I enjoyed "Evelina" in a few different respects. Like "Pamela," Burney's novel is based on a letter format, however, unlike "Pamela" the novel is not didactic and uses its format to pace itself and move the plot forward in an entertaining and engrossing way. Evelina is also a likeable character and does not share any of Pamela's often redundant and grating characteristics. Overall, the book was one of the most entertaining we have read so far.
I do have some gripes with the novel however. Like "Tom Jones" I found the ending to be a little too convenient. I understand the constraints of the time period that the book was written in and that having Evelina end up with Lord Orville was probably the most logical ending that could take Evelina out of harms way, but it didn't satisfy me. I should say, it didn't satisfy the intellectual side of me (since my emotional side did find it gratifying to see Evelina end up with Orville). I guess what ticks up off the most about the ending is the continual way in which the heroines are represented throughout the novels we have read so far this semester. No matter what they are always defined by the man they end up with (who is usually wealthy). As a female author, I guess I expected a little more from Burney. To be honest, for much of the novel I hoped her love interest would end up being Mr. Macartney (before you find out they are related). An ending of that nature would have had many more interesting possibilities than the textbook Evelina + Orville=Happiness.
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I hate to say it, but it is very hard to separate the novel genre from the marriage plot. Both you and Rebecca in an another post express frustration about Evelina's marriage to Orville; he's not my favorite suitor, although in general I am a sucker for courtship stories. But I also think it is helpful to think of the marriage/courtship story in somewhat broader or perhaps more abstract terms. For example, the Northrop Frye reading (Anatomy of Criticism) treats it as synonymous with comedy itself, which he associates with Spring and hence a range of ideas concerning renewal, creativity, fertility etc. If that symbolic reading feels to outree, it is also possible to think of it in terms of plot: what kinds of resolution do novel plots rely on and why? Why do novelists come back to that particular ending? What needs/desires in the reader does it satisfy--personal, sexual, social, familial?
In case you need a book for the upcoming break: For the real challenge to the marriage plot, you need to go to Middlemarch.
While I am definitely share the frustration you feel over the need to marry Evelina off, it is interesting to note that Burney herself did not marry until she was forty-one, so she obviously did not hold it to be a key to happiness. I rather looked at it as she chose to supply her heroine with the resolve to not marry the first suitor presented her, and, in an odd, way she holds out for love finally marrying a man who admires her despite all of her social awkwardness and lack of status. While Burney does provide what I found to be a more intimate look at the internal struggles of a young girl, she is still confined to the conventions of her time. I really loved this book and appreciated the way Evelina was represented as real and imperfect, in contrast to the other heroines we have encountered so far.
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