martyrdom for the pleasure

Fanny Burney’s Evelina wishes that the people she doesn’t like would leave her alone and that is the dominant tone in the novel, more than anything else, the subject of its most constant inventions. The introductory essay that comes with my edition (Edward A. Bloom, 1968) talks about an educational development that she undergoes, Bloom writing, “Like any education, hers is cumulative, with virtue and self-awareness directed to social fulfilment,” but I reckon I am not convinced, the word education is wrong in this context, she is not Austen’s Emma of 1815, or even Betsy Thoughtless of 1751, she has not been confronted with a body of wisdom that transfers her by increments from a child into an adult, the city-knowledge that she obtains is patchy and functional – don’t go down that dark walkway in Marybone Gardens – but the longing to go there did not need to be conquered and chastised – she never had a desire to go – Betsy Thoughtless had to learn not to but Evelina Annville would always rather not – I would rather not is her self-awareness and it is in place from the beginning to the end – not taught, no, fundamental, consistently reiterated (eg, at her first London ball, Vol. 1, letter XI; in her reluctance to accompany Madame Duval, Vol. 1, letter XXI; in the fact that she "wished extremely to shew" Mr Macartney that she was not part of the group, Vol. II, letter XIV; in her avoidance of Tom, Vol. II, letter XXIV; she is impressed when Lord Orville refuses to participate, Vol. III, letter III; her discussion of the Orville note, Vol. III, letter XVI, etc), and the people around her ignore it. “Can you then,” they say, “refuse me the smallest gratification, though, but yesterday, I almost suffered martyrdom for the pleasure of seeing you?” and so, sabotaged, she puts up with their wheedling, periodically trying to make them stop – "I entreat you never again to to address me in a language so flighty, and so unwelcome," she says, and rises to go, but Clement Willoughby "flung himself at my feet to prevent me" – scenes like that are repeated: the wheedling person is Sir Clement, or it is Polly, or Mr Smith or Mr Braughton "demand[ing]" "Why so?" when she ("looking alarmed") tells him that a thing "is utterly impossible," and then Madame Duval chimes in at her, "Ma foi child, you don't know no more about the world than if you was a baby" – so the group does that vulgar thing anyway, and she has to be involved, "I would rather have submitted to the severest punishment  – but all resistance was in vain" – it is not Evelina that the author wishes she could train to virtue, it is everybody else – cos they are hopeless – “I find all endeavours vain to escape any thing which these people desire I should not ...”