A0069509U Zaris Sofia Amran

Dr Anne Marie Thell

EN3222 The Eighteenth Century

28 March 2013

Evelina the Blank, not Cypher: The Significances of Evelina

… disregarded, silent, and melancholy, she sat like a cypher, whom to nobody belonging, by nobody was noticed. (403)

A cursory reading of Frances Burney’s Evelina would introduce its eponymous protagonist as

a “cypher, whom to nobody belonging, by nobody noticed.” I argue that instead of a cypher,

Evelina is a blank. By blank, I do not mean she is a site empty of meaning, but rather that she

is a space in which many meanings may be posited. To look at it in semantic terms, Evelina is

the signified to whom many signifiers pointi. This open-endedness of Evelina is suggested by

her simultaneous nameless and multi-named state. She is nameless because no one name

decisively claims her, but she is also multi-named because there are many names to which

she has claim—she does not belong to one because she belongs to many. She is, to borrow an

idea from Jacques Derrida, in the state of différanceii: she negotiates her identity in relation to

how she differs from others, and her identity, or name, is perpetually deferred; she is Anville,

deferred Belmont, and she is Belmont, deferred Orville. In this condition, there arises a

problem of identity formation, of determining a Self that is not only recognized within but

without as well, and it is her attempts to construct this identity through writing, in tandem

with her struggle with her “blank-ness” that I have outlined, that I seek to examine in my

paper.

Considering the epistolary form of the novel, it is important to take into account the

name used to sign off the letters when discussing issues of naming and identity. In Evelina, it

is evident that every act of signing off a letter is a deliberate and conscious one at the very

least on the part of its protagonist. In the collection of 60 letters Evelina writes that make up

the bulk of the novel, she signs only 13 of them, and each of these sign-offs are significant in

betraying a consciousness of her identity at each point of the novel they appear. In the very

first letter Evelina writes, the eighth letter to appear in Volume 1, she signs off thus:

With the utmost affection,gratitude, and duty,YourEVELINA —

I cannot to you sign Anville, and what other name may I claim? (27)

In a very literal way here Evelina identifies herself as a blank and in her postscript already

betrays the uncertain and open-ended question of her identity. Her postscript recognizes her

state in that moment as Anville, deferred Belmont. She knows she is the daughter of John

Belmont and deserves claim to that name but the legitimacy of her claim has yet to be

granted.

For most of these 13 letters that she signs, she identifies herself simply as

“EVELINA” with little variation but for two instances in letters 23 from Volume 1, and 21

from Volume 2 where her name is accompanied by a question mark and an exclamation mark

respectively. The question mark that accompanies her name in letter 23 is interesting because

there is nothing to betray its significance from the contents of the letter that precedes it. On a

purely semantic level, it is perhaps the logical punctuation to follow her full sign-off:

And now, most honoured Sir, with all the follies and imperfections which I have thus faithfully recounted, can you, and with unabated kindness, suffer me to sign myself

Your dutiful,and most affectionateEVELINA? (135)

The question that forms her sign-off perhaps semantically demands that a question mark

punctuate her name. However the visual position of her name standing alone with the

question mark suggests that at this point of the novel Evelina is at a critical point in her

struggle for identity. This is her supposed final letter about London before she returns to

Howard Grove and thenceforth home to Mr Villars at Berry Hill. This letter expresses the

zenith of her feelings of social incompatibility on her first foray into London high society.

The discord between her Self and the society she finds there produces anxiety for the liminal

nature of her identity. She longs to go back home, to her origin, to be reassured of her

belonging and stability of this belonging in spite of her liminality. Thus she asks for

reassurance from her adopted father, “can you… suffer me to sign myself [y]our… Evelina?”

In letter 21 from Volume 2, Evelina punctuates her name with an exclamation mark.

