The Disembodied Eye and Internalized Surveillance in Frances Burney’s Cecilia

Abstract

This paper examines the issue of gaze and surveillance in Frances Burney’s Cecilia, with a particular focus on how the female gaze can contribute to reinforcing patriarchal structures of power. While Cecilia exposes the inescapable mechanisms of surveillance that govern women’s lives in the eighteenth century, it particularly emphasizes how domestic surveillance becomes most oppressive when it internalizes patriarchal norms and reinforces them. The heroine, Cecilia Beverley, is continuously confronted by the manipulative and mercenary male gaze of the numerous men who seek her hand in marriage, often placing her in danger and frustrating her will. Through the figure of Mrs. Delvile, Burney highlights how the female gaze can be most dangerous and frightening when it serves to uphold male-dominated ideologies. Cecilia aspires to see herself as an agent of universal benevolence, reflecting her desire to go beyond the role assigned to her by contemporary domestic ideology. However, she ultimately suffers a mental and physical breakdown, unable to escape the patriarchal gaze she has internalized. Through Cecilia’s tragic submission to patriarchal structures, Burney ultimately critiques the damaging effects of internalized surveillance and reveals the cost women bear when they succumb to the “eye of the world.”