Revising my work: Evelina essay

This essay I am particularly proud of. Written for Emily Allen's course on the British Novel. Some typos, and more close reading needed. Might need to insert some Blair.


A Good Woman Learning to Speak Well: Speech and Argumentation in Evelina

Not long after her first excursions into London social circles, the title character of Evelina writes to her guardian Mr. Villars: “But, really, I think there ought to be a book, of the laws and customs à-la-mode, presented to all young people, upon their first introduction into pubic company” (Burney 83). As arguments, novels represent female characters with given traits in a positive or negative light, thus promoting or discouraging certain behaviors in readers—Evelina’s book exists, and she is one of many who are presenting to young readers the customs of polite society. In contextualizing the novels’ rise as both a cause and effect of the rise of a middle class, critics such as Michael McKeon, Nancy Armstrong, and J. Paul Hunter argue that novels act as what Kenneth Burke calls "strategic answers, stylized answers" (The Philosophy of Literary Form 1). Novels offer both reader and writer a symbolic means to react in an uncertain situation. The female heroine of Evelina and other eighteenth-century novels negotiate for the reader this uncertain environment and eventually arrive at a satisfactory conclusion.
If we take these as our premises, then we must next ask what behavior is being promoted through the female heroines. McKeon, Hunter, and Armstrong have argued that the target behavior is either an appropriate sexuality or domestication by pointing to the characterization and plot development in these novels. The domesticated or tamed female has been described as modest or decorous in her actions, but apart from elocution, little has been written about women’s speech, particularly argumentative speech.
Patricia Howell Michaelson’s Speaking Volumes: Women, Reading, and Speech in the Age of Austen takes up the issue of women’s speech as represented in Austen’s novels, and the resulting social action that representation incurred. Michaelson is concerned with sociolinguists’ interpretation of “gendered language” as a question of “bad,” submissive silence as opposed to a strategic ethos of silence (4-6). Silence, for Michaelson, is not necessarily a sign of submission—it may be a rhetorical choice. If rhetoric has been, since Quintilian, defined partly as “a good man speaking well,” how are we to understand the utterances, or lack thereof of good women? While Michaelson studies the dialogue and conversational aspects of Austen’s novels, however, I am interested in the ways the novels describe and thus prescribe (or argue for) an appropriate female rhetor through these conversations..
Written by Frances Burney in 1778, Evelina seems to be particularly concerned with speech, more so than earlier novels. Evelina, with its central female narrator learning how to navigate various discourse conventions, prescribes for its female audience a way of arguing that embodies politeness, wit, and, above all, ethos over pathos. The history of rhetoric has been a history of conflict over the relative importance of these elements. In the eighteenth century, Wilbur Howell argues, the influence of Ramus placed concerns of ethos and elocution over logic, which was completely removed from rhetoric. When Mrs. Selwyn says “But for this observation […] I protest I should have supposed that a peer of the realm and an able logician were synonymous terms” (361) she is referring not to a connection to philosophical logics, but to Aristotelian “logic,” which we now call rhetoric. Those who spoke of “rhetoric” were most often working with Cicero’s reading of the Greek rhetoricians (Howell 75). While “rhetoric” as we now use it would not have been involved with epistemological questions or dialectical constructions, Howell claims that these ideas were debated in the 18th century, just as a separate category. Cicero’s popularity might have saved rhetoric from descending completely into elocution; the 18th Ciceronians, according to Howell, interpreted Cicero’s rhetoric as
the chief art of discourse, [which] consisted of all the principles and precepts which regulated all speaking and all writing addressed to popular audiences on occasions when some doctrine had to be taught, some thesis proved, some great achievement or great man celebrated for public enlightenment, or some course of action proposed as the best response to the facts of the case and to the human interests and feelings concerned. (77)
This last concern of eighteenth century rhetoric is what we find to be the preoccupation of Evelina: How, the novel asks, should women respond to “the facts” of a case of conflicts of interest? To revise Quintillian, how do we know when a good woman is speaking well?
