My Brilliant Career (Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Miles Franklin
- First Published: 1901
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Social criticism
- Time of Work: The late 1880’s to 1899
- Setting: New South Wales
- Principal Characters: Sybylla Melvyn, Lucy Melvyn, Dick Melvyn, Mrs. Bossier, Helen Bell, Harold Beecham, Gertie Melvyn
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism, Bildungsroman, Autobiographical fiction
- Subjects: Maturation or coming of age, Freedom, Values, Philosophy or philosophers, Cattle, Politics, Socialism, Teenagers, Gender roles, Nineteenth century, Middle classes, Poverty or poor people, Feminism, Women’s issues, Farms, farmers, or farming, Nationalism, Ambition, Disasters, Natural disasters, Ranches, ranchers, or ranching, Sheep, Australia or Australians, Droughts, Agnosticism, Dairy industry or products, Wilderness
- Locales: New South Wales, Australia
Form and Content
My Brilliant Career is an ironic title, for this first-person fictional autobiography makes the point that there were no brilliant careers possible for the vast majority of young women in Australia at the end of the nineteenth century. By focusing on the romantic and life adventures of its sixteen-year-old heroine, Sybylla Melvyn, the novel shows how grindingly oppressive life was on this recent frontier in the Southern Hemisphere, and how doubly oppressive it was for women. Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin, which she shortened to the male-sounding name...
[The entire page is 2374 words long]
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