Polite Language and Female Social Agency in Frances Burney’s Evelina

Frances Burney’s first novel, Evelina (1778), tells the story “of a young woman of obscure birth, but conspicuous beauty, for the first six months after her Entrance into the world.” While Evelina’s letters verify her individual eloquence from the beginning of Burney’s novel, the heroine’s mastery of the codes of social speech emerges only gradually. This paper will investigate the novel’s representation of the reciprocal relation between linguistic and social development, exploring how Evelina’s “entrance into the world” is imagined as an education in effective speech that in turn allows agency and social power. Criticism of Evelina often interprets the concluding marriage as submission to the patriarchal authority which so often limits and threatens Evelina over the course of the novel. From this perspective, Evelina’s marriage marks the silencing of her authority through the end of her letter-writing, reinstating in the process not only male privilege, but also the social restrictions to which women in the eighteenth century were subject. This paper will offer an alternative reading: it will suggest that as Evelina becomes socially acclimatized and masters proper modes of speaking, she is able both to manifest her true intelligence and to defend herself when necessary. The end of Evelina’s letter-writing marks the end of only one potential mode of communication; her newfound ability to use speech effectively, the novel implies, will prove a more influential and extensive means of conveying her intelligence and virtue than letter-writing. The legitimizing marriage that concludes Evelina, passing Evelina from the hands of her guardian Mr. Villars to the protection of her husband Lord Orville, is often interpreted as a re-instatement of patriarchal authority. For instance, Judith Newton argues that “Evelina’s destiny is to be protected, to marry, and her preparation for that future is to abdicate rather than to maintain power.” Throughout the novel, Evelina struggles in society largely due to her lack of a legitimate (patriarchal) name, and, because of this lack of guardian or legal namesake, she must move through public spaces without male protection. While certain critics have found that Evelina “retrieves in the act of writing a richness of experience otherwise denied to her,” the consensus is that Evelina’s marriage – the legitimizing of her status by taking Orville’s name – indicates her submission to a patriarchal code and the silencing of her limited authority with the end of her letter-writing. Certainly, female agency and authority were restricted in the eighteenth century, and Evelina’s plot clearly functions within the confines of a patriarchal society. However, Burney’s portrayal of her heroine’s social development and her generous descriptions of polite and supportive male characters such as Villars and Orville suggest important variations in the ways of perceiving and treating women in this society. Villars and Orville are often viewed as figures of patriarchal protection, but equally significantly, they admire Evelina’s natural intelligence and virtue, acknowledge the validity of her opinions, and encourage her to “learn not only to judge but to act for [her]self.” These two men are also exemplary in their use of a polite and sensible language that has a number of counterpoints, from Lord Merton’s affected aristocratic drawl, through Sir Clement Willoughby’s chivalric discourse, to Mrs. Selwyn’s punitive satire. In Evelina, knowledge of proper social behavior and polite speech can help a woman to earn greater respect, agency, and social power. While Burney endorses a fairly conventional social politeness, she suggests that women may choose to submit to polite social conventions not only to satisfy patriarchal demands, but to further their own agency and social influence. In Evelina, this code of behaviour …