Evelina provides possible strategic and stylized answers to this question in two ways. First, there is the epistolary nature of the novel; Evelina is writing to her father, being careful to omit some details, and to “delicately” phrase others. In first asking Mr. Villars for permission to go to London, Evelina hedges her arguments with deferrals to Mr. Villars’s authority: “They are to make a very short stay in town. The captain will meet them in a day or two. Mrs. Mirvan and her sweet daughter both go;--what a happy party! Yet I am not very eager to accompany them: at least, I shall be very well contented to remain where I am, if you desire I should” (25). In her appeal, Evelina first convinces Mr. Villars of her safety (the captain will appear shortly, and the Mirvan women go often anyway) before submitting, however grudgingly.
Evelina censors for her father several scenes, first by not quoting herself directly, and secondly by simply omitting events. Upon discovering the stranger in their coach is none other than Madame Duval, her grandmother, Evelina writes “But I will not shock you with the manner of her acknowledging me, or the bitterness, the grossness—I cannot otherwise express myself—with which she spoke of those unhappy past transactions you have so pathetically related to me” (54). Evelina’s reluctance to repeat Madame Duval’s “gross” speech shows that she has already a strong education in what is appropriate speech for women.
Michaelson categorizes this type of polite, censorious speech as one of three techniques Austen teaches us: “[Pride and Prejudice] begins […] with an example of what not to do in conversation, with Mr. Bennet’s refusal to participate in the turn-taking cooperatives we expect” (203). Madame Duval may take part in the turn-taking, but other discourse conventions of late eighteenth century England elude her, and Evelina is careful to show Mr. Villars that she knows that her grandmother’s speech is not acceptable. Michaelson sees similar comments in Pride and Prejudice on what not to say: “Earlier, formal modes of conversation are ridiculed in the obsequious flattery of Mr. Collins, who not only constantly spouts fawning phrases, but actually plans them out ahead of time” (204). In Austen, the “polite converser actively smoothes interactions and feelings”—and does not speak with “impertinence” (204-205); her novels prescribe this action. Evelina’s letters, in their censoring, show readers what not to say.
Evelina’s original insistence on omitting or glossing over for Mr. Villars the inappropriate speeches does not mean that Evelina is necessarily arguing for complete silence on the part of a female rhetor; instead, we must see Evelina’s letters in terms of the structure of the novel itself. Each of the three volumes provides Evelina opportunities to practice and perfect her writing and speech, and each repetition of events shows her improving her responses. This type of structure is itself an argument; Burke calls it a “repetitive form”: “Repetitive form is the consistent maintaining of a principle under new guises. It is restatement of the same thing in different ways” (125). Evelina restates common social interactions—dances, theater, walking in gardens, courtship—in each of its three volumes, with slight shifts in characters and context.
While Evelina’s rhetorical moves in her letters show us an increasing sophistication of discourse analysis and response, the speech she represents in those letters is perhaps more important in that this representation is more obvious in its prescription. The three-volume structure of Evelina provides, as stated above, a qualitative progression for readers to measure and analyze Evelina’s education (and thus her speech). Readers know that the early arguments Evelina makes are less appropriate or mature than those appearing later. The “young” Evelina is not to be emulated, but is to be used as a starting point for further development.
In the novel, “argument” is difficult to separate from daily speech; we could argue that all speech is an argument of sorts, even if it is just an argument for the character of the speaker. In Evelina, much of the speech represented directly is connected to conflict, as these comprise the interesting parts of Evelina’s life. “Arguments” are all around Evelina, whether in the form of serious conflict, or mere negotiation of opinions of where to spend the evening. The early arguments Evelina finds herself in are largely out of her control; she does not yet have the skills to navigate the discourse community of “the world” outside Mr. Villars’ home. For most of her arguments, then, Evelina is silenced; at her first dance, she finds herself unable to even speak to Lord Orville: “He begged to know if I was not well? You may easily imagine how much I was confused. I made no answer, but hung my head, like a fool, and looked on my fan” (32). Later, she is embarrassed by her silence: “It now struck me, that he was resolved to try whether or not I was capable of speaking on any subject. This put so great a constraint upon my thoughts, that I was unable to go further than a monosyllable, and no even so far, when I could possibly avoid it” (34). Her lack of knowledge about “the world” prevents her from making an appropriate response.
