“If a man dared act for himself”: Family Romance and Independence in Frances Burney’s Cecilia

Concerns about agency and independence are expressed throughout Frances Burney’s Cecilia (1782). Though Cecilia’s struggle for autonomy is an obvious concern, Burney examines this problem by investigating the independence of men. When read in conjunction with contemporary debates about the war in America, the imperial project, and the state of the nation and its (male) citizens—a context invited by the terms of Belfield and Monckton’s debate—this discussion clearly sets the political stakes for the public and private actions of men in the novel. While “things as they are” ultimately triumph at the novel’s end for both men and women, the costs of this victory are carefully calculated, and the subdued ending suggests Burney’s dissatisfaction with the status quo.