NOTE: If you're going to use any of this for a term paper or whatnot (I'm referring to you "Birth of the Novel" English Lit students who come by at the end of every quarter -- like early March), please be sure to credit me. The bibliography/source information is at the bottom of this entry, along with internal quote information. ALSO: COMMENTS would be nice. Thanks.
Today’s readership is as likely to be divided in its view of Pamela and its eponymous heroine as the literary audience was in the 1740s. The work can be viewed as revolutionary in that it heralds a new era of famial relations that has a direct impact on how society is to be organized and governed. Put simply, the story is about a young women’s coming-of-age as she traverses class structure through her own virtue, wit, and stoic grace. In laborious detail, Pamela describes her experiences, actions, and thoughts at the hands of her nefarious master through her letters to her parents. Of course, the reader is fully aware that these are solely her interpretations, and it is perhaps Richardson’s own narrative device to have her write so many detailed letters exemplifying her virtue, as if Richardson himself were anticipating any doubt on the reader’s part. Would an artful liar be capable of such exacting detail? Would not the reader, at some point, put aside doubts and believe Pamela, if only for her thoroughness, consistency, and lack of contradictory evidence (i.e., the non-existence of an Editor’s correction)?
This is the gamble Richardson, in using this form, seems prepared to make, although serious criticism can be made in the heroine’s decision-making. If the revolutionary implications of lower-born women marrying up are to be accepted, one has to first flesh out the terms under which this change of custom is to happen. In order for the work to not be merely an apology for the trophy wife, Richardson has to establish Pamela, a prototype, as morally acceptable. Therefore, the first questions is, if Pamela is as virtuous and humble as he would have us believe, why does she return to Mr. B.? Having refused his bald proposal to be a kept woman is hardly the clearcut evidence of virtue many of us would demand of a heroine, especially since Mr. B’s change is so sudden and briefly introduced. We are to believe that Pamela’s forgiveness of Mr. B. is nearly instantaneous, and such a turnabout could be understood, in part, by the rather clumsy mechanics of the plot itself. Since Mr. B. is largely absent (an invisible hand and eye, as it were), he is exempt from direct action that would have made it highly improbable for the reader to accept Pamela’s forgiveness. As pointed out by Christopher Flint, “female surrogates … enact the more alarming depravities of Mr. B’s ‘plot” while preserving a semblance of ‘decency’ for him” (p. 502). This distancing of responsibility serves as a very limited mitigating factor, at least by today’s standards, although perhaps this was more than enough for Richardson’s 18th century readership. Nevertheless, there is always the lingering doubt that she could be, as Henry Fielding points out in his biting parody, Shamela, a particularly determined and greedy seductress, aiming much higher than the station of a kept woman.
On the other hand, if Pamela is, indeed, this disingenuous, there is never any direct evidence to it, and Richardson expects his readership to accept her characterization. There is, after all, nothing else to go on, and independent analysis must therefore rest on the heroine’s actions: Given freedom, she returns to Mr. B. on her own accord. This is problematic for the reasons stated above, and is curious because the plot could have gone in so many other directions so as not to leave into question this character’s motivations. For example, could Pamela not have returned to her parents and eventually gotten another position for another (non-Libertine) aristocrat (to whom she could eventually marry)? Virtue then, would still be rewarded, without the moral ambiguity haunting the work.
Is she really this naïve to think Mr. B. could change so suddenly and dramatically, as if her writings had the redemptive power of the Bible itself? Apparently, she is, and we as readers are expected to follow suit. For Richardson, reading is a transformative process for its characters and for us as a society. It’s no accident that Pamela’s Biblical knowledge runs throughout her correspondence, particularly in times of greatest distress (such as when she rewrites a Proverbs passage and likens herself to persecuted Jews in captivity), as well as less trying moments when she is grateful to Providence. Pamela may read a lot, but the literature that informs her writing more than any other is the Bible. Her reality, in this sense, if very flat, literal, and dichotomous: despondency/rejoicing, lost/found, shame/delight, poverty/riches, etcetera. There is very little middle ground, so that when Mr. B sees the errors of his ways (he is saved!) and importunes her return, that is all she needs. “How Times are alter’d!” she exclaims (Richardson, p. 276) not longer after that moment.