Current-traditional rhetoric and most sociolinguistic theories find silence to be the most submissive position to be in an argument. Vocalization, as Michaelson recounts, has traditionally been given precedence over even strategic silence, and “Moreover, this dominant metaphor has encouraged us to pity, ignore, or discount the many generations of women for whom silence represented a potentially useful strategy” (3). Silence is the position of the marginalized, and Evelina is continually silencing herself-- in the first half of the novel her silence is the submissive, powerless silence we usually associate with that metaphor, but in the second half we see a strategic silence emerge. The presence of silence is not surprising; in tracing the history of desire in the novel, Nancy Armstrong argues that “one cannot distinguish the production of the new female ideal either from the rise of the novel or fro the rise of the new middle classes in England” (8) and that ideal featured a woman who spoke to few, and certainly did not participate in public, policy forming arguments (Armstrong 18-20). In recent years, rhetoricians have focused less on conditions of silencing, however, and more on tactics for overcoming marginalization, even through silence. Still, it is important to remember that Evelina is not representing and prescribing the characteristics of all women’s speech. Evelina is herself a middle-class white woman whose story is an educational tool for other middle-class white women in England—what Kenneth Burke calls a “symbol” (Counter-Statement 152) which gives a “pattern of existence” (157), a template of behavior for readers to follow.
One such “representative anecdote” for speech and silence can be found in Evelina’s first conflict with Sir Clement Willoughby. Sir Clement is unrelenting in his pursuit of Evelina, who lies to him by saying she already has a dance partner. Evelina attempts to escape Sir Clement’s, but he continues his advances:
“You do me justice,” (cried he, interrupting me) “yes, I do indeed improve upon acquaintance; you will hereafter be quite charmed with me.”
“Hereafter, Sir, I hope I shall never--“
“O hush!—hush!—have you forgot the situation in which I found you?” (47).
Sir Clement interrupts Evelina even as she attempts to politely refuse. To escape the “raillery,” Evelina pretends that Lord Orville is her partner. Upon reaching the safety of Mrs. Mirvan, Evelina quits speaking all together: “I had not strength to make my mortifying explanation;--my spirits quite failed me, and I burst into tears” (49).This silencing, Sara Mills points out, has been the topic of most sociolinguistic studies of gender, it has become a trope of the gendered speech discussion to the point where analysis has been stalled at the male-voiced/female-silenced binary. Like Michaelson, Mills finds fault with the earlier sociolinguistic analysis that posited a normatively polite (evasive) and inoffensive female speech, “characterized as deviant in relation to a male norm which, by implication, was characterized as being direct, confident and straight-talking” (Mills 5). For Mills, this characterization is not necessarily the best binary to follow, since “many of these features, particularly those associated with women's over-politeness and deference, are in fact characteristic of feminine rather than female speech, that is, a stereotype of what women's speech is supposed to be” (5 emphasis added). It is precisely this prescription of behavior that Evelina invokes; however, the majority of Evelina’s polite silences appear early in the narrative, when Evelina’s “discourse competence” (Mills 4) is still unformed.
Silence is, above all, a phenomenon of power structures. Julia Allen and Lester Faigley analyze the various ways that those in the margins try to overcome that silence or work within it. For them, the written discourse of novels, poems, and even music can teach methods of subversion (143). Working with Burke’s idea of “perspective by incongruity,” Allen and Faigley argue that replacing direct argument with the metaphorical or euphemistic to be one way the marginalized can speak: “To say the unsayable, writers have often substituted one safer representation for another more definitive one” (164). Narrative, Allen and Faigley suggest, is one way to say the unsayable, to provide a different kind of “rationality” (167). Evelina is not completely silenced; she replaces her silence with talking about her silence in letters—letters which are compiled by “the editor” (Burney) and transmitted to readers.
