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Chapter 32
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
Sybylla returns to Possum Gully. Mr. Melvyn barely greets her, and Mrs. Melvyn doesn’t mention Sybylla’s stay at Barney’s Gap except to remark that Sybylla managed to find a worse place than home. But Gertie and Sybylla’s other siblings welcome her home with excitement. Sybylla is relieved to be home, relishing the clean house and her mother’s refined, ladylike character. Her siblings have grown, and though Sybylla senses discontentment in them, they are not cursed with her unattainable ambitions.
After years away, Sybylla returns to find her family has hardly changed. Mr. Melvyn is still too caught up in himself to pay her any mind, and Mrs. Melvyn is only frustrated at Sybylla’s constant dissatisfaction. Despite this chilly reception, Sybylla appreciates her mother’s refinement, which was so lacking at Barney’s Gap. Sybylla’s siblings missed her, and Sybylla notices that they have become discontent with the monotony of Possum Gully. That discontentment has not escalated to an ambition as strong as Sybylla’s, however, which means she is still isolated to some degree within her own family.
Themes
In Sybylla’s absence, Mr. Melvyn has broken down and given in entirely to alcoholism, which Sybylla describes as selling his manhood for beer. Mrs. Melvyn privately confides to Sybylla that she wishes she had never married; her husband is a failure and Mrs. Melvyn fears her children will be the same. That night, Gertie also tells Sybylla that she is ashamed of their father, who spends all their relatives’ money on fancy clothes instead of paying his bills. Gertie is tired of keeping up respectability. Sybylla falls asleep thinking that parents’ duty to their children is even greater than children’s responsibility to their parents.
Sybylla associates Mr. Melvyn’s complete loss of respectability with a loss of manhood. Now that he is focused only on alcohol, he willfully neglects his duties as the man of the house, and all the manners that once made him a gentleman are gone. Mrs. Melvyn is so distraught by this, she opens up to Sybylla with surprising vulnerability, though she ends the conversation by suggesting Sybylla will end up a failure like her father. It is striking that Mrs. Melvyn, the most ladylike and responsible of all Sybylla’s role models, regrets her marriage. This suggests that Sybylla is right to fear marriage, as it binds women to men who are not similarly bound to keep up their masculine responsibilities. Gertie is also troubled by Mr. Melvyn’s behavior. His habit of spending money on clothes indicates that Mr. Melvyn remains overly concerned with appearances, just as the M’Swats believed he was. Sybylla is disappointed in her father. She challenges the traditional belief that children owe service to their parents, and posits that parents should instead help and protect their children.
Themes
Being among her siblings revitalizes Sybylla, and Mrs. Melvyn wants her to return to Barney’s Gap. Sybylla refuses, and though Mrs. Melvyn tries to both coerce and persuade her, Sybylla will not give in. Mrs. Bossier offers to take one of the children to Caddagat to help the family, and Mrs. Melvyn sends Gertie. Sybylla reflects that Gertie, the pretty sister, will be among her kindred in a land of pleasure. Sybylla, meanwhile, remains at Possum Gully and continues a monotonous life.
Mrs. Melvyn fails to understand how damaging Barney’s Gap was for Sybylla, but Sybylla knows herself and refuses to go back. When Mrs. Bossier again opens Caddagat to one of the Melvyn children, Mrs. Melvyn sends Gertie. This only amplifies Sybylla’s envy of Gertie, though she has to admit that the perfect Gertie will be at home at Caddagat.
Themes
Sybylla finds pleasure in the organ music that churches play on Sundays. The music brings her great joy and makes her wish she could devote herself to Christianity. She longs for “a religion with a heart in it,” instead of a cold, unfeeling religion that prioritizes respectability and lets poor people die in the shadows of the great cathedrals of the rich.
The lack of any music at Barney’s Gap has taught Sybylla to find joy in simple melodies, like those of the church organ. Her discussion of church leads to her satirizing religion. She describes Christianity as heartless, undermining its reputation as a religion of charity and forgiveness and characterizing it instead as a performative religion that prioritizes displays of wealth over the lives of the poor.
Themes
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Sybylla does her best to perform her duties. She has no books, only “peasant surroundings,” “peasant tasks,” and “peasant ignorance.” She believes that being ignorant is the only way to be content and being content is the only way to be happy, but she doesn’t see a purpose in this way of life. Dreams still come to her that spark her ambition, but she represses them until longing becomes despair.
Sybylla’s world has become smaller: she dwells in “peasant surroundings,” undertakes “peasant tasks,” and her lack of literature threatens to push her into “peasant ignorance.” She recognizes that ignorance can lead to happiness, but she cannot give up her desire for a greater purpose. Instead of pursuing a purpose, though, she represses her ambitions. In this way, she chooses ambitious despair over ignorant happiness.
Themes
