Critical Review: Obstacles to Sybylla's Writing in My Brilliant Career

This essay critically analyzes Miles Franklin's novel, *My Brilliant Career*, examining the circumstances that hinder Sybylla Melvin's aspirations as a writer and evaluating the novel's persuasiveness as a feminist text. The analysis explores how Sybylla's ambitions are thwarted by societal expectations, poverty, and the constraints of patriarchy, particularly focusing on the limitations placed on women in the late 19th century. The essay highlights how the novel reflects the need for women to have financial independence and a space to write, drawing parallels to Virginia Woolf's concept of 'a room of one's own.' The analysis references the protagonist's strong feminist mindset and her refusal of marriage in order to pursue her writing career. This analysis reveals the core feminist themes and the importance of financial independence for women.

Running head: MY BRILLIANT CAREER ANALYSIS
MY BRILLIANT CAREER ANALYSIS
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1MY BRILLIANT CAREER ANALYSIS
Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin is the author of My Brilliant Career which was
published in the year 1901. It is the first novel written by Miles and she is one of the major
Australian writers of her own time. This book was written by Miles Franklin when she was a
teenager since during that time, she loved to write romance novels as a means to amuse her
friends1. It was only when her manuscript was submitted to Henry Lawson by Franklin, that
this novel got published. The novel is autobiographic in nature, since many of the characters
are perceived close resemblance to her family and friends and the life of a small farmer is
also portrayed in the story; how franklin suffered from a great deal of distress just like the
protagonist and it led her to withdraw herself from her writing career.
My Brilliant Career can be interpreted as a feminist story since it is basically a story
about a headstrong girl named Sybylla Melvin whose journey towards maturity is portrayed.
Melvin is an idealistic girl who was raised in poverty during 1890s in Australia. Her rich and
sometimes complicated encounters with her Aunt Helen, Grandmother Bossier, Harry
Beecham and Aunt Gussie helps her learn some important life lessons; when she is at the
point of her maturity towards the climax of the novel, Melvin is noticed to have developed a
philosophy of feminism which made her free herself from the “social straight jacket” that had
already confined millions of other women like her mother and her aunts. This heroin who
came from the Australian bush managed to free herself from the trap of “bourgeois” which
showed her a life with a wealthy and handsome person like Harry Beecham and instead she
chose a life of literature2.
Melvin has the ability to note the unfairness of the patriarchy that happens around her
and such a feminist story which was written in 1901, was way ahead of its time. The
patriarchy of her father’s alcoholism and his unwise decisions that ruined her family is one
such instance that made Melvin realize the profound level to which women are dependent
1 Franklin, Miles. My brilliant career. Broadview Press, 2007.
2 Garton, Stephen. "Contesting enslavement: marriage, manhood and My Brilliant Career." Australian Literary
Studies 20.4 (2002): 336.

2MY BRILLIANT CAREER ANALYSIS
upon patriarchs and thus, ruin their lives along with them. Melvin strongly disagrees with this
notion; it is her strong feminist mindset and desire that she refuses to perform according to
the societal norms that states what roles a woman should play and this is the reason she
decides to refuse the marriage offer from Harry so that she could pursue her career in
writing3. Every important life lesson that she learned in her life time made Melvin to write
more about the position that women found themselves in; however, the novel made no such
indication that Melvin will have that “brilliant career” in writing for which she struggled so
much, yet it cannot be denied that her strong desire to write is a feminist approach to liberate
herself from the shackles of patriarchy4. Sybylla Melvin’s vision of a feminist world is shown
at the end of the novel; she desires such world where marriage would truly entail a union of
two equal individual. This is the other reason that she refused the marriage offer of Harry
Beecham; it was partially for a fact that she knew she would never be able to make him
happy and also the offer did not fulfil her vision as the union of two equals, instead it felt like
it was a salvation of poor girls like Melvin herself5.
The author also states that the book is deviated from the conventional method that most
of the women at her time used to write like; it was anti- romantic and does not present any
idealistic view how women should be like or what their roles should be. As a matter of fact,
the protagonist is portrayed as a tomboyish girl whose values are portrayed not from her
looks, but from her fierce nature, intelligence and independence. The book is all about the
real lives of real women and through its journey, the book also showed how important it is for
the women to get their own room and money to write and make a career in writing. Melvin’s
career is not given a definite conclusion in the novel; her refusal to marry Harry and the book
3 Magarey, Susan. "My brilliant career and feminism." Australian Literary Studies 20.4 (2002): 389.
4 Sheridan, Susan. "My Brilliant Career: the career of the Career." Australian Literary Studies 20.4 (2002): 330.
5 Henderson, Ian. "Gender, genre and Sybylla's performative identity in Miles Franklin's My Brilliant Career."
Australian Literary Studies 18.2 (1997): 165.

3MY BRILLIANT CAREER ANALYSIS
ending in an open note about her “brilliant career” makes the fact more obvious that money
and position is of very much importance for women to pursue a career that they like.

4MY BRILLIANT CAREER ANALYSIS
References:
Franklin, Miles. My brilliant career. Broadview Press, 2007.
Garton, Stephen. "Contesting enslavement: marriage, manhood and My Brilliant
Career." Australian Literary Studies 20, no. 4 (2002): 336.
Henderson, Ian. "Gender, genre and Sybylla's performative identity in Miles Franklin's My
Brilliant Career." Australian Literary Studies 18, no. 2 (1997): 165.
Magarey, Susan. "My brilliant career and feminism." Australian Literary Studies 20, no. 4
(2002): 389.
Sheridan, Susan. "My Brilliant Career: the career of the Career." Australian Literary
Studies 20, no. 4 (2002): 330.