Violence Against Women in Evelina

Abstract

Evelina, the best-known novel of Frances Burney, tells a young rustic girl's entrance into London society. Burney portrays a vivid panorama of 18th-century London shrouded by appealing glamours and ubiquitous violence as well. This paper focuses on the physical, psychological and social violence the female characters encounter in the novel, aimed at exploring the fundamental reason for the terrible treatment from a feminist perspective. Women in 18th-century England were prone to be the target of physical violence mainly reflected in body harm and sexual abuse. Further, women also suffered from various forms of psychological violence in their daily life. It is argued by this paper that the violence against women is not an accidental result of individual pathology but the inevitable consequence of patriarchal definitions of gender roles.