No Way Out: Gendered Vulnerability and Social Entrapment in Frances Burney’s Evelina (1778) and Daniel Defoe’s Roxana (1724)

Abstract

The eighteenth-century novel emerged as a powerful literary form amid profound social and economic transformation. As London expanded into a centre of commerce and spectacle, novels reflected and shaped mounting anxieties about urban life. In particular, they explored how women navigated these shifting landscapes, revealing that cities—often portrayed as sites of opportunity—were instead structured to entrap and expose them to danger. Urban life demanded social performance, requiring women to carefully curate their identities under constant surveillance, a dynamic that reinforced class hierarchies and patriarchal authority. With the rise of “possessive individualism” (Macpherson 1964), a defining ideology of the period, personal autonomy and social legitimacy became increasingly tied to self-ownership and economic agency. Yet for women, whose identities were dictated by patriarchal surveillance and marital dependency, true autonomy remained an illusion. Within this context, Frances Burney’s Evelina (1778) and Daniel Defoe’s Roxana (1724) frame the city as a space of gendered vulnerability, where class anxiety and social mobility depend on performance and gothic entrapment. While Evelina initially suggests that patriarchal structures protect women from urban chaos, both Burney and Defoe ultimately reveal how these structures enable rather than prevent harassment, social danger, and gothic terror. Through staged performances and coerced social interactions, both novels expose the city not as a space of female empowerment but one where women are persistently policed, manipulated, and controlled.