Models of the Gaze and the Development of Subjectivity in Frances Burney's Evelina

The “self” is one of the most discussed topics within the Humanities. Try as we may to abstract the concept of identity into theoretical terms, I contend that the self cannot exist without some interaction with the physical world and with other “selves.” This interaction requires that we subject ourselves to becoming part of the sensory experience of others, and we often incorporate our own observations of how they experience us into our sense of self. In her essay “Site/Sight and Sensibility: The Socializing Function of the Gaze in Sarah Fielding’s The History of Ophelia,” Susan McNeill-Bindon observes, Ophelia’s pain at being observed as ‘different’ reinforces the importance of the body as a publicly visible site of social identification. Since, according to Barbara Duden, ‘the body is a mirror of reality as well as the source of the mirror,’ a body not reflecting the social ‘reality’ is denied a subject position by those failing to see themselves reflected in the object of their gaze.