# A Tale That Is Told and a Day That Is Done explained — My Brilliant Career

> Chapter companion for My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin.

## What happens

Sybylla reflects on the passage of time and her stagnant life at Possum Gully, expressing weariness and disillusionment with ambition and fate. She then shifts to a proud affirmation of her Australian bush identity and solidarity with the toiling peasant class, before closing with a vivid sunset and a farewell.

## Themes in this chapter

### Bush Life and Australian Identity

Sybylla proudly declares her love for the Australian bush and her identity as a 'daughter of the Southern Cross,' celebrating the resilience of bush workers.

### Poverty and Class Struggle

Sybylla reflects on the hard toil of peasants and warns of increasing class oppression, expressing solidarity with the 'sons of toil' and 'daughters of toil.'

### Ambition and Discontent

Sybylla questions the value of ambition and feels a 'slow dead ache' of defeat, contrasting her earlier dreams with her current weary resignation.

## Character check-ins

### Sybylla Penelope Melvyn

Narrator and protagonist; expresses deep weariness and a sense of defeat, yet also pride in her Australian bush identity and solidarity with the working class.

## Key lines

> There are others toiling and straining 'Neath burdens graver than mine; They are weary, yet uncomplaining —I know it, yet I repine

Others bear heavier burdens without complaint, yet I still complain.

_Sybylla acknowledges her own discontent despite knowing others suffer more._

> I am proud that I am an Australian, a daughter of the Southern Cross, a child of the mighty bush.

I take pride in being Australian, born under the Southern Cross and raised in the bush.

_Sybylla affirms her national and bush identity._

> I am only one of yourselves, I am only an unnecessary, little, bush commoner, I am only a—woman!

I am just one of you, an insignificant bush commoner, and merely a woman.

_Sybylla expresses a sense of insignificance and the limitations placed on her as a woman._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/my_brilliant_career_se/chapters/xxxviii-a-tale-that-is-told-and-a-day-that-is-done
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/my_brilliant_career_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/my_brilliant_career_se/chapters