Date of Award
1976
Document Type
Thesis
Publication Status
Version of Record
Submission Date
October 2026
Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]
Sloane, Mary
Abstract
In all four of her novels Fanny Burney provides her young heroines with both old-man and hero mentors as part of her didacticism. Because they concern themselves with moral and social rather than with intellectual matters, they fall in with Burney's disparagement of scholars and artists. In disqualifying women as mentors, Burney kills, defeminizes, or turns into monsters or cyphers her novels' mother figures. The hero mentors replace and fulfill the old-man mentors and, because of their function, develop little. The hero mentor appears first in Evelina and comes to his fullest use in Camilla. Cecelia lacks a hero mentor and reverses the patterns for the old-man mentor. Because of The Wanderer's sustained mystery, the hero protects rather than advises. Use of the hero mentor embodies myth, implies a belief in the moral inferiority of women, and, because of his lack of development and over-didacticism, ultimately mars the novels.
Extent
86 p.
Recommended Citation
GILBERT, KATHLEEN MCCORMACK, "HERO MENTOR IN THE NOVELS OF FANNY BURNEY" (1976). Electronic Theses and Dissertations 1970 - 1979. 462.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general_2/462
Identifier
FADT13804
Comments
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1976.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters