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 influenced by literature she has read. Moreover, her affinity with her parents in childhood and as a young woman has plainly made its mark on her further relationships, especially with men.
The most prominent male relationship Sybylla encounters is with her lover, Harold Beecham. Sybylla's relationship with Harold as described in Chapter 20 illustrates the influences of her parents and literature. In Chapter 20, Sybylla hits Harold across the face with a riding whip, when he tries to kiss her. Yet Harold Beecham appears to be the perfect figure and the perfect man and indeed, Sybylla loves him, although she does not like to admit this. For example, her "train of thought was interrupted by our host, who appeared in the doorway, clad from sole to neck in white" (Franklin 137). He is her knight in shining amour, but even so she strikes him. To Sybylla, Harold always appears somewhat 'forbidden'. Perhaps subconsciously, he is the materialised embodiment of her father, Richard Melvyn. In her e...
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...y saying "Is this not rather sudden? You have given me no intimation of your intentions" (Franklin 140). Perhaps still disturbed by his manner, this is partly the reason why she hits Harold afterwards.
Sybylla Melvyn is simply a confused adolescent, with all the problems and feelings of a young woman growing up. She has a large amount of emotional turmoil in her mind and is doing what she can to adjust to her ever changing environment. Sybylla is paranoid and neurotic and her values, beliefs and ideals have been easily influenced by her childhood relationship with her parents. As a consequence, her actions reflect these influences, which are deeply etched in her mind. By examining her relationship with Harold Beecham we are able to understand that her attitude towards his affections are a result of both her parents influence and her reading material.
Salem Village, Massachusetts was the home of a Puritan community with a strict moral code through 1691. No one could have ever anticipated the unexplainable events that were to ambush the community’s stability. The crisis that took place in Salem in 1962 still remains a mystery, but the accusations made by the young girls could be a result of ergot poisoning or the need for social power; this leads the people of Salem to succumb to the genuine fear of witchcraft.
The point the author, Russell Baker, is making in his essay, “Writing for Myself,” is quite evident. When Mr. Fleagle, Baker’s English teacher, assigned an informal essay to be completed as homework, Baker immediately became baffled by the daunting task. Though reluctant to start, Baker knew that it he had to swallow his animosity toward writing and select a topic to write on.
Every one is scavenging for the next big gadget- the future is a standard that society strives to have in their grasp. However, Joel Achenbach a former humor columnist solves the mystery of the future in his article, “The Future is Now: it’s heading right at us, but we never see it coming” .he presents a sense of urgency describing that the future is not something that society needs to wait for it happens behind closed doors. He argues that the future is a fast pace entity that occurs all around us. Achenbach proves this point by sticking to his humorous style, with the use of witty allusions to Sci-Fi films.
In this essay I will be exploring the Key Scene from 'A View From The
The Salem witch trials, an event in colonial Massachusetts between 1692-1693 occurred in present day Danvers, Massachusetts, once known as Salem Village. This paper will validate Salem’s witch trials having a very immense influence on the U.S. today; such as the trial’s religious, philosophical, political, and ethical impact on our nation today. Life in Salem Village was harsh, farming was difficult, an epidemic of smallpox was killing families, and all misfortunes were seen as the Devil's work. Puritan lifestyle was a strong influence for the trials; they had a strong belief in the devil and witchcraft and made up a great number of the Massachusetts population. Salem was divided into two parts, Salem Village and Salem Town. Residents from both living areas were abundantly different. The people of Salem Village were commonly pauper farmers at a disadvantage by living in rocky terrain while those living in Salem town were mostly wealthy merchants.
During the eighteenth century, French society was divided into three classes, or estates: the clergy, nobility and the common people. The clergy came to be called the First Estate while the nobility and the common people came to be called the Second and Third Estates, respectively. This social system in France was so corrupt that the few, the First and Second Estates, held all the power while the majority, the Third Estate, was left to suffer. The first two estates had many privileges over the Third Estate, the most important of which was that they paid fewer taxes. The intendants who were in charge of collecting taxes from the administrative districts that France was divided into often bent the rules at will for family or friends because of the enormous power they had. As a result, those who did not have much to begin with were burdened with even more taxes (Young). In addition, they had certain expenditures, such as the one which prevented peasants from killing animals that destroyed their crops simply so that they could be preserved as game for the nobles. Moreover, they also controlled the courts and the local government (Young). Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes, a French clergyman and political writer at the time, described the government as “the patrimony of a particular class, it has been distended beyond all measure ; places have been created not on account of t...
