My Brilliant Career

The novel is a framed by a grown-up, presumably more mature Sybylla sharing her experiences as a teenager: “I make no apologies for being egotistical […] What matters it to you if I am egotistical?” In this, the voice that tells the events is at turns hyperemotional, selfish, and yes egotistical. More than a generation before novelists would begin more elaborate experiments in unreliable narrators, Franklin presents, if not an unreliable narrator, than a narrator true to her age.

Readers hear the voice of a teenager making grand emotional gestures, comparing her life to the Biblical Job, or deciding her life has no purpose.

These are observations typical of a high-strung, overly sensitive teenager. In that, the narrative is entirely reliable but decidedly slanted, true as it is to the voice of an Australian teenager living on the fringes of the Outback and nursing dreams of being a writer.

Sybylla’s voice is usually uncomplicated by irony, ruthlessly honest, and supremely certain that what happens to her is consequential. She exaggerates, overreacts, and judges others with a cruel and cutting honesty. She can easily alienate the reader if the reader forgets that hers is a portrait of an artist as a teenager.

But the reality is that Sybylla is not just the narrator—she is a character through whom all the events are filtered. Her over-the-top personality and spirit are as much plot-points as any event she recounts. Her flowery prose are not elements of Franklin’s prose style; rather, they capture the voice of a teenager who loves to read, who sees herself as exceptional, and who dreams of making a living through words.

Sybylla’s grandmother delights in Sybylla’s luxurious red hair. After she shakes it loose from its bun, the grandmother “pronounce[s] it beautifully fine, silky, and wavy, and the most wonderful head of hair she had seen out of a picture” (22). It is a convention of fiction from the grand age of Realism, the latter decades of the 19th century, to use physical details to suggest that character’s personality. For instance, a loving mother would be given an ample bosom; a dedicated laborer would be given thick hands; an unreliable character would be given shifty eyes.

Initially, red hair creates a sense of otherness about Sybylla. In a rural world defined largely as dreary and sterile, the luxurious feel and striking red color sets Sybylla apart. That she most often keeps her red hair carefully pinned and bobbed further symbolizes how the world of New South Wales makes her feel as if she is denied the deepest and most emotional expressions of her heart.

In a coming-of-age novel in which Sybylla comes to understand the conflicting emotions of her heart—she receives three marriage proposals within a few weeks—her red hair symbolizes that wide spectrum.

The other women in the novel—including Sybylla’s mother, her grandmother, Mrs. M’Swat, and especially her aunt Helen—are by comparison content to deny their emotions or, worse, allow the tonic animation of the heart to cool into memory.

Sybylla’s daring ride to Dogtrap is a moment of high adventure and risk. In a novel that is ostensibly about the coming-of-age of a young girl in rural society that defines marriage as the highest fulfillment, the symbol of the cracked harness carries special importance. The crack in the harness comes when Sybylla exerts her independence. It is risky and ill-advised, and Sybylla pays a price.

In an effort to arrange a meeting with Harry, Sybylla tricks Frank and takes off in the carriage alone. That escapade represents Sybylla’s first moment of independence and the best reflection of her daring and her fiery temperament. Her grandmother refuses Sybylla’s request to take the carriage alone to Dogtrap to retrieve the weekly mail. A trip like that of more than five miles, requires the control and strength of someone physically stronger than Sybylla. She whips the horse into a frenzy of speed, symbolic of the adrenaline rush of her sudden freedom. To her grandmother, Sybylla’s ill-considered and risky bolt to Dogtrap—the name itself is symbolic of the tension between enslavement and freedom—represents Sybylla’s irresponsibility. But for Sybylla the ride to Dogtrap symbolizes the freedom for which she yearns. The crack she puts in the harness reminds the reader of the cost of such freedom.

Only when she arrives at Dogtrap does Harry, checking the carriage equipment, notice that because of the excessive speed and the poor road conditions Sybylla’s flight has cracked the harness, making the vehicle itself unsafe.

The cracked harness symbolizes Sybylla’s resistance to the yoke of marriage. Sybylla has indeed cracked that harness, but that celebration of freedom proves costly. She must reluctantly accept the help of Harry to return home, and even though she resists, he physically carries her to the carriage. That cracked harness symbolizes the cost of freedom and the price Sybylla will pay to go her own way.