Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

effect on women. Burney writes about the effect of
strict settlement more from personal revelation than from
a strictly legal point of view. Judith Lowder Newton
posits that Burney's close association with the great,
her "association with courtly fiction," and her
"idealization of genteel women" allow her to accept the
"rule of landed men" and make genteel women's plight seem
more "endurable" (34) . However, Newton does not
elaborate on Burney's display of genteel women as
merchandise in the marriage market. Her consistent
portrayal of Evelina as an "un-moneyed" object of men of
the merchant as well as of the upper classes is
foundational to any desire Burney may have had to
acquiesce to the merchant and upper class patriarchal
need to commodify women. Burney's desire is to prove
Evelina' s ultimate right to inherit, no matter what her
superficial circumstance. The extrinsic quality upper
class eighteenth-century society looks for in women of
marriageable position may be "endurable," but Burney
proves through Evelina that the individual quality of a
woman is ultimately the mark by which society should
judge her.
Burney's reluctance to claim authorship of Evelina
is indicative of the dominance of patriarchal thinking in