Fanny Burney explained the “original” innocent character of Evelina, protagonist of her famous

novel of 1778, to her sister Susan by saying that “she had been brought up in the strictest
retirement, that she knew nothing of the world, and only acted from the impulses of Nature.”
Quoting from her own preface, she added that the heroine was the “offspring of Nature in her
simplest attire.” According to the precept of common sense, innocence is a state of unreflective
union with a world complete in every moment. Such a state of unselfconsciousness contrasts
with a succeeding stage of irretrievable loss in which the emergent self stands separate from the
world. The fact that innocence can only be seen from this perspective beyond innocence, that
innocence is a reductive concept within the broader, reflective context experience, is an
important clue to the conduct of Fanny Burney's first heroine. As if from the limited, cultural
stereotype of her female innocence, Evelina authors her journal-diary and retrieves in the act of
writing a richness of experience otherwise denied to her.
Before looking into the significance of Evelina's journal, it is important to consider how,
at first, she relinquishes experience for the sake of concealing herself in innocence. In her early
forays into the world, the assailed heroine's intentional focus upon an authentic artlessness
obscures the transparency of self that she wishes to project and contributes to her own
oppression. The novel opens with the cultural definition that circumscribes Evelina’s innocent
character:
“This artless young creature, with too much beauty to escape notice, has too much
sensibility to be indifferent to it; but she has too little wealth to be sought with propriety by men
of the fashionable world.” (p. 8)
The "peculiar cruelty of her situation" is that as the unacknowledged child of a wealthy Baronet
(Sir John Belmont), she is forbidden to claim his name even though she is entitled lawfully to
inherit his fortune. More than a social deficiency, the "nameless" functions symbolically for the
patriarchy that constitutes the "named." Namelessness as a metaphor for woman stands in the
way of Evelina's social acceptance and inhibits her ability to name herself other than within the
category of innocence, the "character" given to her by her culture. But artlessness and beauty
without wealth and name is not only Evelina's global condition; it is also the charm of her
appeal, the only marketable asset she has, and the greatest danger to maintaining her character.
Her position as a nameless, female minor-a form of social silence-generates the conflict of the
novel.
Preserving Evelina's singularly innocent name is a mandate shared by all those in the novel
concerned with the continuity of that culture. For example, the wish of Villars (her country-
parson foster father) to have Evelina returned from her social experiences unchanged, still "all
innocence" (p. 10), entails sacrificing the seasoning of practical knowledge on the patriarchal
altar of pristine ignorance. Launched into the world, Evelina should somehow expand her
experience, but without the loss of her intrinsic, encapsulated innocence. "The world," says
Villars to Evelina, "is the general harbour of fraud and of folly, of duplicity and of impertinence"
where the artlessness of your nature, and the simplicity of your education, alike unfit you" for its
"thorny paths" (pp. 104-05). A proper feminine "education" assures one of a perspective "unfit"
for the intrigues of society. But we will see by Evelina's own account of her first social forays
that she is not as devoid of practical wisdom or as unfit for society as she and everyone else
assumes. Evelina is not a tabula rasa of innocence upon which experience is engraved, for she
has the reflexive ability to read more than one possible meaning in otherwise socially correct
behavior. She quickly shows us that she recognizes hypocrisy, bad taste, male impertinence, and
female constraints. Nonetheless, time and again she retreats into self-conscious confusion,
silence, and the posture of innocence, as when she meets Orville:
“How will he be provoked, thought I, when he finds what a simple rustic
he has honoured with his choice! one whose ignorance of the world makes her perpetually fear
doing something wrong!” (p. 19)
Evelina's own essentialist awareness of herself as an innocent has prevented her from fully
recognizing the self-objectification enforced by that definition. In the forgery, Willoughby
speaks for Orville in his name, to discredit his authority and to conceal Evelina's "capacity": "I
concealed your letter to prevent a discovery of your capacity; and I wrote you an answer, which I
hoped would prevent your wishing for any other" (p. 370). It bears a "clandestine air" because it
tries to divert her response, to prevent her from writing (p. 245). Thus, the forged letter requests
Evelina to conceal herself once again, to hide behind her innocence, and to open herself to
danger. In purloining her letter, she silences her, denies her voice and name. The persuasive
power of her narration compensates for the confusion and distress that a predetermined
innocence causes her.
We have seen that Evelina's efforts to represent herself as an entity are subverted by the act
of writing. In writing, the represented Evelina exposed as a reductive concept, a product of the
narrowly mediated, patriarchal code. When patriarchal discourse fails her, it speaks indirectly of
her inexhaustibility and opens the possibility of an ongoing disclosure of an incomplete and
incompletable identity. Writing, more than marks upon a page, calls forth the generative power
of name, all that woman is and can be and is not yet, all that has been overlooked and is yet to be
said about her.