« Du corps vivant au texte inanimé » : la représentation de la mort dans Evelina de Frances Burney
Evelina sometimes reads as a comment on the contemporary debate on suicide, the “English malady.” What Frances Burney condemns above all is the tendency to beautify death, showing how the image of the beautiful dead woman that men enjoy so much reveals the stultifying effects of the passivity enforc...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Société d'Etudes Anglo-Américaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles
2013-12-01
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| Series: | XVII-XVIII |
| Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/1718/537 |
| Summary: | Evelina sometimes reads as a comment on the contemporary debate on suicide, the “English malady.” What Frances Burney condemns above all is the tendency to beautify death, showing how the image of the beautiful dead woman that men enjoy so much reveals the stultifying effects of the passivity enforced by images of femininity imposed on women. Marriage, perceived as women’s final end, is then logically equated with their death. Those looming images of death, which spell out the central role it plays in writing, also define authority and authorship as female ; the true “author” of Evelina’s / Evelina’s being is gendered female and death is what vests her with this authority. |
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| ISSN: | 0291-3798 2117-590X |