Essay: The Epistolary Monologues of Emma Courtney
Mary Hays's novel Memoirs of Emma Courtney features correspondence between its protagonist, Emma, and other characters in the novel's fictional world. Tension ensues between the form of the novel and its content: even though the epistolary genre is inherently concerned with communication between several parties, Memoirs of Emma Courtney does not seem to provide insight into the minds of multiple characters. Hays's self-proclaimed intent in writing the narrative, as detailed in the preface to the book, is "attention to the phenomena of the human mind". However, instead of exploring several characters, the novel repeatedly focuses on a solitary individual – Emma Courtney. Attention to sentence structure, keywords, and thematic focus provides insight into the manner in which Hays harnesses the epistolary genre to explore the psychology of one single character. The novel does not adhere to the epistolary genre throughout. Aside from letters from Emma to various charac