I am little dissatisfied by the ending, and bit angry at the same time.
How could Sybylla lead him on like that? I thought it was a bit cruel, especially how long their promise to each other lasted.
I mean, why can't she write and have Sam? That would be perfection.
I was kind of upset too, but if she had married Harry, she would have had children and she wouldn't have been able to devote herself to writing.
shareWasn't she taking care of someone else's children anyway? I certainly hope she published more than one book, since she gave up everything to "devote" herself to writing.
"Professionals built the Titanic. Amateurs built the Ark."
Helen Hannah
She was conceited and believed she was so talented she couldn't waste it on a husband and children. She owed the "world" too much.
Good grief. She was a kooky woman who was also lazy. She didn't want to have a real life with normal experiences. She saw her mother have a hard life and she wanted no part of it. She wanted to lie around all day writing, day dreaming and pretending she was a part of life.
Instead she just saw life from the outside in.
i didn't like the character at all.
She didn't realize she could have had any life she wanted because Sam was rich. I guess she thought children were inevitable. Why not say I don't want children?
And by the way, if she didn't love him, how come she got so mad when he didn't show up for two weeks? I think she was a little narcissistic and decided then and there to make him pay.
Make him fall in love and then refuse to marry him.
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She said she was thinking of him and his needs when she turned him down. he would count on his wife fore a lot of time consuming tasks and attention.
shareMy Brilliant Career is a classic novel by Australian author Miles Franklin, who has one of Australian Literature's most prestigious awards named after her. Franklin was born in 1879 when things were a lot different to when the film was made 100 years later. The people who made the film would have been keen to keep the film true to the book.
share Different times. The 'Glass Ceiling' although not even a concept in those years;
was an iron-clad institution written in granite that few even questioned. Married women didn't have 'careers'; they just dropped babies, put meals on the table and before Oprah and TV Soap Operas actually did the laundry and cleaned the house.... and either liked it or lumped it. Obviously this was not Miles Franklin's bag.That's why women writers with few exceptions like Mary Shelley and Virginia Woolfe seldom, if ever got married.
BastardfromtheBush: We watched the film today (11/04/2013) and do not buy her decision not to marry Harry. He was rich, he had servants, its not exactly like She was going to be kept bare-foot and pregnant. Even with Children there would have been a Nanny to take care of them and its not like he would not accommodate Her in the writing ambitions or the wish to share in a more cosmopolitan lifestyle.
Her choices were immature. She ends up in a dump, has a mental breakdown, takes care of ungrateful Children anyway and has no real companionship. She gets Her book published, but if it was good that would have happened anyway. Without all the angst.
Well, I wouldn't have turned him down! No way, Jose.
I suppose when you're that young, a bit of a drama queen, serious, with a talent, you think you'll always be that way: hopeful, with life before you, opportunities, smooth skin & firm body, with offers from handsome young men.
But I wonder that no one pointed out to her that her talent & life would be richer being shared with someone she loves and who loves her. If the man is the right one, what is good in life is all the better, when shared. And that one day, she would be old and alone, with wrinkled sagging skin, viewing a beautiful sunset alone. Always alone. With her accomplishments behind her.
Like the mother in "Hope Floats" says to Sandra Bullock, "You act like life is full of second chances."
Ah, youth. But she was right that she wouldn't have been able to be a serious writer in the way as if she stayed alone. Wives back then were expected to do certain things in certain ways, very traditional, and they were certainly busier doing household and motherly and wifely duties than now. Even the wife of a wealthy man would have had much less free time than now, I expect. Wives also didn't work outside the home, esp in that country at that time. That was rural countryside. She could have stolen time here and there and written as a hobby, but I doubt any more than that. And if you're going to be a writer, writing when you're young is important, I think. You learn the trade and skills, and you capture that exuberance and risk taking and optimism of youth that leaves us as we gain experience.
Ah, youth. Still, if I had loved him, I couldn't have resisted marrying him. Maybe she wasn't taht much in love with him, really.
"Ah, youth. Still, if I had loved him, I couldn't have resisted marrying him. Maybe she wasn't taht much in love with him, really."
That was my conclusion as well. Or she just couldn't get over her view of marriage as a prison.
She tells Harry that if she married him, she would "destroy" him. I thinks she means that she would be too restless, unhappy, outspoken or wild to make a proper wife for a wealthy man - and harm his reputation and/or break his heart. But, really I agree with the others that she was thinking more about herself than him.
I would have become Mrs. Beecham so fast Harry's head would spin. I found Sybylla full of vain pipe dreams. She just wasn't that talented! At least I saw no evidence of it.
I found her a perpetual adolescent who'll end up being supported by someone else's family when she's old.
Get me a bromide! And put some gin in it!
I would have become Mrs. Beecham so fast Harry's head would have spun. I found Sybylla full of vain pipe dreams. She just wasn't that talented! At least I saw no evidence of it.
I found her a perpetual adolescent who'll end up being supported by someone else's family when she's old.
Get me a bromide! And put some gin in it!
no reason really why she couldn't write and have Sam - plenty of women writers in those days were married. She was an idiot, in my opinion.
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