Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded
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| Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded | |
 Richardson's Pamela (1740-1) |
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| Author | Samuel Richardson |
|---|---|
| Country | England |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Epistolary novel |
| Publisher | Messrs Rivington & Osborn |
| Publication date | 1740 |
| ISBN | NA |
Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded is an epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson, first published in 1740. It tells the story of a maid named Pamela whose master, Mr. B., makes unwanted advances towards her. She rejects him continually, and her virtue is eventually rewarded when he shows his sincerity by proposing an equitable marriage to her. In the second part of the novel, Pamela attempts to accommodate herself to upper-class society and to build a successful relationship with him. The story was widely mocked at the time for its perceived licentiousness and it inspired Henry Fielding (among many others) to write two parodies: Shamela (1741), about Pamela's true identity; and Joseph Andrews (1742), about Pamela’s brother.
Contents |
[edit] Publishing History
Pamela was originally published anonymously in two volumes in November 1740. A revised edition with 32 pages of puffery, that is, an introduction with glowing "Letters to the Editor" (for the most part written by Richardson's friend Aaron Hill) and "Verses", was published in February 1741 and then three more revised editions followed that year. A two-volume sequel was published in December 1741, and a delux octavo edition of all four volumes appeared in 1742. Another two revisions of the first two volumes were published subsequently in 1746 and 1754, and then another edition of the complete four volumes came out in 1761 after Richardson's death. Further changes to the text by Richardson existed in the form of an interleaved copy of one of the octavo editions and these were instituted in the 1801 edition.[1][2] Innumerable reprint editions have subsequently continued to appear ever since, but, as most of these omit the puffery and are based on the 1801 edition, none of these reproduce Pamela exactly as it would have appeared to early readers.[3]
[edit] Conduct books and the novel
When Richardson began writing Pamela, he conceived of it as a conduct book. (One could say that the eighteenth-century conduct book is the forerunner of today’s etiquette and self-help books.). But as he was writing, the series of letters turned into a story. Richardson then decided to write in a different genre, the novel, which at the time was a new form. He attempted to instruct through entertainment. In fact, most novels from the middle of the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth century, following Richardson’s lead, claimed legitimacy through their ability to teach as well as to amuse.
[edit] Plot summary
[edit] Epistolarity
Epistolary novels, that is, novels written as a series of letters, were extremely popular during the eighteenth century and it was Richardson's Pamela that made them so. Richardson and other novelists of his time argued that the letter allowed the reader greater access to a character's thoughts - Richardson claimed that he was writing "to the moment," that is, that Pamela's thoughts were recorded nearly simultaneously with her actions.
In the novel, Pamela writes two kinds of letters. At the beginning of the novel, while she is deciding how long to stay on at Mr. B’s after the death of his mother, she writes letters to her parents relating her various moral dilemmas and asking for their advice. After Mr. B abducts her and imprisons her in his countryhouse, she continues to write letters to her parents, but because she is unsure whether or not her parents will ever receive them, they are to be considered both letters and a diary.
In Pamela, the reader receives only the thoughts and letters of Pamela, restricting the reader’s access to the other characters; we see only Pamela's perception of them. In Richardson's other novels, Clarissa (1748) and Sir Charles Grandison (1753), the reader is privy to the letters of several characters and can thus more effectively evaluate the motivations and moral values of the characters.
[edit] The body
Pamela’s body is often at the center of the events in the novel. Mr. B attacks it as much as her morality. In fact, he often attacks her virtue through her body. For example, he attempts to kiss her at one point and she has to shake him free. In another important episode in the novel, Mr. B attempts to rape Pamela, but she faints. Finally, in one of the most revealing scenes of the novel, Mr. B attempts to steal the letters that Pamela has hidden in her petticoats. The letters have, in a sense, become herself.
