The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion

Madame Duval has accompanied the family to Lady Howard’s home and proposed a scheme to get Evelina’s father to acknowledge her. Lord Belmont has, so far, refused to do so. Madame Duval convinced Mr. Villars to let Evelina stay with her for a month in London. Do we trust her?

We also meet two new characters: Mr. Smith and a Scotsman presumed to be a poet.

What did you think of the “robbery”?

Mr. Willoughby has asked for Evelina’s love, but not marriage. What does he want?

Do you see a way out of Evelina’s situation with Madame Duval and her London relatives?

Is Frances Burney making any statements on class? Think of her descriptions of the Branghtons and also of some of the “gentlemen” Eveline has encountered so far.

Do you see nuance in any of the characters, or are they “all good” or “all bad”?

Will the Scottish “poet” play a larger role in the story? What about Mr. Smith?

I think the characters are lacking in depth, but I don't know whether this is due to the author's ability or to the epistolary style of the novel.

I wasn't sure if maybe it was due to the novel being a satire - like maybe the characters are intended to be stereotypes, or someone the reader could interchange with a type of person in the society that they knew at the time.

That makes a lot of sense, Lori.

Even though Madame Duval is an annoying character, the way she was treated during the sham robbery was shameful, since she is an old woman.

I feel that Burney was groping toward realism of scene and character but lived in a literary world where realism hadn't yet been grasped, so she didn't quite get there. The characters are vivid enough but perhaps under-motivated, serving more as puppets in service to the structure. It feels as if she had a schema in her mind to present her ideas, and the characters had to be forced through that. The scenes are very lively and lifelike, but they don't grow out of personality or lead to internal evolution. Even Evelina herself doesn't seem to develop much, she just does the best she can in each situation that arises.

I found Sir John's letter very intriguing and hope we get to meet him someday.

I expect Mme Duval would immensely resent being referred to as ‘an old woman’ and of course she is in no real danger. Highway men were a real danger in Burney’s time, but some were popular romantic figures who enjoyed almost rock star status. Other than being robbed, travellers were seldom mistreated and shootouts rare.

I don't trust Mme Duval not to try to take Evelina to the continent. I'm not sure what her scheme is to have Evelina acknowledged by her father, but I can't imagine a legal case would do anything but damage Evelina's reputation.

What will happen when Mme Duval realizes that Evelina knew it was a fake robbery?

I think that Evelina is stuck with her London relatives and is really hoping that no one she knows will see her with them.

Yes, being stuck in London this way is not good at all. I’m still not clear on why she has to go wherever Madame Duval wants to take her, since she is an adult already and presumably free to make her own choices? I understand that as a granddaughter Evelina feels honor-bound to do Madame Duval’s bidding, but everyone else seems to interpret this as legally binding. Is it?

I agree about the Captain’s treatment of Madame being excessive. Despite the threat Madame poses to Evelina, this is too much. Madame's loss of her hairpiece and spoilt makeup do soften her as a character; suddenly, to me at least, she no longer seems "all bad." She is bad, yes, for Evelina; but also desperate, and pitiable, and a bit funny, and sometimes sad.

Mr. Villars also no longer strikes me as "all good." His response to Sir John Belmont's accusation (of--what, exactly?) comes a little too early in his letter to Evelina; the accusation seems to matter more to him than it ought to. Does he, too, have something to hide? I suspect that all is not as it appears . . . the plot thickens. The backstory may be more complicated than we and Evelina have been led to believe . . .

Regarding having to go wherever Madame Duval wants to take her: with her mother dead and her father refusing to acknowledge her, Mme. Duval is her only parental figure. Mr. Villars might have a moral claim but Mme. Duval has the stronger legal claim to parental rights. In this era a girl was basically a possession of her parents till she married, at which point she became the possession of her husband. The idea of being "of age" didn't really apply, although if she had been an heiress, she might be granted the use of some of her money at 21. Mme. Duval seems to have inherited all of Mr. Evelyn's (Evelina's grandfather's, her first husband's) money, and she uses the threat of disinheritance to keep Evelina compliant.

With her father not recognizing her, the only money Evelina is sure to inherit is whatever Mr. Villars has, which he describes as a "competence"--enough to survive on but no more. (Not clear whether he is still a working clergyman, but whenever he retires he will lose any extra income he might have right now.) So with very little money to bring into a marriage and a cloud of mystery surrounding her parentage, it would be very difficult for Evelina to get a respectable husband, much less a peer like Lord Orville. Inheriting from Mme. Duval is her best chance of being established in life.

