I would like to start off by
drawing similarities between the title to Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. We discussed how 18th
century novels are meant to be instructive.
Pamela is very clear about this in its title. The title reads Pamela: or Virtue Rewarded. Thus,
readers are told that in this novel, virtuous people are rewarded. This novel
teaches you that to be rewarded, you must be good and virtuous. Moreover, as
the title reads, Pamela was written,
“In order to cultivate the Principles of Virtue and Religion in the Minds of
the Youth of Both Sexes.” This is basically a conduct book! It is meant to teach
morals and religion to youths. Similar
to the preface in Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe,
the title to Richardson’s Pamela also
indicates that it will instruct readers on how to behave morally.
In the 18th century,
women had little authority, and the novel was even seen as a threat to young
women. At the center of Samuel Richardson’s Pamela,
however, is a working class female; this had to have been rebellious at the
time! I believe Pamela is more so
targeted towards women and how they should behave. A concern at the time might
have been about women leaving their families to make a living serving the upper
class. For lower class women, virtue was their way to a higher station. Thus,
virtue in Pamela is rewarded, and we
know that Pamela in the end is rewarded with money. I wonder if this may have
been cringe worthy to some at the time. The idea of being virtuous for economic
reasons may have been seen as immoral. However, I would think this is an
aristocratic point of view, considering they were born privileged. Pamela
remains virtuous, denying Mr. B’s attempts at her, and she is thus rewarded for
her morality. Basically, a woman’s virtue is attached to her hymen. But in
avoiding becoming a sexual object, does Pamela become a sexual object because
she knows her virtue is worth something? Her virtue is so strong that she even
transforms aristocratic masculinity. The rake (Mr. B) is reformed and actually
gets married! Thus, the middle class has the power to change the corrupt upper
class. This is a change from 17th century ideology.
The epistles in Pamela allow for autonomy of self. For a
servant girl before marriage, Pamela actually speaks for herself. She asks herself “how cam I to be his
Property? What Right has he in me, but such a Thief may plead to stolen
Goods?...This is downright Rebellion, I protest!” (126). Pamela realizes her body is not someone else’s
property, and that she can control her identity through her writing. She is
rebelling against standards placed against her sex. Pamela writes herself,
she’s in control of how she is represented and is thus asserting her right to
define herself. Mr. B, however, wants to control Pamela and censor her writing.
He tries to intercept her letters and chases her letters as though they were
her body! I wonder though if Pamela is less worried about her body/sexuality,
and more worried about Mr. B seeing her letters because they are representative
of her mind and thus, her identity. She claims,
“The very things that I most dreaded his seeing or knowing, the Contents of my
Papers…” (309). It sometimes seems that
Mr. B is more interested in controlling Pamela’s mind than her body. Is this representative
of a shifting patriarchal society that is now more interested in policing a
woman’s mind? Is Pamela’s virtue attached to her letters?
I was really interested in your point that Pamela was in fact a sex object. Her virtue was a commodity and essentially was traded for a higher status (and apparently a ton of dresses). And though a sex object she still has power over Mr. B ( she gets him to marry her, transcends stations, and claims that she is not property). The more that Pamela protested and fought to save her virtue the more she became a sex object. Is it because she draws so much attention to it?
ReplyDeleteI also liked that you saw the letters as almost an extension of Pamela’s body and how she too treats them like her virtue. She is deeply concerned about Mr. B getting in any way intimate with her body or mind.