Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

time (Straub 2-3). Questions about the will of Mr.
Villars and the "will" he has for his charges confound
definitions and muddle the words that vie for centrality
in this novel. Julia Epstein considers Evelina through
the broader concept of cultural context, arguing that
Burney's fiction analyzes domestic and socioeconomic
power relations during an especially charged historical
period. Epstein asserts that Burney dissects the
economics of sexuality and argues for the authority of
narrative fiction to reframe social conditions through
representational discourse (Burney Criticism 281).
When we consider the fiction of the novel and its
representation of real life, we immediately see the irony
of life for Evelina Anville. She inherits a fictional
life, however real it may be for her, only to be consumed
by the language of virtue that cloaks the infidelity of
husbands and fathers, then to be fictionalized once more
by the marriage-seeking males who equate her "marriage-
ability" with her mistaken money position. Her
misidentification disrupts eighteenth-century society's
belief in birth being equated with virtue. All this
gives us a sense of reality. Truly, Burney's masterpiece
shows us that fiction sometimes makes a better reality
than real life. Evelina proves the pitfalls of