SOURCE: “Evelina: A Chronicle of Assault,” in Fanny Burney's “Evelina,” edited by Harold Bloom, Chelsea House Publishers, 1988, pp. 59-83.

In the following essay, originally published in 1981, Newton demonstrates the way in which Evelina's world is ruled by the imposition of men on women, arguing that male assault and control is the central expression of power in Evelina. Furthermore, Newton maintains that the novel endorses a gentlemen-run patriarchy, while at the same time fantasizing about female power.

To read this history of a young lady's entrance into the world is to read a chronicle of assault: for having made her debut in “public company,” amid a round of London's most “fashionable Spring Diversions,” Burney's genteel young heroine finds that she can go but few places indeed without being forced, intruded upon, seized, kidnapped, or in some other way violated by a male. At her first assembly she is provoked...