"Reverse, else, the medal": Femininity as Masquerade in Frances Burney's The Wanderer

Abstract:This article examines the trope of the masquerade in The Wanderer, arguing that Frances Burney uses the novel as a narrative form to voice her feminist perspective on the essence of female character, critiquing patriarchal ideologies under the mask of proper femininity. The novel not only configures femininity as masquerade but also masquerades itself as a conventional text that endorses the ideal of the proper lady; however, its anti-essentialist and ambiguous construction of femininity antedates the modern feminist theories of femininity as masquerade; moreover, it endows the heroine with agency through textual ambiguities, subverting the feminine ideal it seemingly upholds. Exploring the ways in which the novel's ambiguous configuration of femininity undermines patriarchal discourses and enables female agency, this essay facilitates new ways of understanding the novel's performative capacity as well as Burney's narrative artifice and her feminism.