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Essay on Miles Franklin's My Brilliant Career

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Miles Franklin's My Brilliant Career

Topic: Give a detailed analysis of a key scene or passage from "My Brilliant Career" by Miles Franklin.

The focus and essence of My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin is centred on the relationships and interactions of Sybylla Melvyn (the key character of the novel), towards other characters. The ways in which she reacts to different people and why she reacts in a particular manner, are perhaps more crucial and intriguing to the reader, than any distinct event throughout the novel. Sybylla's logic and thinking about herself, others and life, have been moulded by her very influential relationships with her mother and father. Her view on life and the roles of men and women has also been …show more content…

In her childhood she is quite proud of her father as he owned successful properties and was reasonably wealthy. He had a clear focus on life. However, as her father's wealth and status dwindles and he becomes alcoholic, Sybylla is lost and is inevitably always searching for the heroic father figure which is now absent in her life, and that she so desperately needs for guidance, as she becomes a young woman. This she finds in Harold Beecham. Therefore, Sybylla cannot bring herself to become close or intimate with Harold as there is the feeling of verging on the edge of incest. When he gets too close for comfort, she retaliates by hitting him.

Sybylla's relationship or view of herself also comes out in Chapter 20. Throughout the novel, she has a superficial view of herself, constantly looking at herself as she imagines others see her. She has low self-esteem and endlessly insists that she is ugly. Sybylla likes to compare herself to other women. In the beginning of Chapter 20, she compares herself to Miss Derrick, whom everyone comments on as being beautiful. Sybylla is already somewhat jealous of Miss Derrick as she (Derrick) spent most of that day with Harold Beecham (previous chapter). This also confirms that she has feelings for Harold. Sybylla says of Miss Derrick "She was a big handsome woman" (Franklin 136). Then she

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