Evelina; or, The History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World Essay | Critical Essay #2

Evelina; or, The History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World Critical Essay #2

In the following excerpt, Cutting-Gray discusses the themes of innocence and experience in Burney's novel.

Thus ought a chaste and virtuous woman . . . lock up
her very words and set a guard upon her lips, especially
in the company of strangers, since there is
nothing which sooner discovers the qualities and
conditions of a woman than her discourse.
—Plutarch

A worldly wise, often subversive, journalist-narrator who represents herself as an inexperienced young rustic has intrigued, if not puzzled, the readers of Burney's first novel, Evelina. The fact that Evelina's innocence can only be seen from the narrator's perspective beyond innocence, that innocence is a reductive concept within the broader, reflexive context of writing is an important clue to the quixotic conduct of Burney's first heroine. If, as T. B. Macaulay notes, "novel" was a name that produced shudders from...
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