Her reactions are not entirely bipolar, however, because they do indeed reflect a dramatic godlike intervention – Mr. B’s total character reformation and subsequent marriage proposal – so that within weeks of contemplating suicide, Pamela is instead proclaiming, “… when I see that God has brought about my Happiness by the very Means that I thought then my great Grievance; I ought to bless those Means, and forgive all that was disagreeable to me at the time, for the great Good that has issued from it” (Richardson, p. 301). In other words, everything happens for a reason, and Pamela is not one to squabble over the details or hold resentments. Hardships brought by Mr. B were necessary for her writing which, in turn, changed Mr. B to someone who not only would ask her to marry him, but, more importantly (if we are to believe Pamela’s professed beliefs about love and marriage) changed Mr. B into someone she would now want to marry because he is now converted. She may also be someone Mr. B would love even more for her easy forgiveness of him is an attribute for a future wife. She does not hold grudges as do so many upperclass women Pamela’s kind threaten to replace.
Any perceived naiveté on Pamela’s part is put aside during the second part of the novel because Mr. B holds true to his change of ways. There is, however, an exchange to be made, and Richardson, through Mr. B, is quite forthright as to what those terms shall be. Pamela is in no way to shame or overshadow her husband, is to follow his expected schedule, and, in general, is to “stick to these old-fashion’d Rules” (Richardson, p. 369). His injunctions and, later, a laundry list of rules, are to be happily obeyed as if by divine rule, for he is “Master of his House” and therefore she is to be “facetious, kind, obliging to all” (Richardson p. 371). Pamela seems perfectly content with these conditions, and many would argue, somewhat erroneously, that the perky “saucebox” domestic servant seems all but replaced by a domesticated wife, seamlessly transitioning into her new role. The transformation is not nearly as dramatic as the one Mr. B has undergone, but is nonetheless striking and coincides with the practical, social imperatives of the novel’s second half: protocol, legality, and civil rules of marriage (in contrast to the protocol and rules for a servant lady – Pamela – of the first half).
During the second half of the novel, the directives are much more concrete and to the point, as opposed to the implied expectations of the exemplar Pamela in the first half. While Mr. B had previously indicated, somewhat cryptically, his distaste for the institution of marriage, much is revealed in the second half to explain Mr. B’s (and the novel’s) gender politics. We learn through the confrontation scene with Lady Davers and her letter to her brother of the characteristics of women of Mr. B’s world, characteristics he cannot bear: outspokenness, quarrelsomeness, boldness, and disrespect. Moreover, his history with his sister is conflicted, at best, and Mr. B later reveals that she was a domineering older sister who regularly vexed and teased him. This personality type coincides with his indirect description of aristocratic women in his “list of injunctions” speech to Pamela shortly after their marriage. Simply put, Mr. B finds aristocratic women too “uppity” and challenging.
That Mr. B would find a welcome companion in Pamela is only too evident in this context for as much as he was previously vexed by her rebellious behavior, Pamela’s rebellion was always only in response to infringements of her sexual (i.e., womanly Christian) virtue: “Her Meekness, in every Circumstance where her Virtue was not concern’d” (Richardson, emphasis added, p. 503). She had otherwise always been a dutiful servant. This is key because claims that Pamela was once a sort of outspoken feminist prototype in Part I do not hold water in light of this point. It’s indicative that once Mr. B realized the “correct formula” (“… I should have melted her by Love, instead of freezing her by Fear” Richardson, p. 209), he would have considerably less difficulty in finding a dutiful wife. It’s also very telling that Pamela continues of refer to him as “Master” long after their marriage for she is to be, literally, his servant wife, never able to muster “the Presumption to call him by a more tender Epithet” (Richardson, p. 348).