Despite this early, silenced speech, the majority of Evelina represents Evelina’s own arguments as the correct approach for a middle-class woman. The second volume contrasts the way Evelina handles confrontational speech with that of her less-savvy cousins and grandmother. Her conflicts with Clement and her cousins provide ample opportunity for her to create and give arguments. Without the protection of Mrs. Mirvan, Evelina must speak for herself, and when she does, she begins to discover which techniques are more effective.
Such rhetorical examination was running strong in the eighteenth century; while the “current-traditional” theorists (Hugh Blair, George Campbell, and Richard Whately) formulated rhetoric as a scientific set of rules to follow, still others focused their attentions on elocution. Women rhetors, however, had the most to gain or lose from the stabilization of rhetorical theory and practice, and several novelists, Jane Donawerth argues, used their novels and other fiction as a place to revise, parody, or reject outright the tradition that Howell describes. Donawerth points to Maria Edgeworth’s “Essay on the Noble Science of Self-Justification,” in which “Edgeworth mockingly parodies and transforms the techniques of traditional rhetoric and thus resists not only the repression of women’s voices and powers in marriage, but also the dangerous potential for manipulation in rhetoric” (245). Edgeworth, like many composition theorists today, knows that the restraints and formulas of current-traditional rhetoric are dangerous not because they are ineffective, but because they are too effective; they allow no room for other voices, they posit a singular, empowered ethos, and they categorize their audiences absolutely (leaving women always as passive, ready to be told the “truth” by male orators). Edgeworth challenges that rhetoric, however, through satire: “In her treatment of wives’ defenses of themselves from husbands’ blame, she parodies the categories of voice taught in elocution, for her shrew has mastered the ‘petulant, the peevish, and the sullen tones’” (Donawerth 245). Even theories of elocution, which was rarely concerned with the content or evidence of an utterance, gendered the speaker, prescribing a particular pitch and thus a particular version of the feminine. Women rhetoricians were in constant dialogue with the newly established theories and while neither Evelina nor Burney does not exactly theorize argumentation, the text does, by giving a representation of appropriate female speech and its consequences, promote a certain version of rhetorical practice. In the second and third volumes, as Evelina perfects her argumentation skills, we learn with her what good argumentation looks like.
In Volumes II and III we are shown various forms of argument and speech Politeness and “decorum” are shown as important to good speech when Evelina comments on the Branghtons’ language. Unlike Evelina, her cousins have no faculty of “sentiment,” the ability to engage in “moral reflection [and] a rational opinion” (Todd 7). Sentimental women (and, to a lesser extent, men) were to have compassion and pity for all, which was then reflected in their speech (19). Sensibility is the outward expression of being affected by pathos, and thus becomes a property of ethos: If one is not swayed to sympathy, one’s character comes into question (Michaelson 186). Evelina is convinced of her cousins’ faults because of the way they speak. Mrs. Duval has none of the decorum that Evelina comes to have by the end of the novel. Evelina comments on the coarseness of her introduction: “The manner in which Madame Duval was pleased to introduce me to this family, extremely shocked me. ‘Here, my dears,’ said she, ‘here’s a relation you little thought of; but you must know my poor daughter Caroline had a child after she run away from me[….]” (70). Madame Duval speaks frankly about Evelina’s private legitimacy problem within seconds of the introduction, causing Evelina to be “shocked.”