Again, this is semantically logical but suggests something of her psychological state with

regards to her Self at that moment. She ends the letter thus:

In every mortification, every disturbance, how grateful to my heart, how sweet to my recollection, is the certainty of your never-failing tenderness, sympathy, and protection! Oh Sir, could I, upon this subject, could I write as I feel, - how animated would be the language of

Your devotedEVELINA! (282)

iNotes

? “Saussure: An Introduction.” Media Center for Art History. Columbia University, n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2013.

ii Derrida, Jacques. “Excerpt from Différance.” The Hydra. University of California, Irvine, December 1994. Web. 29 Mar. 2013.

Here, her enthusiasm and gratitude spill over into her anxieties of identity. She recognizes the

very essential role that Mr Villars plays in anchoring her to some origin and certainty of Self

when the stability of her notion of Selfhood is threatened. He is the foundation of her identity,

he is her father, in a Lacanianiii sense, the one to whom she submits her obedience and to

whom she looks to as a figure of law as it governs her life. He is thus the determiner of her

identity—he holds the power over her name which she accepts, she defers to him as her

father the decision to take any proposed action toward procuring her legitimate Belmont

name.

Of the 53 letters she addresses to Mr Villars, her adopted father, she writes her full

name in only one, the penultimate letter she writes in Volume 3 where she identifies herself

as Belmont, deferred Orville:

Now then, therefore, for the first – and probably the last time I shall ever own the name, permit me to sign myself,

Most dear Sir,Your gratefully affectionate,EVELINA BELMONT (478)

It is the climax of her struggle for legitimacy and here the abundance of names her “blank-

ness” affords her is realized. She was Evelina Anville, adopted father (in the Lacanian sense

as figure of law) Arthur Villars, she is at this point Evelina Belmont, father John Belmont,

and she becomes Evelina Orville, husband (equivalent figure of law) Lord Orville. She

moves into legitimacy as she rises in social class: unclaimed Anville, legitimate Belmont, and

chosen Orville. She belongs to all these names and all these figures of law by virtue of the

dynamic nature of her identity. She is always in the midst of becoming, never complete in

being.

iii Lacan, Jacques. “The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis.” Ecrits: A Selection. New York: W. W. Norton, 2002. 31-106. Print.  

Her conscious construction of her identity through her correspondence is evident not

only in her letters to Mr Villars but in her letters to Miss Mirvan, and one letter each to Lord

Orville, Mr Macartney, and Sir Clement, people who are comparatively strangers to her. To

Miss Mirvan (in Evelina’s first letter to her), Lord Orville and Mr Macartney she decisively

signs her name as “Evelina Anville” (204, 295) indicating that though to her nearest and

dearest she “cannot… sign Anville,” to the rest of the world Anville is the definite

unquestionable identity she presents. In her second letter to Miss Mirvan and her letter to Sir

Clement, her identity is in question, she cannot be definite about Anville.

Her second letter to Miss Mirvan comes toward the end of Volume 2, it is the first of

a series of five letters that end Volume 2, and the only one in the series she signs. In this

series of letters to Miss Mirvan, Evelina is in a quandary about her feelings for Lord Orville

in the wake of the false letter she believes she receives from him. Evelina’s anxiety and doubt

arising from the inexplicable discrepancy between the Lord Orville of the letter and the Lord

Orville in person is compounded by the fact that she chooses not to confide in Mr Villars

about Lord Orville’s letter. The first letter in this series, the one she signs, stands apart from a

discussion of these anxieties however as it describes her feelings before she receives the

responding epistle from Lord Orville. To the reader and her correspondent, it is evident in

this letter that Evelina is struggling with her love for Lord Orville, worrying about his opinion

of her and her relations, though at this point in time her love for him is still unrealized by

Evelina herself. With this understanding, the absence of Anville from the name she uses to

sign off this letter is significant in betraying her reluctance to own the identity that ties her to

the relations that have sullied her name (in terms of character) in the eyes of Lord Orville.

