Evelina

I enjoyed Evelina by Frances Burney. To me, Evelina symbolized the idea of a "modern" woman. Evelina's actions might come off slightly like those of a snob, but I didn't think so. For example, when she gets asked to dance, she replies; "I'm already dancing with someone else" because she didn't want to say no, to not be rude, and she couldn't say yes because it was frowned upon to dance with a gentleman you didn't know. Evelina isn't a snob, if she was, she would have replied, "No" in a snobbish manner. Instead she chose to take the middle ground and just reply that she already has someone to dance with. The character of Evelina could be described as inexperienced, beautiful girl, etc and while those are true, there are many additional descriptions as well.

The story of Evelina is a journey from girlhood to womanhood. She has many obstacles in her way; lack of a father, naiveness of the world, etc. Evelina goes above and beyond the obstacles and comes out on top; she marries Lord Orville. Evelina was a take charge character and we, as the readers, were able to clearly see that.