Artist’s statement

In establishing an overview of Evelina’s social media accounts I first thought of what kind of posts she would have up already. In this slightly altered reality where Evelina takes place in the 21st century I figured she already had and used social media. Immediately I came to the conclusion that she prefers to post to her instagram story as opposed to her main feed so I gave her less actual posts. Early in the novel it is revealed that it has been a few years since Evelina has left Berry Hill. So the posts on her account reflect this. The pictures mainly consist of Berry Hill, her journal, and one picture of Mr. Villars. Also on her account I decided to use her bio to highlight things she might find important. Seeing how Mr. Villars is a reverend, I felt it was prudent that Evelina be someone who highlights a passage from the bible in her bio. This particular passage is Galatians 5:22, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness”. I thought this verse was fitting for Evelina’s overall personality as she comes across as a character who would rather remain positive and highlight the good. I also considered how many followers she had and how many accounts she would follow. I figured that a 5:1 ratio would capture how at the start of the novel she was new to the world and seen as completely unattached because no one knew her family.

For my first post from Evelina’s social media accounts Evelina reposts an old photo of Berry Hill to her story. Even though she mentions Mr. Villars by name, she does not tag him. The text in this post says, “Chat should Mr. Villars let me off this farm?” I saw this text being cheeky and made in a half-joking way. Evelina didn’t personally launch any complaints about her being at Berry Hill in isolation, but her joy once she left and experienced London caused me to believe that she did feel some of the effects of her isolation. The next moment from Evelina’s social media is a DM from Maria Mirivan. Her friend and age mate in the novel, I tried to capture what their relationship would look like if they could also communicate through direct messages. Maria is the one who breaks the news to Evelina that she is going to travel with them to London and I made a response for Evelina that was enthusiastic. Throughout the text Evelina can have a flair for the dramatics and in this DM I sought to capture some of that energy. On page 80 Evelina interacts with Lord Orville at the Mirivan’s the morning after the Ridotto and after an awkward moment where she may have given Lord Orville the wrong impression she writes, “for I am inexpressibly concerned at the thought of his harbouring an opinion that I am bold or impertent, and I could almost kill myself for having given him the shadow of a reason for so shocking an idea” (Burney). This moment struck me as being incredibly modern when I first read it. Evelina flippantly and dramatically declaring she would kill herself felt like something a modern teen girl would do. I used this moment to guide her voice through many of her social media posts. In this DM to Maria I have her declare that “she could cry right now” while not as drastic as suicide I do think that reads as an overreaction considering she is just going on vacation. 

The next post is a larger instagram post to her main feed that includes most of her trip to London. In the caption for the most I tried to highlight the three biggest takeaways from Evelina’s London trip. When writing to Mr. Villars after first arriving in London Evelina says, “the houses and streets are not quite so superb as I expected” (Burney 28). Prior to this trip, Mr.Villars was not thrilled at the prospect of her going to London in the first place and Evelina highly regards the opinions of the Reverend. Using all of this to inform my choices I had Evelina’s caption highlight her disappointment in London’s beauty and gave Mr.Villars an opportunity to reply in the comments. I had Villars show his disapproval of London in the comments when he claims that the stuffed animals are the best looking part of London. Moreover, with this post being a “dump” where multiple photos spanning several days if not weeks are included I added many photos of the various places Evelina mentions going in the first volume of the novel. Through this part of the text, Evelina faces many social snafus, but her eagerness to continue experiencing more is ever present. I emphasized this enthusiasm in the next part of her caption and for the final part I chose to highlight what she might also pick as the standout moment. “We just returned from the play, which was King Lear, and has made me very sad” (Burney 42). She writes about the play in brevity but still she mentions it by name and expresses that it moved her. In this set of pictures I did not include her embarrassing moments because I don’t think she would include those moments on her instagram feed. That being said, those moments still happened and I chose to represent them in Sir Clement’s DM to Evelina. Sir Clement is the first character whose profile I created that does not use his own likeness for his instagram profile picture. I figured the picture of Elmo doing drugs captured the unpredictable nature of the character yet still struck a balance between his foppish nature and his presenting as a more traditionally masculine figure. In this unanswered DM to Evelina I tried to capture Sir Clement’s persistence and the way that he would lay it on thick to try and charm Evelina. I ended this message with a winky face to emphasize how beneath the surface interaction, he has ulterior motives that are less than honorable.  

Following this I included a tweet from Evelina’s twitter account where she expresses some distress at Madame Duval’s scheme. On page 135 Evelina writes to Mr. Villars, “that her intention was to prove my birthright, and to claim, by law, the inheritance of my real family! It would be impossible for me to express my extreme consternation, when she thus unfolded her scheme. My surprise and terror were equally great” (Burney). This moment of conflicting feelings felt like one that was too messy for the more restrained social media site of instagram but could be captured in the chaos of twitter. Her profile here is more laid back, with a profile picture that is not of her likeness and a username that isn’t reflective of her real name. The picture to capture this moment is a meme that I felt captured the clashing emotions and overall discomfort Evelina was speaking to in her letter to Mr. Villars.