The Branghton sisters are no better: Evelina’s letter portrays their conversation as idle “ceremony” (71). Their brother even comments on their gossip and chatter. When asked what the women will find to say to one another, he replies indignantly: “‘Say!’ cried young Branghton, ‘O, never you think of that, they’ll find enough to say, I’ll be sworn. You know the women are never tired of talking’” (188). In addition to being empty talkers, the Branghton sisters are, in Evelina’s opinion “abrupt” and in “want of affection, and good-nature” (172). Additionally, Evelina finds that their conversation “manifested equally their folly and their want of decency” (172). The lack of sentiment and sensibility displayed by Evelina’s relatives gives Evelina the opportunity to comment on such indecency, and to point out to the readers the differences between her own mistakes, which are “never willfully blameful” and which she is always embarrassed by, and the sisters’ brash conversation which they do not notice is uncouth.
Sensibility is also important to understanding theories of rhetoric in the eighteenth and nineteenth century; what we now call identification and pathos became the central terms when describing how to “move” an audience. Evelina’s own sensibility endears her to Orville, even when he is suspicious of her meetings with Mr. Macartney: “‘My dearest Miss Anville,’ he said, taking my hand, ‘I see, and I adore the purity of your mind, superior as it is to all little arts, and all apprehensions of suspicion’” (364). Evelina’s purity from the “arts” of speech and rhetoric is a better argument than any she could—and tries to—give him to explain Mr. Macartney’s presence.
Evelina’s pathetic moments with Madam Duval show sensibility, but this is not used when arguing. Instead, sensibility and sentiment appear as part of non-argumentative speech. When Sir Clement and the Captain “rob” Madame Duval, Evelina pleads with Sir Clement to have pity: “—pray leave me, pray go to the relief of Madame Duval,--I cannot bear that she should be treated with such indignity” (147). Despite her pity and appeal, Evelina is still silenced quickly by Sir Clement’s relentless appeals of his own, and he interrupts her argument to stop his “schemes” to hurt Madame Duval, and instead Clement asks her to “be less averse to trusting” him (148). Evelina is not yet able to turn the conversation in her favor or to cause change.
Evelina’s character as expressed in her arguments begins to provide the basis of her speech. Because of the commonly held beliefs about the “nature” of women, a good woman speaker, to be heard at all, must adhere to the rules of sensibility. Her sensible character is as much a part of her argument as the syllogisms she can provide for evidence. Michaelson finds this to be especially true in Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, in which Elizabeth “privileges ethos as a means of persuasion, while Darcy insists on logos” (Michaelson 184). In her letter to Lord Orville explaining that she had nothing to do with the Branghton sisters untactfully asking for his carriage, Evelina begins by announcing her shame and “shock.” By arguing that “I cannot forbear writing a few lines, to clear myself from the imputation of an impertinence which I blush to be suspected of” (250), Evelina constructs for herself the appropriate ethos for the situation. Her shame points to her understanding of what is appropriate, and the blush she describes is a sign of her true modesty. Her language is formal, as she knows that it is improper for a woman to begin correspondence with a man so suddenly, and the letter is short. She signs the letter as “Your Lordship’s most humble servant” (250); not as a friend or acquaintance. Her signature places distance in their relationship, the very subject of contention that is the exigency for her letter. Even her signature must be constructed with attention to ethos.
Evelina’s chooses her words carefully in this section because of how much is at stake for her. Norman Page provides a framework for understanding the role of character in speech in the novel. Although Page, like many others, focuses on representations of dialect in the novel, he does make a claim for a connection between the representation of dialogue in general and the presentation of character. Because we cannot see the character as we would on stage, Page argues, we must gather character information from the way the character speaks. In some novels, a dialect tells us about the character’s class; for others, word choice and conversational techniques provide characterization (Page 110). A character’s character is in part determined by his or her rhetorical understanding.
