Content Category
Literary Criticism
Abstract/Description
Fanny Burney’s 18th Century novel Evelina is a canny critique of rape culture and the pervasive assumption of female consent. Evelina navigates a social world in which she nominally has the right to say no to anyone in any matter regarding her own body, but where that right is consistently undermined by social punishment, victim blaming, and deliberate ignorance. Earlier scholars have characterized Evelina’s compliance as a flaw in her character, a result of her lack of confidence and experience, but I contest that Burney’s text clearly absolves Evelina herself of all guilt. Burney instead condemns the society that would seek to erase Evelina’s no, and she creates in Lord Orville a model of English masculinity that could finally free women from the dangers of rape culture.
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Location
3082 JFSB
Start Date
19-3-2015 11:30 AM
End Date
19-3-2015 1:00 PM
Included in
"That lady, Sir, is her own mistress": Evelina's Condemnation of Rape Culture
3082 JFSB
Fanny Burney’s 18th Century novel Evelina is a canny critique of rape culture and the pervasive assumption of female consent. Evelina navigates a social world in which she nominally has the right to say no to anyone in any matter regarding her own body, but where that right is consistently undermined by social punishment, victim blaming, and deliberate ignorance. Earlier scholars have characterized Evelina’s compliance as a flaw in her character, a result of her lack of confidence and experience, but I contest that Burney’s text clearly absolves Evelina herself of all guilt. Burney instead condemns the society that would seek to erase Evelina’s no, and she creates in Lord Orville a model of English masculinity that could finally free women from the dangers of rape culture.