If Pamela’s previous rebellion can largely be seen as primarily in relation to her virginal Christian virtue (thereby making her rebellion limited), there are still hints that broader secular themes of the Enlightenment (such as dignity, freedom, protofeminism) are bubbling underneath. On a few occasions, she has quite a bit to say about status and place, not bothering to mince her words as to the folly of the rich and their twisted logic. Her vantage point is that of someone not of the aristocracy, although the novel can be described as suspiciously ambiguous regarding her birth status. Pamela is constantly describing herself as humble and undeserving (“I don’t serve these Things, I know I don’t” Richardson, p. 80), yet there are occasional hints of a “better birth” such as when Lady Brooks comments, “I never saw such a Face and Shape in my Life; why she must be better descended than you have told me!” (Richardson, p. 53). She has culture and wit, but this is largely attributed to the three years under governance of the Lady of the house. The most we know of her birth status is that she comes from “honest, industrious Parents, who lived tho’ the greatest Trials, without being beholden to anything but God’s Blessing, and their own hard Labour” (Richardson, p. 395). Tellingly, this point is repeated with great emphasis after the marriage, to Lady Davers, and then, not many pages after that, to Mr. B’s social circle.
Pamela, then, is of “fallen” stock, and yet her middle-class roots shine through and are even resurrected under the nurturing tutoring of the Lady of the house, Mr. B’s mother. This makes her total identity something of a patchwork anomaly: part luck (Providence granted her tutoring), part intrinsic beauty and wit (“quality” and natural talent), and part class origin. This trio of characteristics makes it difficult to put together a simple roadmap for Pamela’s ascent; there is no “one thing” that explains her ability to marry Mr. B in a socially acceptable way. Pamela may be a model, but not one too easily followed by others; it is as though Richardson himself were aware of the need for “quality” control. Certain unlikely circumstances have to come into play first for this is to be a quieter kind of revolution.
Most notable in this trilogy of prerequisites are repeated hints of her parent’s fallen station, so that there’s less of a distance between her and the aristocracy than there normally would be between servants and masters. Pamela is just different from Mrs. Jervis, Mrs. Jewkes, and Mr. Longman, et al., and this was not lost on the original Lady of the house who then provided her with the accoutrements of culture. This last development is a subtle hint that some people were just meant to rise above their station so long as their station is not too low to begin with. Certain hardworking, middle-class people are teachable and therefore mobile. It is almost accidental that Pamela is a servant in the first place; the majority of the novel, in the form of arguments and negotiation between her and Mr. B and, later, diplomatic actions toward a potentially censorious society, serves to correct this.
Pamela’s story is nevertheless revolutionary for it sets up the parameters for upward mobility through marriage via a set of rationales that author Samuel Richardson presents in direct challenge to his era’s mores and values. There’s no denying that “marrying up” was a radical, controversial concept then, however benign it may seem to modern readers. This change, however, is not as simple as one would think because it involves compromises not only between Pamela and Mr. B, but also between the interests of class and gender. Richardson, through his characters and the social experiment of their situation, presents a (somewhat) palatable remedy for a decadent, dissolute aristocracy in dire need of some edification (in the form of Pamela and the bourgeoisie). If we were initially bothered by her rationale for returning to Mr. B and her motives in general, we eventually come to realize that this character curiosity is less of a concern for the story’s real purpose in Part II. Pamela is a tool to demonstrate and remind the aristocracy of virtue so that they may be saved from themselves. She is more of an exemplar to them than she is to would-be handmaidens across the land (hence the backtracking discussed ahead).
By the novel’s second half, this becomes increasingly clear as we go through various explanations of Mr. B’s world. The folly of the aristocracy is detailed in a straightforward psychological explanation: “We People of Fortune, or such as are born to large Expectations, of both Sexes, are generally educated wrong” (Richardson, p. 443). Mr. B then explains the situation of his class, in particular their irreconcilable differences and inherent dysfunctions, so that we come to view Pamela as necessary to a revolution that is inherently reactionary: the upper classes have strayed too far, indulging in Libertinism and internal squabbling, as well as poor, misguided parenting. As thoroughly explained by Christopher Flint, “the plot really addresses the failure of the upper class to meet its own ethical standards … Pamela appears to urge the lower class to seek Elevation; but beneath the dramatic disguises and verbal role-playing she suppresses such instincts … [so that] the novel’s “revolutionary” import gradually dissipates” (Flint, p. 497). The political direction must go back, to those “old-fashion’d” ways Mr. B implores Pamela to follow, for the sake of society (how convenient for Mr. B!). Fittingly, the final pages are directed first to Libertines and Gentlemen as “an edifying Lesson may be drawn from it” (Richardson, p. 500).
