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Chapter 7
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 sets off to Caddagat, which is so rural that even rural residents consider it “up the country.” She leaves by train in August 1896, and she delights in the movement of the train. She feels a sense of freedom at leaving Possum Gully; despite having grown up there, she cannot think of it as home. Home, to Sybylla, is Caddagat.
Even though Sybylla has not been to Caddagat since she was an infant, she still considers it more of a home than Possum Gully. This speaks both to her nostalgia for Caddagat and her intense loathing of Possum Gully.
Themes
Literary Devices
After the train ride, Sybylla is picked up by a coachman who promised Mrs. Bossier that he would take care of her. He brings her to the Woolpack Hotel, where Sybylla gets a letter informing her that her grandmother and aunt are recovering from colds and cannot come to greet Sybylla. The letter tells Sybylla that Frank Hawden, a jackeroo, will take care of her at the hotel. While at the hotel, Sybylla talks to an employee who reveals himself to be Billy Haizelip, the brother of the Melvyn’s former servant Jane. Sybylla promises to give her father Billy’s regards, and then she leaves with Mr. Hawden.
The wide range of people who Mrs. Bossier has secured to take care of Sybylla reveals Mrs. Bossier’s influence over her community. The appearance of Jane Haizelip’s brother also serves as a reminder that people’s lives continue after they leave Sybylla’s field of reference, which mirrors the decreasing self-absorption that comes with growing up.
Themes
Frank Hawden chats with Sybylla during the drive. She thinks he is conceited, but she doesn’t care because she’s in a good mood. She remains polite even when he remarks that he was disappointed to see Sybylla is not pretty. Sybylla apologizes for letting him down, and Mr. Hawden reassures her, “You’re not a bad sort, and think a fellow could have great fun with you.” Sybylla thanks him and gets him talking about his personal history. While he “gabble[s] away,” Sybylla smiles to herself at having worked out Mr. Hawden’s character.
Frank Hawden’s casual disregard for Sybylla’s feelings establishes him as an unkind and ill-mannered man. His focus on Sybylla’s appearance also hints at his underlying sexism, and his remark that “a fellow could have great fun with you” further indicates that he does not see Sybylla as a person. Meanwhile, Sybylla demonstrates her social acumen by playing along with Hawden. Even though he attacks her insecurity about her appearance, Sybylla is able to dismiss his rudeness as “gabbling” because she doesn’t view his perspective as worthwhile.
Themes
Finally, Sybylla arrives at Caddagat. She is nervous about how Mrs. Bossier will receive a girl with no money and unpleasant personality, but her grandmother greets her with a hug and ushers her to the fire. Sybylla’s Aunt Helen, a quiet and well-bred woman, gives Sybylla a kiss and welcomes her to the home. Sybylla is startled by their kindness, and her cynicism begins to melt.
Sybylla’s first impression of Caddagat paints the estate as a utopia. Her relatives show her the unconcealed affection that she craves, and both Mrs. Bossier and Aunt Helen demonstrate the refined womanhood that poverty took from Mrs. Melvyn. The fact that Sybylla’s cynicism starts to fade so quickly and so easily suggests that Sybylla wants to see the good in the world, and the luxuries of Caddagat finally allow her to do so.
Themes
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In the house’s dining room, Sybylla sees a portrait of a young girl dressed in white. She thinks it is Aunt Helen, but Helen tells her the portrait is of Mrs. Melvyn just before her marriage. Sybylla looks between this painting and a photograph of her father, which both present her parents as beautiful and refined. She compares this couple with the parents she knows at Possum Gully. This is the only future Sybylla feels she has a right to expect. It was for this future that her mother sacrificed her “youth, freedom, strength.”
Once again, marriage is depicted as a sacrifice made by women. Mrs. Melvyn’s white dress in the portrait symbolizes her youth and innocence, which she gave up for marriage. The three qualities that Sybylla notes Mrs. Melvyn sacrificing reveal as much about Sybylla’s values as they do about her perspective on marriage: she prioritizes her own “youth, freedom, [and] strength” to give them up for a man. The photograph of Mr. Melvyn is a reminder of poverty’s degrading effects, and comparing it to Mrs. Melvyn’s portraits draws a comparison between the struggles of poverty and the oppression of marriage.
Themes
Sybylla goes to the dining room, where Mrs. Bossier inspects her and compliments Sybylla’s complexion and hair. The maid rings the dinner bell, and Sybylla goes to dinner with her grandmother, Aunt Helen, Mr. Hawden, and two travelers whom Mrs. Bossier has invited to spend the night at Caddagat. After dinner, the group plays music and sings in the drawing-room until Mrs. Bossier tells Sybylla to go to bed. They go up together, and Mrs. Bossier again compliments Sybylla’s hair.
Caddagat continues to present itself as a paradise. Sybylla finally has access to art, in the form of music, and her loneliness is sated by the intelligent and cultured company at the estate. Mrs. Bossier’s compliments even address Sybylla’s insecurity about her appearance, as if Caddagat exists only to help restore Sybylla’s lost happiness.
Themes
Sybylla lies alone in bed and thinks about her family in Possum Gully. Mr. and Mrs. Melvyn bid her farewell without warmth of affection, and Gertie is the only one who Sybylla believes will miss her. She knows she did not prove herself worthy of her parents’ love, but she still loves them, and she fears that even Gertie will not miss her as much as Sybylla would have missed Gertie if their places reversed. Sybylla thinks of her mother laboring at home, and all the love she had for her father as a child, and she wonders why her parents do not love her. She fears she is “ugly and nasty and miserable and useless,” with no place in the world.
Sybylla again agonizes over the perceived lack of love in her life, and her lack of worthiness for that love. Her complicated, contradicting feelings toward her parents speak to the confusion of growing up and leaving home for the first time. Each flaw in the list of faults she sees in herself represents one aspect of her insecurity. She is ashamed by her appearance, she regrets not being kind enough to love, she is embarrassed by her own cynicism, and she fears being without a purpose or place.
Themes
Literary Devices
