| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中山大學 === 外國語文學系研究所 === 88 === ABSTRACT
In the discussion of my research project, the concept of femininity of the eighteenth century in Fanny Burney’s Evelina is the principle subject, and the thesis is divided into five parts to discuss. I elaborate and introduce the basic concept of my thesis—femininity in the eighteenth century—in my introduction. Then, in the first chapter, I discuss the subversion of the epistolary form. Through exploring the history of the epistolary fiction, I explain how the epistolary novel became a genre and why it is regarded as the feminine style suitable to the female writers and how it works in the novel. As shaping power in Evelina, what results does the epistolarity bring to the structure or the content of the novel? How does the epistolarity make the novel different from other common ones? And as a feminine genre, how would it help Burney go beyond the patriarchal order of language? These are the questions I explore here.
In the second chapter, I analyze how Fanny Burney overturn the eighteenth-century patriarchal value system and criticize the marriage market through the incidents that the innocent, feminine heroine encounters in the fashionable world. I also specify how femininity is used as a disguised power by the author to subvert the society. In my third chapter, I elaborate the feminization of male characters and discuss the masculine women as well in this novel. I discuss how the author creates these feminized men and masculine women, and how she implies that if people of both sexes adopt the merits of their opposite sex appropriately, they may become better human beings. Last, in my conclusion, I make a concise summary for my whole thesis and explain why I think it a good work with profundity.
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