[edit] Plot
[edit] Volume 1
Pamela Andrews is a young servant of 15, very pious and innocent, serving Lady B. as a waiting-maid, in Bedfordshire. When the lady dies, her son, the squire Mr B. shows more and more his attraction towards Pamela, first by being kind to her (he gives her his mother’s clothes), then by trying to take advantage of her in the Summer House. But she resists, and as he wants to pay her to keep the secret, she refuses and tells Mrs Jervis, the housekeeper (her best friend in the house, a motherly figure although faithful to Mr B.). Pamela thinks of going back to her parents, who are very poor, to preserve her innocence, but can't make up her mind. Mr B. plans to marry her to Mr Williams, his chaplain in Lincolnshire, and gives money to her parents in case she then lets him take advantage of her. She refuses and decides to go back to her parents.
But Mr B. intercepts her letters to her parents and tells them she has an affair with a poor clergyman and that he will send her to a safe place to preserve her honour. Therefore, Pamela is driven to Lincolnshire Estate and begins a Journal (because she is a prisoner and can’t write letters anymore) hoping it will be sent to her parents one day. The housekeeper there, Mrs Jewkes, is very different from Mrs Jervis : she is a vulgar, rude, masculine woman devoted to Mr B. She imposes Pamela to be her bedfellow. Mr B promises her that he won’t approach her without her leave (indeed he’s away from Lincolnshire for a long time).
Pamela meets Mr Williams and they agree to communicate by putting letters under a sunflower of the garden. Mrs Jewkes beats her because she calls her “her Jezebel”. Mr Williams asks the gentry of the village for help and even though they pity Pamela, no one agrees to help her because of Mr B.’s social position. Mr Williams proposes marriage to her, in order to escape Mr B’s wickedness.
Mr Williams is attacked and beaten by robbers. Pamela wants to escape when Mrs Jewkes is away but is very frightened by two bulls watching her (they are actually cows). By mistake, Mr Williams reveals the correspondence to Mrs Jewkes, and as a result Mr B. is jealous and says he hates Pamela. He wants to marry her to one of his servants. Mr Williams is arrested. Pamela is desperate, she thinks of running away and making them believe she has been drowned in the pond. She tries to climb a wall but can’t do it: she is injured and renounces escape.
Mr B. comes back. He sends her a list of Articles which would rule their partnership : she refuses each point because it would mean to be his mistress. Mr B. tries to go to bed with her disguised as Nan (the housemaid) with the complicity of Mrs Jewkes. But Pamela faints and thwarts his designs. He seems to repent then, he is kinder in his attempts to seduce her. She implores him to cease. When he talks to her in the garden, he implicitly says he loves her but can’t marry her because of the social gap.
[edit] Volume 2
A gypsy fortune-teller wants to predict Pamela’s future, but only in order to give her a bit of paper warning her against a sham-marriage. Pamela has hidden a parcel of letters under a rose bush and when she comes to take them back, Mrs Jewkes seizes them and gives them to Mr B. After having read the letters. Mr B. feels pity for what she has undergone because of him and really decides to marry her.
But she still doubts him and begs him to let her return to her parents. He is vexed but lets her go. She bids him goodbye and feels strangely sad. On her way home, he sends her a letter wishing her a good life. Pamela is moved and realizes she is in love. Then he sends her a second paper asking her to come back because he’s very ill : she accepts. Mr B.’s sister, Lady Davers, is very cross with him for taking Pamela as his wife.
Pamela and Mr B. talk of their future life as husband and wife and she agrees with everything he says. She explains why she doubted him. This is the end of her trials : she is more submissive to him and owes him everything now as a wife. Mr Williams is released. Some neighbours come to the estate and all admire Pamela. Pamela’s father comes to take her away but he is reassured when he sees Pamela happy.