Everything about the supposed robbery was disgusting. I agree with Alice, it made me feel sympathy toward Madame Duval who, until now, has been a very unsympathetic character.

Regarding the possible future of Mr Smith- I’ve had a feeling Madame Villars is going to try marrying off Evelina to someone unsuitable. At first I suspected the nephew but Mr Smith would do just as well- or serve to create trouble with her cousins since he seems to be something of a love interest.

In letter 39 (or vol II letter 8), Mr Villars advises that Evelina is essentially going to have to rely on her own sense of propriety to protect herself in London. I’m hoping she is able to rise to the occasion and show some independence

The robbery *almost* made me feel sympathy for Madame Duval, but not quite. But the Captain is a monster, and so is Sir Clement - for going along with it, and for his continued harassment of Evelina.

I also suspect Madame Duval of trying to arrange an unsuitable marriage, as she tried to do with Evelina's mother.

Abigail wrote: "In this era a girl was basically a possession of her parents till she married, at which point she became the possession of her husband. The idea of being "of age" didn't really apply . . . "

I see. This also explains why in an earlier thread someone, I think, mentioned that Madame Duval would have the power to settle any money Evelina inherits from her father on other members of the family, for example the Branghtons. (After scanning both other threads I can't find this now; maybe it was actually in the book.) I wondered about this when I first read it, but now it makes perfect sense. If Madame Duval "owns" Evelina, naturally she also owns whatever Evelina owns. Ugh!

Makes me glad to be a female today! We may not be fully equal, but at least we're not chattel.

Yes, we’re certainly better off now!

I think the fake robbery was supposed to be funny, as a kind of slapstick. Unfortunately that’s a kind of humor I don’t care for, especially when it involves deliberate cruelty. It reminded me of scenes from Don Quixote where someone is getting beaten and that is intended as humor.

I wonder if Fanny Burney were trying to have it both ways? Maybe readers were supposed to get a laugh, but Evelina certainly didn't find it amusing and it increased her sympathy for her grandmother.

I completely agree with Robin. I am astonished by the Captain's cruelty against Mme Duval and also by Sir Clemence's. Is it possible that Lady Howard is not informed about what happens in her house? And that none of her guests respects her and the other guests? I hope it was not meant to be funny, it would be really sad coming from a female writer, even if Mme Duval is depicted as rather hateful.

I don't personally find it amusing either, on any level, but that sort of scene of humiliation was pretty common in the fiction (and theater) of the era, played for laughs. I agree with Robin that it was intended as slapstick. It seems to me that Burney is revealing her own discomfort with it by the way she describes Evelina's reaction.

Perhaps she is also making a deeper point that the sort of "fun and games" men get up to often contain an element of gratuitous cruelty? She might make some readers of her time laugh, but then she made them look at the scene through different eyes.

I wonder how Mr Villars could let Evelina go again to London with Mme Duval. He has been bringing Evelina up for seventeen years in the simplest way, and now he allows her to be exposed again to a company that is not appropriate for her, only for money, for Mme Duval's inheritance?

That didn't make much sense to me either, Daniela.

So far the whole novel revolves around Evelina being put in situations she wouldn’t be exposed to if she was protected in the normal way by guardians, family members, friends etc. The idea that she will return to Mr. Villars anytime soon is now becoming tedious as we know it is not going to happen. Mr. Villars seems to be both spineless and naive to the extreme if he thinks Madame Duval won’t try and take Evelina to Paris during her month in London. The least he could do was accompany her there to watch out for her. But this novel doesn’t allow for that type of common sense. Evelina now has to be exposed to dangers of a different kind including suicidal poets and the attentions of other young men who she seems to sneer at because of their lower station in life compared to Lord Orville or Sir Clement.
The whole robbery charade was ridiculous and, apart from upsetting Madame Duval, just another opportunity for Sir Clement to spend some time alone with Evelina. For me the attentions of Sir Clement are also becoming tedious. It is obvious what he wants, the same thing that most aristocrats of the time expected when ‘sowing their wild oats.’ Evelina has this dream of Lord Orville at the back of her mind all the time but she doesn’t know him that well either. If she had felt the same way about Sir Clement she would have been ruined by now. Why can’t Mr. Villars warn Lady Howard of Sir Clement’s disreputable attentions towards Evelina rather than just warning Evelina herself? By forcing her to give her ‘thanks’ for leaving Lady Howards Sir Clement has now got a hold on Evelina. He is bound to require a ‘favour’ in return, thus putting her in even more danger.

