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Chapter 6
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 wakes up the next morning determined to write a book. She made an attempt two years ago and even sent her work to a publisher, but her manuscript was rejected. The publisher advised her to study literature, and since Sybylla has been unable to do so, she has not tried to write anything substantial since then. Now that she has resolved to write a book, ideas take up all her attention. She stays up late to write, which disrupts her work and makes her weary. Mrs. Melvyn is annoyed and concerned by Sybylla’s behavior, but Sybylla is too preoccupied by her writing to care.
Sybylla’s perception of literature as a form of escape escalates, and she begins to pursue writing as a path to the “brilliant career” she craves. Mrs. Melvyn’s dislike of Sybylla’s behavior positions writing as unwomanly, and perhaps as an act of rebellion in and of itself.
Themes
In July of 1896, Mrs. Melvyn receives a letter from her mother, Mrs. Bossier, offering to take in Sybylla and prepare her for marriage. Sybylla loves her grandmother, and she is upset but not surprised that Mrs. Melvyn has told Mrs. Bossier about Sybylla’s flaws. Mrs. Bossier’s letter remarks that Sybylla will need extra time to prepare for marriage because she is very plain looking, which the old-fashioned Mrs. Bossier sees as a cause for concern. Sybylla, on the other hand, sees marriage as “the most horribly tied-down and unfair-to-women existence,” and she has no interest in it.
The fact that Mrs. Bossier offers to take in Sybylla specifically to prepare her for marriage highlights the importance of marriage to women in Sybylla’s era. Continuing her nonconformist streak, Sybylla disagrees with the significance her mother and grandmother give to marriage. She describes the institution as “tied-down,” implying that the responsibilities of a wife would prevent Sybylla from chasing her ambitions, and as “unfair-to-women.” Her assertion that marriage oppresses women reminds the reader of Sybylla’s understanding of injustice at institutional scale.
Themes
Sybylla is excited to go to Mrs. Bossier’s home, Caddagat, where Sybylla was born. When Gertie comes to act as a peacemaker between Sybylla and Mrs. Melvyn, Sybylla tells Gertie that she is leaving. Gertie starts to cry, which gratifies Sybylla, who is “hungry for love.” The tears are more than Sybylla thinks she deserves, since she has always been too self-absorbed to be kind to Gertie, but Gertie will miss Sybylla and her bedtime stories. Sybylla asks Gertie to promise never to forget her, and Gertie promises.
The fact that Mrs. Bossier offers to take in Sybylla specifically to prepare her for marriage highlights the importance of marriage to women in Sybylla’s era. Continuing her nonconformist streak, Sybylla disagrees with the significance her mother and grandmother give to marriage. She describes the institution as “tied-down,” implying that the responsibilities of a wife would prevent Sybylla from chasing her ambitions, and as “unfair-to-women.” Her assertion that marriage oppresses women reminds the reader of Sybylla’s understanding of injustice at institutional scale.
Themes
Literary Devices
Sybylla pauses to reflect on her own nature, in an interlude that she describes as “dull and egotistical,” and which she advises the reader to skip. She reveals that she spent childhood full of ambition and was greatly disappointed to realize she is only a girl, since only men can “take the world by its ears and conquer their fate.” She gets used to this disappointment, but her precarious peace is broken when Mrs. Bossier’s letter makes her realize she is ugly. Beautiful women are allowed to be less than perfect, but “a plain woman will have nothing forgiven her.”
Sybylla’s self-deprecating humor reaches new heights as she addresses the reader directly. She describes her inner life as “dull” and her inclusion of it in the story as “egotistical”––but this does not stop her from describing her inner life anyway. While she discusses the sexism that inhibits female ambition, her description of male ambition depicts it as overly aggressive: men’s ability to “take the world by its ears” comes across as violent, and “conquer[ing] their fate” is militaristic. Her realization of her own lack of beauty is also tinged with comedy, but her claim that beautiful women are granted more privilege than plain women depicts a genuine issue that stems from the societal obsession with female beauty.
Themes
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Sybylla begins comparing herself to the girls around her. She concludes that these girls are of their world, while she is not, but they are ignorant of the world outside their own. This unusual awareness makes Sybylla unsatisfied and restless, and though many people in her life preach the values of mundane life, Sybylla is unconvinced. She refutes a poem about the “tame nobility” of staying at home with a poem of her own about how a pitcher taken out of the house might break but will at least do so in a place of beauty instead of on a dusty shelf.
Sybylla continues to compare herself to people she ostensibly shares status with––first peasants, then women. Now she looks specifically at the farming women of Possum Gully, and again she decides that her ambition and dissatisfaction make her fundamentally different from these women. Sybylla is not interested in the model of womanhood characterized by domestic “tame nobility,” a phrase that speaks to the expectation that a woman should be obedient and moral. Sybylla’s poem expresses her desire to take risks and explore for the sake of beauty, even at the risk of negative consequences.
Themes
Sybylla decides that trying to change herself would be useless, but she does not have the means to break out of the “narrow box” of Possum Gully. She develops an understanding of the world’s injustice, and she sees this understanding as a greater burden to a woman than a man.
Sybylla is often plagued by insecurities, but at her core, she doesn’t want to change who she is, and she further recognizes that she is too much herself to make that change effectively. She recognizes that she does not fit in at Possum Gully because it is too “narrow” for her, not because of a personal failing, and she is able to broaden that view to encapsulate the various injustices of the world around her. However, Sybylla doesn’t believe that any individual can change these injustices (especially not a woman), and this belief makes knowledge of such injustices feel like a burden.
Themes
Sybylla curses God for her burdens until she realizes that she does not believe there is a God to curse. Distraught by her own atheism, she asks the Christians around her for advice. She regards this decision as foolish, for they refuse to help her, and the question costs her any respectability. She prays frequently, but she cannot escape the “bitter, hopeless heart-hunger of godlessness.” If her father was wealthy, or if Sybylla had friends, she supposes she might have been nicer and more at ease, but since she is poor and alone, she comes to believe that there is no good in the world. “I am,” she admits, “sadly lacking in self-reliance,” and without support from other people, the 16-year-old Sybylla becomes a cynic and an atheist.
Here, Sybylla satirizes Christian morality. Sybylla wants to find faith, but the Christians around her are too concerned with demonstrating their own piety to care about her crisis of faith. Sybylla’s description of godlessness repeats the metaphor of hunger with which she describes her craving for love, which suggests that her atheism is shaped by a similar insecurity to her doubts about love. That insecurity becomes evident when Sybylla confesses to be “sadly lacking in self-reliance,” implying that she needs outside support to maintain her faith in goodness.
Themes
