The Greatest Sacrifice
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- Category: English: Novels
- Date Submitted: 07/15/2011 01:56 PM
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The Greatest Sacrifice
Throughout history, women have been given very few options in their lives. Historical accounts convey a clear perception that women are belittled because the society thinks that women are too precious and weak to do activities that men can. Women have three main options in life, that is to take care of her husband, to take care of her children (which goes hand in hand with the precedent if the woman bears a child), or to delve into the world of science and art while facing the wrath of enduring the snickers and the pointing fingers of everyone around you. In Miles Franklin's novel, My Brilliant Career, she points out that women are required to be a wife and/or a mother otherwise they will bring disappointment and shame to their family and to themselves. Compared to the opportunities females have in this historical period, women have far less options in choosing what they want to do than men who can do what ever they want.
Sybylla Melvyn, the protagonist, is a wilful girl living in rural Australia in the 1890s. The drought and bad business decisions reduce her family to earn just enough money for them to survive; because of this, her father begins to drink excessively. She is sent to live with her grandmother, at Caddagat, where life is more comfortable. There she has several men who propose to her, but the gentleman who struck her the most was wealthy, young Harry Beecham. Convinced of her ugliness and of her unchangeable unladylike acts, Sybylla is unable to believe that he could really love her. She is, then, sent to work as a governess for the M'Swat's, an almost illiterate family with whom her father owes money. After a while, she goes back to Caddagat, and Harry Beecham returns to ask Sybylla to marry him. She rejects him for she concluded never to marry.
Sybylla is very much interested in the arts. She wanted to become a musician (Franklin 71), a writer (73), and an actress (106-107), but society, mostly women of age, sees...
Throughout history, women have been given very few options in their lives. Historical accounts convey a clear perception that women are belittled because the society thinks that women are too precious and weak to do activities that men can. Women have three main options in life, that is to take care of her husband, to take care of her children (which goes hand in hand with the precedent if the woman bears a child), or to delve into the world of science and art while facing the wrath of enduring the snickers and the pointing fingers of everyone around you. In Miles Franklin's novel, My Brilliant Career, she points out that women are required to be a wife and/or a mother otherwise they will bring disappointment and shame to their family and to themselves. Compared to the opportunities females have in this historical period, women have far less options in choosing what they want to do than men who can do what ever they want.
Sybylla Melvyn, the protagonist, is a wilful girl living in rural Australia in the 1890s. The drought and bad business decisions reduce her family to earn just enough money for them to survive; because of this, her father begins to drink excessively. She is sent to live with her grandmother, at Caddagat, where life is more comfortable. There she has several men who propose to her, but the gentleman who struck her the most was wealthy, young Harry Beecham. Convinced of her ugliness and of her unchangeable unladylike acts, Sybylla is unable to believe that he could really love her. She is, then, sent to work as a governess for the M'Swat's, an almost illiterate family with whom her father owes money. After a while, she goes back to Caddagat, and Harry Beecham returns to ask Sybylla to marry him. She rejects him for she concluded never to marry.
Sybylla is very much interested in the arts. She wanted to become a musician (Franklin 71), a writer (73), and an actress (106-107), but society, mostly women of age, sees...