Yes, Mr. Villars inexplicably turns into not much more than a sounding board. Feels kind of like a plot hole.

Trev wrote: "So far the whole novel revolves around Evelina being put in situations she wouldn’t be exposed to if she was protected in the normal way by guardians, family members, friends etc. The idea that she..."
I agree with you!

Although, again, all the protection in the world doesn’t always amount to much and this is hopefully a book about Evelina’s independence.

Trevor- you seem more upset with lack of protection than the true crime that women needed this amount of looking after to keep them safe from rapists and thugs in an age when womanhood was supposedly sacrosanct.

I try to put in place as much protection as possible to keep my 16 year old daughter safe but at some point I have to let her go, hoping that she can develop the skills and awareness to see danger coming and avoid it herself. And there’s no guarantee a woman can avoid it even then.

If Burney is trying to illustrate any of these things, she was ahead of her time. And focusing on her guardians’ fault misses the point entirely. At this point in the novel, I think and hope the point will end up being an attempt to open up readers’ eyes to the unspoken dangers of supposedly “gentlemanly” attentions, the contradictions inherent in a culture that allows women to be harassed if they are vulnerable, and the inability of overly sheltered women to protect themselves when they are inevitably on their own because the only other alternative is locking them away entirely.

A point that apparently is still relevant two hundred years later.

Since we know the book was intended as satire, the over-the-top behavior of many characters may be deliberate, sort of likely a comic book or comedy sketch today. But we can still be disturbed at how often women are the victims of cruel jokes, even if we think Mme Duval deserved it. Evelina certainly doesn’t, she tries so hard to be nice even to horrible people.

Interesting points, Jenny! Rebecca Solnit has recently written a memoir-essay collection that is very articulate on this subject: Recollections of My Nonexistence: A Memoir.

I do think Fanny Burney was very conscious of this double standard, though she was so imbued with the mind-set of her age that she didn't fully know how to address it head-on. In fact, she used imagery similar to Solnit's when she started writing her journal and addressed it to Nobody (i.e., herself). Today we might call it erasure.

Jenny wrote: "At this point in the novel, I think and hope the point will end up being an attempt to open up readers’ eyes to the unspoken dangers of supposedly “gentlemanly” attentions, the contradictions inherent in a culture that allows women to be harassed if they are vulnerable, and the inability of overly sheltered women to protect themselves when they are inevitably on their own because the only other alternative is locking them away entirely.

A point that apparently is still relevant two hundred years later"

Agreed.

Jenny wrote: "Although, again, all the protection in the world doesn’t always amount to much and this is hopefully a book about Evelina’s independence.

Trevor- you seem more upset with lack of protection than ..."

I assume this novel was meant as a cautionary tale for young women and their supposed protectors, and therefore we need to have Evelina end up in difficult situations as a warning and to give some interest or suspense to the tale. I would still agree with Trevor that 16-year olds in any society need some sort of protection or guidance as they start to interact with much older, more experienced and potentially ill-intentioned adults, whether it is protecting them against sexual impropriety (or worse) or social or financial predators.

Unfortunately as some have already argued, Evelina's position seems to mean that her "guardian" is legally Mme Duval, which leaves her friends somewhat hampered in their ability to help her.

Jenny wrote: "Although, again, all the protection in the world doesn’t always amount to much and this is hopefully a book about Evelina’s independence.

Trevor- you seem more upset with lack of protection than ..."

My main point about Evelina’s lack of protection was that it was wildly unrealistic. If she had been born into a low class family in the London slums she would have probably spent her life defending herself from the day she could walk.
However, Evelina was supposedly protected by a guardian and numerous other well to do friends. Even Madame Duval as a relation has some responsibility of care towards her but none of these people exercise the slightest amount of concern when it comes to the likes of Sir Willoughby giving her unwanted attention.