If we are to accept Flint’s assertion that this work’s plot and motivations are reactionary and directed mainly to the aristocracy, that the promised revolution “dissipates,” the fact remains that the novel implies a tiny but significant crack left open for lesser-born women seeking upward mobility. It may not be quite the revolution originally anticipated, fraught as it is with compromise and uneasy exchanges of values, but it is one nonetheless. The revolution is within the confines of the aristocracy, with less immediate effect on everyone else, all the while benefiting aristocratic men, suppressing aristocratic women, and permitting the possibility of mobility for certain lesser-born women. Yes, Pamela shuts up significantly after the marriage and appears less self-possessed. Nevertheless, Pamela is not only her writing, even if that is the only window into her soul that we are privy to. Just as we are never really sure of her sincerity in Part I, we cannot say with absolute certainty that she reneges her revolutionary views simply because of literary omission. It is quite possible that Pamela, like Mr. B, is very aware of public scrutiny by the novel’s second half, and that this very consciousness contributes to her own self-censorship. Self-censorship is not the same thing as not being self-possessed, however, and in this sense freedom of speech may be overrated.
Her role as an “elevator,” moreover, gives her incredible power because the title itself indicates a kind of superiority not previously acknowledged by society (although this had never been lost to her). Pamela, when compared to all women of her time, is not terribly disenfranchised – at least no more than before. In one conversation, she accedes the power to vote, but since women couldn’t even vote then anyway, the point is almost moot. There is a temptation to compare her to women’s situation today, but one cannot deny she has at least as many freedoms as a lady of her time as she did when she was a servant. (It would be even easier to argue that she has more. After all, she’s no longer being held against her will.) She also has different responsibilities, although not necessarily more.
Finally, it cannot be ignored that Pamela is so frequently referred to as an exemplar and model throughout the novel, and it is understood that there will be others to follow in her footsteps. This is a logical necessity – exemplars are, by definition, intended to be followed. However, lest lower-born reader entertain unrealistic hopes and quit their day jobs in droves – as Fielding would suggest – Richardson later inserted in a revised edition the following backtracking quote: “I don’t mean that [gentlemen] should all take raw, uncouth, unbred, lowly girls, as I was, from the cottage, and destroying all distinction, make such their wives; for there is a far greater likelihood, that such a one, when she comes to be lifted up into so dazzling a sphere, would have her head made giddy with her exaltation, than that she would balance herself well in it.” (emphasis added) (Williams, p. 422).
Discreetly, Pamela appears to shut the door behind her, in direct opposition to her premarital view of class equality: “… how poor People are despised by the Proud and the Rich; and yet we were all on a foot originally” (Richardson, p. 258). The Pamela we knew then (before being in the public eye, before the marriage) could afford to express such views in a private letter, even going so far as to question the accuracy of lineage and imply a revolutionary possibility in the future when “some of those despised upstart Families may not revel in their Estates, while their Descendants may be reduced to the other’s Dunhils?” (Richardson p. 258). That this one-page pondering is buried in the middle of the text never to be echoed so outspokenly again does little to reduce its potency: somehow, we know what Pamela and Richardson really think because, backtracking side, the story speaks for itself. She gets her man and is perfectly willing to abide by the conditions of an aristocratic marriage. Where there is one, there are bound to be others, although it is no by no means an easy journey.
REFERENCES
The above review was written by YOGCHICK, Winter 2003, published in www.orange5000.blogspot.com, posted November 19, 2005. Internal quotes are from ...
Flint, Christopher. “The Anxiety of Affluence: Family and Class (Dis)order in Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded.” Studies in English Literature 29 (1989): 489-515.
Richardson, Samuel. Pamela; Or, Virtue Rewarded. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Williams, Carolyn D. “Pamela and the Case of the Slandered Duchess.” Studies in English Literature 29 (1989); 515-536.
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