Tobias Smollett’s Serafina vs. Frances Burney’s Evelina: Redefining Marriage and the Borders of Family

Abstract

This paper analyzes Tobias Smollett’s The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom (1753) and Frances Burney’s Evelina, or the History of A Young Lady’s Entrance into the World (1778) in an attempt to examine the two heroines’ relationships with their parents and to look at how ‘marriage’ enhances Serafina Diego’s and restricts Evelina Belmont’s future ‘family structure’ for different reasons. The paper examines why marriage in Serafina’s case provides a bond that remedies past grievances between father and daughter, whereas in Evelina’s situation, although she marries the man of her choice, within three days of having reclaimed her own Belmont family name, she is forced by her father to relinquish it and take her husband’s name in marriage. By analyzing Evelina’s father’s decision to break away from his daughter, this study reveals how Evelina’s marriage not only forces her father to acknowledge his past sins but also draws attention to his refusal to expose himself publicly as Evelina’s father in society. Hence, through a comparative analysis of the heroines’ marriages, this paper focuses on how Serafina and Evelina redefine their familial structures to serve as the foundation for their different future paths. The examination of the two heroines and their marriages offers a deeper understanding of the social syste