Pamela or Virtue

Rewarded

by Samuel Richardson
 Samuel Richardson
Was born in Derbyshire in 1689.
Also was a printer by trade, and rose to be master of the
Stationers Company.
He became a novelist was due to his skill as a letter-writer.
His first novel is Pamela or Virtue Rewarded.
 Samuel Richardson
His father was a joiner (a type of carpenter) and his family
were farmers.
He married his employers daughter Martha and they had six
children but all of them died in childhood.
His other most popular works are Clarissa or History of
Young Lady.
His last novel is the History of Sir Charles Grandison.
Printed almost 500 different works, with magazines and
journals.
Died at London in 1761.
 FROM THE PUBLISHER

One of the most spectacular successes of the flourishing literary

marketplace of eighteenth-century London, Pamela also
marked a defining moment in the emergence of the modern
novel. In the words of one contemporary, it divided the world
"into two different Parties, Pamelists and Anti-pamelists even
eclipsing the sensational factional politics of the day. Preached
for its morality, and denounced as pornography in disguise, it
vividly describes a young servant's long resistance to the
attempts of her predatory master to seduce her. Written in the
voice of its low-born heroine, Pamela is not only a work of
pioneering psychological complexity, but also a compelling and
provocative study of power and its abuse.
 FROM THE PUBLISHER

This novel created an epoch in the history of English fiction, and,

with its successors, exerted a wide influence upon Continental
literature. It is appropriately included in a series which is designed to
form a group of studies of English life by the masters of English
fiction. For it marked the transition from the novel of adventure to
the novel of character - from the narration of entertaining events to
the study of men and of manners, of motives and of sentiments. In it
the romantic interest of the story is subordinated to the moral
interest in the conduct of its characters in the various situations in
which they are placed. Upon this aspect of the drama of human life
Richardson cast a most observant, if not always a penetrating glance.
His works are an almost microscopically detailed picture of English
domestic life in the early part of the eighteenth century.
 Illustrations

An illustration from the 1741 An illustration from the 1785

edition of Pamela edition of Pamela
 Richardson's Sources of
Inspiration for Pamela
By the standards of polite society, Samuel Richardson was
scarcely better off socially than his narrating heroine.
Richardson, son of a respectable working-class man, had a
little schooling and always loved reading. However, by the
standards of his contemporaries he was not an educated man
and he was certainly not a gentleman.
In 1739 Rivington and Osborne, booksellers, asked him to
produce a little book of sample letters, a known sort of
helper-book at the time, which provided models of business
and personal correspondence to assist the semi-literate.

 Richardson's Sources of
Inspiration for Pamela
The 'letter-writer' had been a minor genre of popular literature
for over a century, and it was customary for their authors to
indulge in a certain amount of character-drawing and humor,
especially in capturing the speech of the country folk and the
working classes.
Richardson became unexpectedly fascinated by his new
project, and a small sequence of letters from a daughter in
service of a young and sexually aggressive gentleman, asking
her father's advice when she is threatened by her master's
advances, became the germ of Pamela. Familiar Letters on
Important Occasions was put aside until the novel was
finished.
 Epistolary novel
Epistolary novels-novels written as series of letters-were
extremely popular during the 18th century. Fictional epistolary
narratives originated in their early form in 16 th century
England; however they acquired wider renown with the
publication of Richardsons Pamela. Richardson stressed in
his preface to The History of Sir Charles Grandision that the
form permitted the immediacy of writing to the moment:
that is, Pamelas thoughts were recorded nearly simultaneously
with her actions.
 Pamela or Virtue Rewarded

Pamela or Virtue Rewarded is an epistolary novel by Samuel

Richardson, first published in 1740. It tells the story of a
beautiful 15-year-old maidservant named Pamela Andrew,
whose country landowner master, Mr.B makes unwanted
advances towards her after the death of his mother. After Mr. B
attempts unsuccessfully to seduce and rape her, Pamela
marries Mr.B and tries to acclimatize to upper-class society.
 Pamela or Virtue Rewarded

