Frances Burney
The fascinating conversations with my students about father-daughter relationships and Frances Burney’s Evelina continued yesterday. The class had a range of reactions to how Evelina should respond when her guardian tells her to override her growing affection for Lord Orville.
He has a number of reasons to be nervous. Lord Orville (they both believe) has sent her an inappropriate love letter. (As it turns out, the letter is actually from someone else.) He has no reason to believe that a Lord will want to marry Evelina, who is an orphan with dim prospects. Furthermore, he has seen her mother, following her seduction by a rake, die of a broken heart (after first giving birth to Evelina). No wonder he’s overly protective.
But as events prove, he’s also wrong. Lord Orville is virtuous and he’s willing to marry Evelina. Even before he proposes, Evelina sees his virtues. But she’s a dutiful ward and tries to follow the instructions of her guardian, turning a cold shoulder to Orville. This leads to an internal war with herself, which shows itself in the twisted prose of her letter to her guardian:
I have been writing ever since; for, certain that I could not sleep, I would not go to bed. Tell me, my dearest Sir, if you possibly can, tell me that you approve my change of conduct,–tell me that my altered behaviour to Lord Orville is right,–that my flying his society, and avoiding his civilities, are actions which you would have dictated.–Tell me this, and the sacrifices I have made will comfort me in the midst of my regret,–for never, never can I cease to regret that I have lost the friendship of Lord Orville!–Oh, Sir, I have slighted,–have rejected,–have thrown it away!–No matter, it was an honour I merited not to preserve; and now I see,–that my mind was unequal to sustaining it without danger.
Yet so strong is the desire you have implanted in me to act with uprightness and propriety, that, however the weakness of my heart may distress and afflict me, it will never, I humbly trust, render me wilfully culpable. The wish of doing well governs every other, as far as concerns my conduct,–for am I not your child?–the creature of your own forming!-Yet, Oh Sir, friend, parent, of my heart!-my feelings are all at war with my duties! and, while I most struggle to acquire self-approbation, my peace, my happiness, my hopes,–are lost!
I divided my students into pairs and asked them to figure out what is going on in this letter. Some sympathized with Evelina’s distress, some described her as passive aggressive. One noted that Evelina was desperately asking the man to whom she owes everything to reassure her in her pain.
As my students talked, they also shared the different relationships they have with their own fathers. Some have fathers who are overprotective, others who are trusting. Once again it was literature giving us an opportunity to to step outside of our lives to see our lives and appreciate the rich textures that define our relationships.