Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Evelina: or, The History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Sensibility, Etiquette, and Appearances
Gender, Reputation, and Marriage
Inheritance, Class, and Nobility
Innocence, Guidance, and Experience
Summary
Analysis
Evelina again writes to Maria and tells her the real reason she is sad. Lord Orville has written Evelina an insulting letter, and she is deeply disappointed in him. His note expresses passionate attraction toward her, and Evelina feels extremely hurt, as the note she wrote to him—to which he replied—was very proper and polite. At first, Evelina feels happy that Lord Orville loves her, but when she reads the note again, she feels insulted. She feels that Lord Orville is trying to take advantage of her naïveté and that she misjudged him when she thought he was honest and kind.
Lord Orville’s note breaks 18th-century etiquette conventions and potentially puts Evelina’s reputation at risk. Evelina feels that Lord Orville has misinterpreted the note she sent to him, mistaking it as an invitation to flirt with her. She is disappointed because, Lord Orville didn’t give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she wrote to him because she is inexperienced with etiquette and does not know that sending a letter to a man is improper. Instead, Lord Orville seemingly assumed that she meant to flirt with him. Evelina finds this insulting, as it suggests that Lord Orville does not respect her, after all.
Themes
Lord Orville’s note makes Evelina feel bitter and depressed about the world, which she sees as a deceitful place. Her main concern, however, is how her mood will affect Mr. Villars. She wishes to be loving and cheerful with him and worries that, if he sees her looking dejected, he will think that she misses the city and does not like being in the country with him.
Although Evelina is back at her childhood home with Mr. Villars, she is not the same innocent and naïve person she was when she first left for the city. Instead, Evelina has gained wisdom and maturity through her experience and is disappointed because the world is not as pleasant or just as she had once believed. Meanwhile, Evelina displays natural sensibility (an 18th-century term which refers to empathy and consideration of others), as she kindly puts Mr. Villars’s feelings above her own.
Themes
Literary Devices