In Volume III we are given yet another counter example to Evelina’s newly acquired rhetorical sense. Mrs. Selwyn is perhaps the best female rhetor in the novel, but the novel’s attitude toward her “artistic” talents implies that she is perhaps too good at arguing. Sir Clement, the subject of many of Mrs. Selwyn’s comments, argues that she “afforded some relief from […] formality, but the unbounded license of her tongue—“ but is cut off by Evelina’s defense of her temporary guardian (343). Mrs. Selwyn is never polite, but is witty in her short, sarcastic comments and rational in her longer arguments to Mr. Belmont. To convince Mr. Belmont that Evelina is his daughter, she first meets with him briefly alone. When her arguments are ineffective, Mrs. Selwyn, knowing her audience, brings Evelina with her. She reasons that if Mr. Belmont is firm in his conviction, then he at least should “have no objection to seeing this young lady?” (372). Unable to find a reason why he should fear a young woman, Mr. Belmont assents, and Mrs. Selwyn wins the argument.
While the silent, uneducated response is not advocated by the novel, neither is the “force” (369) of Mrs. Selwyn. Evelina’s own comments lead us to believe that we are not to follow in Mrs. Selwyn’s footsteps: although she defends against Sir Clement’s criticism, in her asides to her father, her opinion is quite clear: “And now, my dear Sir, I have a conversation to write, the most interesting to me, that I ever heard. The comments and questions with which Mrs. Selwyn interrupted her account, I shall not mention; for they are such as you may very easily suppose” (345). Evelina’s father knows Mrs. Selwyn well enough to imagine what the woman might have said, but more importantly, Evelina does not find the comments worthy of copying down. To Evelina, the humorous and critical remarks do not count as necessary to the story, nor do they make for even an interesting aside in a letter.
As a contrast to Mrs. Selwyn, we are shown Evelina’s most effective argument—one in which she does not have to say a word. It is argument by face and demeanor. When Evelina meets her birthfather for the first time, Mr. Belmont is not convinced by the logical arguments and wits of Mrs. Selwyn. Evelina in arguing for her legitimacy is most effective when silent; Mr. Belmont exclaims “Yes, yes” and acknowledges Evelina is the true daughter of Caroline Evelyn. Throughout his shocked speech, Evelina remains “Speechless, motionless,” and yet has managed to “set [his] brain on fire” (372). Her best argument is simply her presence.
Evelina’s ethos comes from her heritage. There is nothing she can do to either improve or ruin it; her face, not her reasoning enables her to live a middle-class fairytale. Still, argumentation in this novel is not left entirely to the parentage of the rhetor. There are definite “bad” rhetorics, in the form of the Branghtons and the bad ethos of Mrs. Selwyn. From this, we can extrapolate what the novel recommends. At the very least, speakers should not be silenced when silence is an ineffective response to inappropriate proposals (like that of Sir Clement). Speakers should also speak politely, but provide enough information so that mistakes are not later made. Finally, speakers should provide an ethos appropriate to the situation; Evelina’s character as her mother’s daughter is the only appeal that will sway Mr. Belmont, and Mrs. Selwyn’s character as harsh and railing prevents her from being seen as the witty, intelligent speaker she is. Evelina does not provide a complete picture of a good female rhetor, but it does provide anecdotal tips to those about to be introduced into “pubic company.”
Works Cited
Allen, Julia and Lester Faigley. "Discursive Strategies for Social Change: An Alternative Rhetoric of Argument." Rhetoric Review. 14 (1995):142-172.
Armstrong, Nancy. Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987.
Burke, Kenneth. Counter-Statement. 3nd Ed. Berkley: University of California Press, 1968.
Burke, Kenneth. The Philosophy of Literary Form. Berkley: University of California Press, 1974.
Burney, Francis. Evelina. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Howell, Wilbur Samuel. Eighteenth Century British Logic and Rhetoric. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1971.
Michaelson, Patricia Howell. Speaking Volumes: Women, Reading, and Speech in the Age of Austen. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.
Mills, Sara. “Discourse Competence: Or How to Theorize Strong Women Speakers.” Hypatia 7 (Spring 1992): 4-17.
Page, Norman. Speech in the English Novel. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1988.
Todd, Janet. Sensibility: An Introduction. London: Methuen, 1986.