleaning and carrying heavy pots as Blackshaw looks on without offering to help. Finally, Jane complains that in Possum Gully the men let their women work too hard. She claims that in Bruggabrong, “the women never had to do no outside work,” but in Possum Gully all the women are worn out from labor. Mr. Blackshaw departs, uncertain if he is amused or offended.
Mr. Blackshaw’s pursuit of Jane, despite her repeated rejections, represents men’s refusal to accept that a woman has declined their advances. Jane provides Sybylla with a model of womanhood that contrasts the aristocratic Mrs. Melvyn. The model of womanhood that centers morality and submissiveness has historically been tied to the upper and middle classes, so Jane’s low social status allows her to reject Blackshaw more boldly than Sybylla would be expected to. Jane still acts within a patriarchal system, however, since she is offended that Possum Gully forces its women to undertake “outside work”––that is, work outside the feminine domestic sphere.
Themes
