Frances Burney’s Evelina: Vindicating Caroline Evelyn and Reclaiming Evelina Belmont
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This paper examines Frances Burney’s first novel, Evelina, or The History of A Young Lady’s Entrance into the World, by applying Michael McKeon’s theoretical framework, in The Origins of the English Novel, 1600-1740, which defines the English novel as a genre of instabilities narrating conflicts of class and social identity during the eighteenth century. Although McKeon’s textual analysis extends only through the 1740s and thus does not include Burney, his theoretical paradigm concerning “Questions of Truth” and “Questions of Virtue” outlines the “instabilities” of class and social identity experienced by Burney’s heroines. In Burney’s novel, the heroine, Evelina Belmont, and her mother, Caroline Evelyn, struggle to not only prove the truth of the daughter’s legal identity but also redeem an unjust verdict against the mother’s virtue committed by her husband and father of her child, Sir John Belmont. As Evelina embarks alone upon a journey away from the protection of home into the social world of London, Burney depicts how the heroine is and her mother was victimized by a society of libertines, fops, vulgar acquaintances, disgraceful family relatives, and cruel husbands and fathers. Applying McKeon, this paper attempts to delineate how Burney’s heroine and her mother challenge the licentious patriarchal culture, by introducing a new paradigm in which libertinism and social injustice are replaced with humble penitence, moral awakening, and vindication of truth and virtue.
Abstract
This paper examines Frances Burney’s first novel, Evelina, or The History of A Young Lady’s Entrance into the World, by applying Michael McKeon’s theoretical framework, in The Origins of the English Novel, 1600-1740, which defines the English novel as a genre of instabilities narrating conflicts of class and social identity during the eighteenth century. Although McKeon’s textual analysis extends only through the 1740s and thus does not include Burney, his theoretical paradigm concerning “Questions of Truth” and “Questions of Virtue” outlines the “instabilities” of class and social identity experienced by Burney’s heroines. In Burney’s novel, the heroine, Evelina Belmont, and her mother, Caroline Evelyn, struggle to not only prove the truth of the daughter’s legal identity but also redeem an unjust verdict against the mother’s virtue committed by her husband and father of her child, Sir John Belmont. As Evelina embarks alone upon a journey away from the protection of home into the social world of London, Burney depicts how the heroine is and her mother was victimized by a society of libertines, fops, vulgar acquaintances, disgraceful family relatives, and cruel husbands and fathers. Applying McKeon, this paper attempts to delineate how Burney’s heroine and her mother challenge the licentious patriarchal culture, by introducing a new paradigm in which libertinism and social injustice are replaced with humble penitence, moral awakening, and vindication of truth and virtue.
참고문헌 (18)
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