The next post is more focused and less of a dump, this time focused on her time at High Holborn with the Branghtons. The caption for this post is a play on the Riverdale quote, “That means you haven't known the triumphs and defeats, the epic highs and lows of high school football”, I brought in this quote because social media has an air of lightness to it that I think can replicate the overall humor of this novel. Seeing as how Francis Burney was a satirical novelist who presented a humorous slice of life style in Evelina I laced many of Evelina’s posts with this kind of humor. This Riverdale quote is heavily referenced across social media and I think that it captures Evelina’s overall sentiments of her time with the Branghtons. She does not particularly like them and many of their interactions are laden with class disparities. The Branghtons see themselves as being more cultured and being of a higher class than Evelina because she was raised in the country, but Evelina sees the Branghtons as embarrassing because they are not as cultured or as class savvy as they think. “though I was the only person of the party who had ever before been at an opera; because they were unwilling to suppose that their country cousin, as they were pleased to call me, should be better acquainted with any London  public place than themselves” (Burney 99). In particular, Ms. Branghton and Evelina have a contentious relationship. I highlighted both the embarrassment and class disparity that is ripe in this dynamic through a comment from Ms. Branghton. Also, I continued to have Sir Clement reveal his pushy and off putting nature through a comment on this post and his implied presence in the next post. Evelina posts to her close friends story a picture of her in the car with Clement and his hand on her thigh. I figured at this point in the story, when she is not in the presence of Maria but still needs to express herself, would be the time that Evelina starts opening up more on her socials. She shares this photo to express her displeasure and captions it to do the same. I also considered who would be omitted from her close friends. Mr. Villars and the Branghtons immediately came to mind as she might not want to express the full truth to her family. I also figured that Sir Clement would not be added to her close friends because she does not like him.

The next set of posts come from her twitter account and they capture her first meeting with Mr. Macartney. Here I wanted to underscore the absurdity of the moment and capture the genuine doe-eyed concern she showed for him. In the text when she sees his gun her immediate thought is, “I was inexpressibly shocked. All that I had heard of his misery occurring to my memory, made me conclude, that he was at that very moment, meditating suicide!” (Burney 202). I think that tweeting such a heroic claim that still holds all of her confusion depicts what a modern Evelina might be thinking and feeling when thrust in the same scenario. The follow up post to this hints at the truth of the moment and clarifies the situation some. I increased the interactions on this tweet because I think that the absurd nature of the two tweets would gain traction with other users. 

The next post is to Evelina’s story where she posts a video of the fireworks that frightened her. She uses this moment to also speak to the rest of her night and her mortification on that front. Unlike her prior embarrassing moments this moment does get shared to all her followers because I think that she would truly want to rectify the situation. Unlike prior snafus, she is hyper-aware of what’s going on and more importantly what’s wrong. When she is squished between the two night walkers and in the presence of Lord Orville we can feel that she desperately wants the ground to open up and swallow her whole. Evelina writes to Mr. Villars, “Indeed, my dear Sir, I thought I should have fainted, so great was my emotion from shame, vexation, and a thousand other feelings, for which I have no expressions. I absolutely tore myself from the woman’s arm” (Burney 263). I tried to replicate these emotions in a much more succinct manner that spoke to her trying to clarify the events, almost out of desperation. 

Following this I recreated DMs from the fake Lord Orville account to Evelina. Much of Evelina’s offense to “Lord Orville’s” letter was at the improper implications and how it breaks from many 18th century rules of etiquette. The letter she receives challenges her virtue and brings his own honor into question. She expresses as much to Maria, “Oh Miss Mirivan, could you ever have believed that Lord Orville would have treated me with indignity?” (Burney 286). Inorder to capture the grimy nature of the letter and understand why Evelina would be disgusted to the degree that she was I translated the letter into a set of DMs that had a sexually charged undertone despite Evelina not participating or encouraging this behavior. I wanted the sex pest style of messages from this fake Orville account to feel like a bolder extension of Sir Clement’s foppish messages from earlier. Moreover, the next post to Evelina’s instagram story orients her location and sets her back at her home in Berry Hill. Following this, I included a longer DM conversation between Evelina and Maria where she catches her friend up on her current whereabouts and state of mind. 