Finally, she marries Mr B. in the chapel. But when Mr B. has gone to see a sick man, Lady Davers comes to threaten Pamela and considers she is not really married. Pamela escapes by the window and goes in Colbrand’s chariot to be taken away to Mr B. The following day, Lady Davers enters their room without permission and insults Pamela. Mr B. is furious, he wants to renounce his sister, but Pamela wants to reconcile the two of them. But Lady Davers is still contemptuous towards Pamela. Vexed, she mentions Sally Godfrey, a girl Mr B. seduced in his youth, with whom he had a child. He is cross with Pamela because she dared approach him when he was in a temper.
Lady Davers accepts Pamela. Mr B. explains to Pamela what he expects of his wife. They go back to Bedfordshire. Pamela rewards the good servants with money and forgives John who betrayed her. They make a little “Airing” to a farmhouse and encounter Miss Goodwin, Mr B’s child. Pamela would like to take her with them. They learn that Sally Godfrey now lives happily in Jamaica with a husband. Pamela is praised by the gentry of the neighbourhood who once despised her.
[edit] Literary significance & criticism
[edit] Reception
Richardson’s novel was the bestseller of its time. It was read by countless buyers of the novel and was also read aloud in groups. For example, one apprentice might buy or borrow the novel and read it aloud to the others while they were working. The novel was also integrated into sermons as an exemplar. It was even an early “multimedia” event—fans and mugs, among many other items, were illustrated with Pamela themes. Given the lax copyright laws at the time, many "unofficial" sequels were written and published without Richardson's consent. There were also several satires of the novel, the most famous of which was An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews by Henry Fielding, published under the pseudonym "Mr. Conny Keyber." Shamela portrays the protagonist as an amoral social climber, who attempts to seduce "Squire Booby" while feigning innocence in order to manipulate him into marrying her.
Pamela was also the basis for the libretto of Niccolò Piccinni's comic opera La buona figliuola.
[edit] Richardson's revisions
The popularity of Richardson’s novel led to much public debate over its message and style. Richardson responded to some of the criticisms by revising the novel for each new edition; he even created a “reading group” of women to advise him. Some of the most significant changes that he made were his alterations to Pamela’s vocabulary. In the first edition her diction is that of a lower-class maid, but in later editions Richardson made her more linguistically middle-class by removing the lower-class idioms from her speech. In this way, he made her marriage to Mr. B less scandalous as she appeared to be more his equal in education.
[edit] Criticism
- Armstrong, Nancy. Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
- Doody, Margaret Anne. ‘’A Natural Passion: A Study of the Novels of Samuel Richardson. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974.
- McKeon, Michael. The Origins of the English Novel: 1600-1740. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
- Watt, Ian. The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957.
[edit] Adaptions
- 1974 - UK movie by Jim O'Connolly: Mistress Pamela [1]
with Ann Michelle as Pamela Andrews and Julian Barnes as Lord Robert Devenish (Mr. B)
- 2003 - Italian TV series by Cinzia TH Torrini: Elisa di Rivombrosa [2]
The popular TV series (26 episodes) Elisa di Rivombrosa [3] [4] is loosely based on Pamela. The story takes place in the second half of the 18th century in Turin (Italy). The role of Pamela is that of Elisa Scalzi (played by Vittoria Puccini) in the series. The role of Mr. B is that of Count Fabrizio Ristori (played by Alessandro Preziosi).
[edit] Allusions/references from other works
- 2007 - Jonathan Freedland The Long View
On 9 Jan 2007 BBC Radio 4 broadcast The Long View which contrasted Pamela's effect on eighteenth-century society with that of video games on twentieth-century society.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Pamela the Novel. Eighteenth Century England at Department of English, University of Michigan (2001). Retrieved on 2007-01-24.
- ^ Peter Sabor 'Note on the text' in Pamela; Or, Virtue Rewarded. London: Penguin Books. 1980.
- ^ Judith Hawley. 'Introduction' in Shamela and Joseph Andrews. London: Penguin Books. 1999: xiii.
[edit] References
- Richardson, Samuel (1940). Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, 1st, London: Messrs Rivington & Osborn.
- Doody, Margaret Ann (1995). Introduction to Samuel Richardson's Pamela. Viking Press.
