“She sat like a cypher”: Discursive Ventriloquism in Evelina
Evelina is characterized as innocent, guileless and inexperienced, as a natural, but not spotless character, conscious of her own emotions but seemingly unaware of the effect she has on men. She is an ‘innocent abroad’, trying to come to grips with unfamiliar social codes. This unease frequently red...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Société d'Etudes Anglo-Américaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles
2013-12-01
|
| Series: | XVII-XVIII |
| Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/1718/536 |
| Summary: | Evelina is characterized as innocent, guileless and inexperienced, as a natural, but not spotless character, conscious of her own emotions but seemingly unaware of the effect she has on men. She is an ‘innocent abroad’, trying to come to grips with unfamiliar social codes. This unease frequently reduces her to silence, but her unspoken thoughts are delegated to two other female characters in an act of dialogic ventriloquism. First Madame Duval, whose situation resembles that of Evelina, then Mrs Selwyn who has none of the heroine’s inhibitions, express thoughts that Evelina stifles. In the last part of the novel, when Evelina’s crisis of identity is played out, the narratorial epistolary voice expands while the character’s intradiagetic voice is progressively silenced. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 0291-3798 2117-590X |