The next series of posts are all to Evelina’s story. Posted to her close friends, these moments feel a bit more private and as Evelina is entering society and being recognized more her social media may become less like a diary on all fronts. The first of these three moments comes from when she has tea with Lord Orville after trying her best to ignore him and standing firm on her newfound hatred of him spurred on by the letter. In this moment, I wanted to capture how she was ‘weakening’ in her stance. Also, Mr. Villars is still firmly against Lord Orville. After Evelina writes to him how pleasant her time with Lord Orville is and how he keeps her company Mr. Villars warns, “But now, since you have again met, and are become more intimate than ever, all my hope from silence and seeming ignorance is at an end. Awake, then, my dear, my deluded child…You must quit him!” (Burney 343). I think that Evelina confessing she may still harbor feelings for him on her close friends, where Mr. Villars is left out, plays into this internal conflict she is facing because she knows how he feels and in most cases she follows his advice but here she feels a tug towards Lord Orville that she cannot ignore. The next post, also to her close friends, is about her morning chats with Mr. Macartney. While the first time was not planned they do plan to meet up again in secret. I think that this moment recreated in a private story speaks to their mutual understanding of each other and their bond. This private post could easily cause some miscommunication between her and Orville because others may perceive her relationship to Mr. Macartney to be romantic and relay that to him. Which is why I made the caption to this photo vague regarding the nature of their relationship. The last of these posts is a picture of the letter Evelina’s mother wrote to her father on her deathbed. The caption for this photo was meant to evoke the nervousness Evelina is feeling as she comes closer to meeting her father. 

Following this comes a set of direct messages from Mrs. Selwyn who relays the argument between Sir Clement and Lord Orville. She highlights the back and forth of their conversation and ends it with Lord Orville’s feelings towards her. On page 385 Lord Orville says, “She does not, beautiful as she is, seize the soul by surprise, but, with more dangerous fascination, she steals it almost imperceptibly” (Burney 385). In the DMs to Evelina I tried to capture how this would be relayed in a much more condensed format and second-hand. This moment is very important for Evelina because it allows her to fully grasp how Lord Orville feels about her. The post that follows this set of messages is their engagement photo. I tried to closely capture the sentiments of both Evelina and Orville. The caption is paraphrased from page 392, “To be loved by Lord Orville, —to be the honored choice of his noble heart, —and my happiness seemed too infinite to be borne…”(Burney). She expresses tremendous amounts of joy and speaks to how overwhelmed by happiness she is in this moment and I felt it was apt to relay that in this instagram post. This felt like the perfect moment to have Lord Orville interact with Evelina’s instagram account. He makes a comment that comes from page 390, “you are the friend to whom my soul is attached as to its better half!” (Burney). This moment is the first actual time that Lord Orville uses social media to interact with Evelina and I thought that having it be such an emotionally ripe moment was fitting. I also did not want Orville to be a character that frequented social media, I felt that this distinction was a good way to set him apart from Sir Clement who is quite active by comparison. Following this post I included three more tweets from Evelina about her meeting her father. Tweeting this emotional rollercoaster felt much more fitting than her using her instagram account because it offered a bit of anonymity and allowed freedom to embrace the chaos. By her last tweet, she has changed her username to reflect her birthright status as Evelina Belmont. I found this fitting because in the text she only gets to sign off on one letter that way before she marries Lord Orville and her name is changed once more. The next post to her story is a picture from Sir John Belmont. The caption is simply a heart because the nature of the double wedding was to be kept under wraps but I felt that Evelina would still want to express her affections for her father in a similar manner to her posting a picture of Mr. Villars. Finally, to round out this section of the novel, I created a follow up DM from Sir Clement to Evelina where he confesses to creating the fake Orville profile and sending her those DMs. 

By the end, Evelina’s profile has undergone a few changes. She has gained a significant number of followers to reflect her status change in society. She has changed her username to reflect her married status and has gained a verification logo. The bible verse on her profile has also changed to Ruth 3:11, “And now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you all that you ask, for all my fellow townsmen know that you are a worthy woman”. This quote felt appropriate because of how it applies to Evelina’s relationship to both Mr. Villars and Sir John Belmont. In addition to that, I think this quote recognizes the subtitle of Evelina ‘a Young Lady's Entrance into the World’ and how over the course of this novel Evelina grows from someone who is naive to a young woman who knows how to navigate the world of 18th century Britain. She also includes Lord Orville on her account representing how she cherishes their relationship. I also included Lord Orville’s page to show how it contrasts with Evelina’s and provides some explanation for his disengagement from social media. His profile is much more mysterious by comparison, which I think coincides with many moments in the book where he is hard to read. His account is verified and he has thousands of followers to reflect where he stands on the socioeconomic hierarchy. His only post is the same as Evelina’s, their engagement photo, and the only thing in his bio is a relationship status indicator that tags Evelina’s page. Overall, I sought to capture major plot points in the novel and how those would play out if the characters had access to social media but still had to conform to 18th century British societal standards.