My Brilliant Career and Emily Dickinson

In the 19th century, the roles of men and women in the middle and upper-class were kept separate. This separation had great implications on the lives of women in the 19th century and continues to bleed into today's society and values, in duller ways. In the past, men were allowed to choose between many options for their life, from receiving their family's inheritance to choosing a profession of their liking. Women, on the other hand, were only offered marriage as a route of "freedom" from their childhood home or from being a "governess" to another household. A woman desiring a career, however, would of been socially isolated. The consequences of the separate lives women and men lived are depicted in the similarities between the movie My Brilliant Career and the life of Emily Dickinson.

In My Brilliant Career, Sybylla is a young girl growing up in a poor family. She is sent to her grandmother's to live, who is much wealthier than her immediate family. Sybylla is seen as ugly, rambunctious and unruley due to her love for creative hobbies, such as piano, singing, and writing (along with her tendency to speak her mind freely). Upon her arrival, her grandmother and aunt immediately begin discussing to whom and when she will get married. Though Sybylla spends most of the movie honing different crafts, no one sees these talents as important to her future. Sybylla is mainly mentioned as being unfortunate looking and out of line. Additionally, after verbally denying a desire for marriage and her family doubting her ability to become married due to her looks, she is still forced into the idea that marriage is her only option. She insists she wants to be a writer, however no one in the movie can see that as plausible career path due to her sex, even though it appears her grandmother is very well off. Most of the characters in the movie seem to freely discuss her "unfortunate" looks while ignoring the talents and charisma she possesses. When a suitor does see Sybylla for who she is, she still will not marry him because she is fearful she will lose herself in the process. The fear Sybylla has about marriage, exemplfies that marriage in the 19th century was not actually a "freedom" from anything, but instead a different prison.

At the end of the movie, there is no real sign or suggestion that Sybylla will get her "brilliant career". In fact, it appears she will be forced, with no choice in the matter, into any path her life takes. In this way, women in the 19th century did not have control over their lives whether they married or not. Almost every "option" given to them led to a life trapped in other people's desires for them. This is quite similar to the way historians portray Emily Dickinson's life. She chose not to marry, but also became a recluse-- trapped in her own home. In "The Norton Anthology of Literature", it states "... after only a year she left school, never to return, and from then on her life became increasingly withdrawn, as she slowly developed the fear of public places (known as agoraphobia) that marked her later years" (1038).

Many scholars theorize that Emily Dickinson became withdrawn due to a "tragic romance", however after watching My Brilliant Career, it becomes easy to theorize a world where Dickinson felt trapped by circumstances out of her control. Dickinson, like Sybylla could have simply desired a life where her career and her own personal growth were put first. It is possible to imagine the confinements of her room were less isolating then the choices she was given outside of it.