Frances Burney Evelina Analysis

Write to Me Often:

The Transformation of Burney’s Evelina Through the Epistolary Form

In Frances Burney’s novel Evelina, her titular character is introduced to the daunting social world of eighteenth century women, a place limited by specific modes of conduct where girls are often seen, but not heard. Essentially orphaned, her guardian, Mr. Villars, is the closest thing to a father she has ever had. When it comes time to become educated in proper behavior, she leaves Villars for London, an apparent baptism by fire into the public sphere. As she submerses herself in this new world, the lines between personal and private often become confused, as she keeps a close correspondence with Villars. In order to progress further in her social status,

Before she even presents her proposition, she recognizes that she is “half ashamed of [herself] for beginning this letter,” that she “hardly knows how to go on,” and above all she hopes Villars “will not think [her] an incroacher” (25). And, as soon as she does make her request, she rescinds her gesture, deeming it impulsive, as if a “confession” and prays that he “forget that you have read it” (26). As Zaczek astutely notes, Evelina’s “deception is so transparent that the reader cannot help but perceive it, even though Villars does not” (107). She paints herself in a light such that Villars only sees what she is missing: a normal family life, yet she is seemingly too obedient to ask for it. She deftly places this request as the key to her filial fulfillment, something a father figure is bound to appease to. As Kvande supports with Julie Epstein’s analysis, Evelina “maintains the selective privilege of the creative artist throughout her narrative. She writes from the angle from which she chooses Villars to view her adventures; she adopts a discourse of innocence arrested and then tutored; and he reads ultimately only what she wants him to know” (107). While this close analysis of the letter’s content is important in order to understand Evelina’s objectives, the actual physicality of this exchange provides a more concrete representation of her disobedient independence. “The letter as a letter,” as Kvande recognizes, “is a sign that she has already disobeyed him. It signifies that she is already absent from him, that she has already begun to move away from the sphere he has defined for her. By writing to him, she shows that she is separate from him – precisely what he has tried to prevent” (172). The fact that the entire novel is in epistolary form accomplishes something much more profound; Evelina does not remain obedient for keeping Villars informed of her daily interactions, but rather