Aronson, Marc. Witch-hunt: Mysteries of the Salem Witch Trials. New York: Atheneum for Young Readers, 2003. Print.
Richard Godbeer’s ‘The Salem Witch Hunt’ puts into account the proceedings of several accused cases with most of the accused being women and the McCarthyism paranoia that gripped Salem Town. Two of the accused women; Good and Osborne pleaded not guilty but Tituba confessed practicing witchcraft and that there were many more witches in Salem. Her confession opened the doors for further more trials against witches with Governor William Phipps establishing a Special Court of Oyer and Treminern to handle the witchcraft cases. The court’s first case saw a respectable church member; Martha Corey tried and convicted making Salem inhabitants’ paranoia increase with people believing nobody was safe if a church member could be a witch. Legitimacy of evidence produced at court was questionable with spectral evidence be...
In modern times, the most infamous witch trials are the one that occurred in Salem. These specific witch trials are known for the unjust killings of several accused women and men. The Salem witch trials of 1692, is a big portion of what people refer to, when they want to analyze how Puritan life was during the colonial period. According to ‘Salem Witch Trials’, “The witch trials are often taken as a lens to view the whole Puritan period in New England and to serve as an example of religious prejudice…” (Ray p.32). However, as more fragments of textual evidence occur, historians are making new evaluations of how the witch trials were exaggerated by recent literature. Some historians like Richard Godbeer, analyze how witch trials were conducted during the colonial times, but in a different setting, Stamford, Connecticut. In this book,
John M. Murrin’s essay Coming to Terms with the Salem Witch Trials helps detail the events of these trials and explains why they might have occurred. The witch trials happened during a “particularly turbulent time in the history of colonial Massachusetts and the early modern atlantic world” (Murrin, 339). Salem came to be in 1629 and less than seventy years later found itself in a mess of witch craft.
Contrastingly, Mrs. Darling, his wife, is portrayed as a romantic, maternal character. She is a “lovely lady”, who had many suitors yet was “won” by Mr. Darling, who got to her first. However, she is a multifaceted character because her mind is described “like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East”, suggesting that she is, to some extent, an enigma to the other characters, especially Mr. Darling. As well as this, she exemplifies the characteristics of a “perfect mother”. She puts everything in order, including her children’s minds, which is a metaphor for the morals and ethics that she instils in them. Although ...
Gordon Marino, justifies his opinion on the topic of whether a person should do what they love
When Sibyl confesses her love to Dorian, his response is to abandon her and to search for new passions. This suggests that Sibyl no longer evokes a romantic curiosity for him. Dorian had only appreciated Sybil as an aesthetic object; she was a breathing piece of artwork.
My Brilliant Career in both it’s film and text forms is a quintessentially Australian story, heat and drought dominate the novel and are harsh and unrelenting but Sybylla notes that there is also beauty in this climate. In the film rendition, Armstrong utilises visuals and non-diegetic and diegetic sound to paint the iconic Australian outback viewers see in the film. There is also a stark division of the Australian countryside and Sybylla contrasts the harsh and unforgiving bush of Possum Gully which becomes unbearable through poverty and becomes “a bitter disappointment”. To the verdant and beautiful Caddagat which is emphasised in both forms as a contrast to the reality endured in the rest of the country, it’s greenness, highlighted in the
“Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte is a novel about an orphan girl growing up in a tough condition and how she becomes a mature woman with full of courage. Her life at Gateshead is really difficult, where she feels isolated and lives in fear in her childhood. Her parents are dead when she was little, her dead uncle begged his evil wife, Mrs. Reed, to take care of Jane until she becomes an adult. But Mrs. Reed does not keep her promise, no one treats Jane like their family members even treats her less than a servant. By the end of this essay it will be proven that Jane’s life at Gateshead has shaped her development as a young woman and bildungsroman.