The fact that she needs protection and advice from someone is shown in letter 34 when Evelina admits to Mr. Villars that she missed Sir Clement after he had left Lady Howards. At dinner, I must own, we all missed him, for though the flightiness of his behaviour to me, when we are by ourselves is very distressing, yet in large companies, and general conversation, he is extremely entertaining and agreeable.”

I have read the novel ‘Amelia’ by Henry Fielding, written about 25 years earlier than Evelina, in which there are similar themes but they are dealt with in a much more realistic manner. Amelia is pursued by a number of men both inside and outside her friends and family, but uses her intelligence to outwit them. Fielding's novel is also humorous in parts but has also some serious messages. Fanny Burney’s novel might be a satire but, for me, it needs to reside in the real world for it to have the impact she may have desired.

When asking questions like ‘why doesn’t Mr Villiars ...’ or ‘why didn’t Mrs. Mirvan ...’ we have to recall that Evelina is now ‘out’: in the eyes of Society she is an adult. There was no such thing as adolescence, one was either a child or a woman. In the case of a young man, university and/or the Grand Tour might act as a transition phase between boyhood and full adult responsibilities. Compare novels, Evelina to Les Liaisons dangereuses, Evelina’s friends have good reason not to want Mme Duval to take Evelina to France.

Bill wrote: "When asking questions like ‘why doesn’t Mr Villiars ...’ or ‘why didn’t Mrs. Mirvan ...’ we have to recall that Evelina is now ‘out’: in the eyes of Society she is an adult. There was no such thing..."

I am also reading Ayala’s Angel with the Goodreads group and it is very relevant to Evelina that Trollope should write, exactly 100 years after Fanny Burney’s novel, about the need for the protection of young women. In chapter three he states:-
It is generally understood that there are raging lions about the metropolis, who would certainly eat up young ladies whole if young ladies were to walk about the streets or even about the parks by themselves. There is, however, beginning to be some vacillation as to the received belief on this subject as regards London. In large continental towns, such as Paris and Vienna, young ladies would be devoured certainly. Such, at least, is the creed. In New York and Washington there are supposed to be no lions, so that young ladies go about free as air. In London there is a rising doubt, under which before long, probably, the lions will succumb altogether. Mrs. Dosett did believe somewhat in lions, but she believed also in exercise. And she was aware that the lions eat up chiefly rich people. Young ladies who must go about without mothers, brothers, uncles, carriages, or attendants of any sort, are not often eaten or even roared at. It is the dainty darlings for whom the roarings have to be feared. Mrs. Dosett, aware that daintiness was no longer within the reach of her and hers, did assent to these walkings in Kensington Gardens.
The extract above related to a young lady aged 21, legally an adult but still under the protection of an aunt who was considering her safety if she walked alone in Kensington Gardens.
Evelina was still legally a child who could not marry, have any money of her own or any rights to determine her own future without the consent of the adult who represented her. Whether that was Mr. Villars or Madame Duval is questionable as are many of the relationships so far developed in the novel.

I’m reading the Trollope novel too. It’s clear that Trollope is somewhat satirical, implying that Mrs Dosett has an exaggerated sense of propriety in thinking that crossing through Kensington gardens in midday to visit her sister would place Lucy in danger. The Victorians were probably much more protective of young ladies that the Georgians. They looked back on the 18th century as a morally dubious period,when authors such as Fielding could write books
Iike Tom Jones. Back in my scholarly days I knew some of the editors of the Burney’edition. Frances’ family in the 19th century actually defaced her diaries to obscure passages they found offensive. When deciphered (a painstaking process) the censored text would turn out to be something innocuous like ‘had a stomach ache’.

This section continues what seems to be an ongoing class commentary. Just as in modern times, people seem to ascribe positive traits to the wealthy and high-ranking without much regard to their behavior. Sir Clement is horrible, yet everyone puts up with him, and some even admire him, because he's Sir Clement. Am I the only one who doesn't see a problem with the Branghtons? It seems their main crime is being petit bourgeois.

I’m finding most of the male characters to be cringe worthy. Very predatorial in some cases, weak and ineffective in others. It does seem dubious to me that Evelina, sheltered as she has been, is told to fend for herself and protect herself from her relatives in London.

Class differences is definitely a major theme as is the plight of women. Sheltered, rarely educated, with no rights of their own, yet somehow expected to survive.

I thought that was strange too, Deborah.