This sullying of her name also weakens her potential chances of owning Orville’s name (in

marriage: though this may not be a conscious consideration on her part as yet, but I am sure

both reader and author, Burney, have foreseen and foregrounded, respectively, the possibility

by this point). The choice not to sign off the succeeding letters then implies her desire to

remain a blank while her feelings are in turmoil; she is neither Anville, the name which

shames her, Belmont, the name which can redeem but refuses her, or Orville, the name whose

meaning is in question at this point of the novel.

Her letter to Sir Clement comes at the end of the novel after the resolution is clear.

She is a legitimate Belmont and proposed Orville. Her “blank-ness” in this instance stems

from the uncertainty of which name to own since she has come into the socially-recognized

state of belonging to all her names, “[n]ot knowing what name to sign, [she] was obliged to

send it [her letter to Sir Clement] without any” (460).

Evelina’s natural instinct to construct her identity in writing, whether conscious or

unconscious, is inherited not only as a character projection of the author Frances Burney

herself but also from her mother Caroline Belmont. The single authoritative missive by

Caroline Belmont demands legitimacy for her daughter, if not for herself. Writing her letter,

Caroline Belmont summons the full power of language to engage and entreat Sir John

Belmont to recognize both mother and daughter : “Thou know’st I am thy wife! – clear, then,

to the world the reputation thou hast sullied, and receive as thy lawful successor the child

who will present thee this my dying request!” (401) Her letter and the physical features of it

give weight to the legitimacy of the claims she makes on him like Evelina’s physical

resemblance to her mother giving weight to her legitimacy. The reader may match what

Caroline writes in her letter to Sir John Belmont’s reaction upon seeing Evelina for the first

time. Caroline writes:

Shoulds’t thou, in the features of this deserted innocent, trace the resemblance of the wretched Caroline, - should its face bear the marks of its birth, and revive in thy memory the image of its mother, wilt thou not, Belmont, wilt thou not therefore renounce it? (402)

And Sir John Belmont’s reaction:

My God! does Caroline Evelyn still live! … thou image of my long-lost Caroline! … Yes, yes… I see, I see thou art her child! she lives – she breathes – she is present to my view! – Oh God, that she indeed lived! (440—1)

Evelina’s appearance bears the same power to legitimize her identity as her mother’s letter.

Both can claim to be as her mother writes, “the voice of equity, and the cry of nature” (401).

Thus she inherits her appearance from her mother, and also the agency in writing—both she

and Caroline are able to articulate in writing what they cannot communicate in person. An

example for Evelina would be perhaps the apology she writes to Lord Orville for the liberties

her relations took using her name to procure the services of his carriage; she could not defend

herself in person and so she turns to writing. Likewise, Frances Burney communicates her

stifled desires through her writing. Her father Dr Charles Burney, respected writer himselfiv,

disapproved of his daughter’s literary ambitions but she wrote and published Evelina in spite

of him and through this reconciled him to her authorshipv. The power of writing is hence

executed threefold: from Burney to Caroline and Evelina.

As a blank, Evelina writes meaning onto herself. She constructs her own identity

distinct from the names that she belongs to, but at the same time is influenced by them. There

is an abundance of possibility in the question of her identity: she is, at once, Anville,

Belmont, and Orville, in different combinations as the novel progresses and she acquires

social legitimacy. Through this characterization of Evelina, perhaps Frances Burney is

suggesting a proto-feminist view of the agency women may attain through writing to gain

iv “Charles Burney (1726-1814).” Burney Biographies: The Burney Centre. McGill University, n.d.  Web. 29 Mar. 2013. 

v “Frances (Fanny) Burney (married name d’Arblay).” Burney Biographies: The Burney Centre. McGill University, n.d.  Web. 29 Mar. 2013. 

Work Cited

Burney, Frances. Evelina. London: Penguin Group, 2012. Print.

recognition and respect as a first step toward equality. Women were discovering in this

period how writing as an occupation brings with it some degree of power or influence, and

both Burney and her character Evelina realize this power to great personal advantage. I can

imagine Evelina and the figure of its author being inspirations for young women in the

eighteenth century, spreading the faint beginnings, a whisper, of the message: Own Your

Self.