1. Inchbald continued The fracturing of form

2. To review previous claim Inchbald solves the most serious plot problem— the threat of incest and sacrilege—through a comic move: Dorriforth is released from his religious vows so that he can inherit the title and estate. Suddenly, marriage and the production of an heir are not only not disallowed but required. Inchbald accommodates desire while making it serve the community (i.e., through marriage, produce heirs. Miss Woodley: “’I no longer condemn, but congratulate you on your passion; and will assist you with all my advice and earnest wishes, that you may obtain a return’” (102, 142).

3. In other words... The way in which Miss Milner is most out of bounds is resolved through the conventions of comedy. In this trajectory, the union of Miss Milner and Dorriforth/Lord Elmwood seems to be the aim of the fiction. What do you think?

4. Most of Miss Milner’s other problems her apparent attraction to a young rake, her changeability— o arise from her effort to conceal her desire for Dorriforth/Lord Elmwood. o Desire is the problem. But solved by comic form, it is sufficiently constrained to be satisfied. REMAINING PROBLEM: To establish her power

5. In comic plots, Sandford... Sandford, who is cruel and verbally abusive to Miss Milner, ought to be punished by the same comic form that resolves the conflict of desire. o He is a vicious critic let loose in the parlor. The form should protect Miss Milner from him. One contemporary reader characterizes him as “severe in his morals, unaccommodating in his manners, a harsh satirist, proud, turbulent, and acrimonious.” (See appendix, 377) Satirist: Inchbald has incorporated a satirist in her comic romance. He points out with particular severity what Miss Milner’s failures are, and he is in continual tension with the otherwise comic patterning of the novel.

6. In comic plots, Sandford... (2) In the comic romance, Sandford would be merely an authoritarian blocking figure, repressing the energy, liveliness and generosity of Miss Milner, o Lord Elmwood to Miss Woodley; “’For God’s sake take care what you are doing—you are destroying my prospects of futurity—you are making this world too dear to me’” (130, 166) a romance commonplace and a sacrilege, a transferring of the power of adoration and devotion from religious to secular life. o Sandford must undergo a character change when Inchbald’s fictional purposes for him change.

7. The formal, and generic, problem arises because Inchbald’s comic vision is in tension with other movements in the novel and with problems that comic form cannot resolve. scene by scene, Miss Milner is far more frequently the one readers want to emerge rewarded, as is clear from the evidence of contemporary readers (see appendices).

8. Anna Laetitia Barbauld, The British Novelists “The character of the ward of Dorriforth is so drawn as to excite an interest such as we seldom feel for more faultless characters. Young, sprightly, full of sensibility, gay and thoughtless, we feel such a tenderness for her as we should for a child who is playing on the brink of a precipice” (370).

9. This treatment of comic form is a little peculiar ---given Inchbald’s successful career as a dramatist. She had already shown just how much she thought comic form could accommodate. In I’ll Tell You What, --------- o Inchbald levels distinctions within the community by the claim that “we are all related.” o Even marital ties disturbed by putative adultery and actual divorce are not enough to destroy the bonds of the related community. In A Simple Story, on the other hand, the disturbance of marital ties is a disturbance to fictional form.

10. Miss Milner’s gender-based pride “ Within a few days, in the house of Lord Elmwood every thing, and every person wore a new face ” (136, 171). o “Her heart whispered... ‘my power over him might have been greater still...’”(137, 172)) o An odd narrative voice: “Unthinking woman!... But what female is not fond of experiments?” (139). Miss Milner is now the proud, killing beauty.

11. The scene: “You are unjust, sir, in saying so before the trial” (142, 175) “domestic wrangles—a family without subordination—a house without economy—in a word, a wife without discretion, had been perpetually present to his mind” (142, 176) Narrator’s special pleading for Sandford (followed by Lord Elmwood’s appropriate judgment: “”’Cruel, barbarous man.’” (143, 177) The trial of Miss Milner: law vs forgiveness

12. Quick series of plot turns “Then he is not to be my husband after all” (163, 194) Lord Elmwood “was moved, but ashamed of being so”((164) I’ll make the trial... (166) “to make trial of a contrary method” (167) She is waiting for submission (173)

13. Rapidity of development: what does it make you expect? Lord Elmwood declares he will leave her forever And she complies with his request. (175-77) o “The severest judge could not have arraigned her conduct from the day she received Lord Elmwood’s letter to the day of his departure” (177) o She “beheld her doom” (179). o Sandford begins to play a different role (184). BUT THE WEDDING RING IS A MOURNING RING.

14. Survival vs learning a lesson “Young, full of sensibility, gay and thoughtless”: Miss Milner’s spirit, her desire not to be dominated, are necessary for her survival in this fiction but counter productive as an example for fiction readers. Miss Milner could be seen as a negative example (as Roxana often suggests she is), but the delineation of a negative example can run counter to the creation of a believable character.

15. Part II (vol III) Lady Elmwood’s story of adultery cannot be told, cannot be contained in a comic narrative. Miss Milner’s flaws are supposed to be corrected in the next generation: in the compliance of her daughter, Matilda. But no educational treatise would recommend the isolation from paternal care to which Matilda is subjected. And Matilda’s complete submissiveness may work for instructional purposes but doesn’t constitute a persuasive fiction.

16. Changing genre The second part of the novel is more like a Gothic fiction than a comic romance. o Lord Elmwood is a tyrannic father o Matilda a compliant daughter o Matilda’s response to her father is awe and terror.