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Chapter 34
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
The day is very hot, and all the Melvyns are exhausted from the heat and their labor. Sybylla thinks as she works that hard labor is the life of herself, her parents and everyone around them, and if she is “a good girl” who “honour[s] her parents,” her reward will be many years of this life.
Now that she is back at Possum Gully, Sybylla has returned to a life of weariness. Sybylla is a young adult now, but since she still lives with her parents, her primary role is as daughter, which requires her to “honour her parents.” Thus, her familial obligation is to be a “good girl,” not a “good woman,” since a woman’s role would be as a wife or mother. She muses about the pointlessness of this life––she remains ambitious, but the only future in sight is many more years of weariness.
Themes
Sybylla’s work is interrupted by the sudden arrival of Harold Beecham. He approaches her without recognizing her, and when he does recognize her, his eyes fill with pity. This offends Sybylla, who is prone to self-pity but is too proud to accept it from others. She greets Harold coldly and brings him inside, imagining how Harold must think himself foolish for ever loving her.
When Harold first met Sybylla, he mistook her for a servant. Now, on their final meeting, Harold again fails to recognize Sybylla. When she notices his pity, Sybylla takes offense. She acknowledges her hypocrisy, given her habit of self-pity, but she still hates to see that pity present in Harold. Her embarrassment causes her to be cold and distant to Harold, and she once again assumes to know all the terrible things he must think about her.
Themes
Sybylla brings Harold to her mother, and she is glad she has never felt any humiliation on behalf of Mrs. Melvyn. Despite Mrs. Melvyn’s patched gown, the mending work that surrounds her, and her “peasant surroundings,” Mrs. Melvyn is a lady, and she looks it. Sybylla leaves Harold with Mrs. Melvyn and goes to the kitchen, where she wallows in the pain of dreaming above her position.
Like Sybylla, Mrs. Melvyn is also stuck in “peasant surroundings.” Repeating this description draws similarities between Sybylla and her mother, which strengthens Sybylla’s claim that she has never been embarrassed of Mrs. Melvyn. Though Sybylla often resents her mother, she is proud of Mrs. Melvyn’s unwavering status as a lady. When she leaves Harold to speak with Mrs. Melvyn, Sybylla laments the suffering her unattainable ambitions have brought her.
Themes
Mrs. Melvyn finds Sybylla and tells her to clean herself up while Mrs. Melvyn serves Harold tea. Sybylla finds her pretty younger sister Aurora, who Sybylla considers her own because Aurora obeys her, and Sybylla in turn worships Aurora. Sybylla watches Harold and Mrs. Melvyn through a hole in the wall, and she pauses to consider that men aren’t such terrible creatures. Women make Sybylla more conscious of her poverty than men do.
While Sybylla envied Gertie for her beauty, Aurora is young and obedient enough that Sybylla does not feel threatened by her. As Sybylla eavesdrops on Harold and her mother, she reconsiders her opinion on men. Even this late in the story, Sybylla’s perspectives on gender are still evolving, which suggests that coming to terms with gender roles and expectations can be a lifelong task.
Themes
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Keeping an eye through the hole, Sybylla sends Aurora to give Harold a message. Aurora obediently invites Harold to meet Mr. Melvyn and Sybylla’s brothers, and Mrs. Melvyn gives them directions to where the men are working. While they are gone, Sybylla prepares herself for tea and sets up a room for Harold. When Aurora and Harold return, Sybylla is in a better mood. She feels that, as on their first meeting, she is the master of the situation.
When Sybylla and Harold first met, Sybylla gained the upper hand in the situation by confusing Harold about her identity. This time, she feels like the master of the situation because she is able to control where Harold visits on the property and how he sees her.
Themes
Sybylla greets Harold with more friendliness, and he recalls that she was working outdoors when they first met. He says that girls are only civil to a man when they are dressed up enough to stun him. Sybylla playfully tells him to shut up, and Harold remarks that it is just like old times. Sybylla sighs, “Like, yet unlike.”
Harold and Sybylla often swap jokes about how men and women behave, and Harold is happy to resume that banter even after so many years apart. When he comments that their conversation is just like old times, he makes clear that he wants their relationship to be like it was before. Sybylla, though, describes their relationship as “like, yet unlike” how it used to be––that is, their jokes are the same, but the rejected marriage proposal has fundamentally altered their relationship.
Themes