In the novel, Pamela writes two kinds of letters. At the

beginning, while she decides how long to stay on at Mr.
B's after his mother's death, she tells her parents about her
various moral dilemmas and asks for their advice. After
Mr. B. abducts her and imprisons her in his country house,
she continues to write to her parents, but since she does
not know if they will ever receive her letters, the writings
are also considered a diary.
In Pamela, the letters are almost exclusively written by
the heroine, restricting the reader's access to the other
characters; we see only Pamela's perception of them.
 Epistolary technique
The Richardsonian epistolary technique not only manages to
cleverly hold the narrative framework together but also, in a
sense, Pamela's fragile life. Pamela - constantly worrying
about her fate - is always busy writing: "I slept but little last
night, and arose, and pretended to sit by the window which
looks into the spacious gardens; but I was writing all the time,
from break of day, to getting up. " (p. 149)
 Epistolary technique
Moreover, in his "Preface" to Pamela the author hints at this
same view, calling his novel of letters "natural", "lively", and
"moving" (Richardson, 1740, p. 31). This direct and immediate
technique is closely related to the self-reflexive effect.
The Richardsonian epistolary method permits his characters to
engage in self-reflexive discourse. An excellent textual
reference point that illustrates the power of Richardson's
epistolary format to project the psychological development of
Pamela appears towards the end of the novel, when the heroine
returns triumphantly to Bedfordshire and stops writing in order
to "apply herself to the Duties of the Family" (p. 387).
 Social Position of Pamela

Pamela is a servant from a very poor family and Mr. B is a

wealthy, upper class man, so the idea of them getting married
was very controversial.
 Summary Plot 1st Volume
Pamela Andrews is a pious, innocent fifteen-year-old who
works as Lady B's maidservant in Bedfordshire. The novel
starts after Lady B has died, when her son, the squire Mr. B,
begins to pay Pamela more attention, first giving her his
mother's clothes, then trying to seduce her in the Summer
House. When he wants to pay her to keep the attempt secret,
she refuses and tells Mrs. Jervis, the housekeeper, her best
friend at the house. He hides in her closet and pops out and
tries to kiss her as she undresses for bed. Pamela debates
returning to her impoverished parents to preserve her
innocence, but remains undecided.
 1st Volume
Mr. B claims that he plans to marry her to Mr. Williams, his chaplain
in Lincolnshire, and gives money to her parents in case she will let 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 that she is having a love affair
with a poor clergyman and that he will send her to a safe place to preserve her
honour. Pamela is then driven to Lincolnshire Estate and begins a journal, hoping it
will be sent to her parents one day. The Lincolnshire Estate housekeeper, Mrs.
Jewkes, is no Mrs. Jervis: she is a rude, "odious", "unwomanly" woman who is
devoted to Mr. B; Pamela suspects that she might even be "an atheist!". Mrs.
Jewkes constrains Pamela to be her bedfellow.
Pamela meets Mr. Williams and they agree to communicate by putting letters under
a sunflower in the garden. Mrs. Jewkes continues to maltreat Pamela, even beating
her after she calls her a "Jezebel". Mr. Williams asks the village gentry for help;
though they pity Pamela, none will help her because of Mr. B's social position. Mr.
Williams proposes marriage to her to escape.
 1st Volume
Mr. Williams is attacked and beaten by robbers. Pamela wants to escape
when Mrs. Jewkes is away, but is terrified by two nearby cows that she
thinks are bulls. Mr. Williams accidentally reveals his correspondence
with Pamela to Mrs. Jewkes; Mr. B jealously says that he hates Pamela,
as he has claimed before. He has Mr. Williams arrested and plots to marry
Pamela to one of his servants. Desperate, Pamela thinks of running away
and making them believe she has drowned in the pond. She tries
unsuccessfully to climb a wall, and, when she is injured, she gives up.
Mr. B returns and sends Pamela a list of articles that would rule their
partnership; she refuses because it means she would be his mistress. With
Mrs. Jewkes' complicity, Mr. B gets into bed with Pamela disguised as the
housemaid. She implores him to stop. In the garden he says he loves her
but can't marry her because of the social gap.
 2 nd
Volume
A gypsy fortuneteller approaches Pamela and passes her a bit
of paper warning her against a sham-marriage. Pamela has
hidden a parcel of letters under a rosebush; Mrs. Jewkes sees
them and gives them to Mr. B, who then feels pity for what he
has put her through and decides to marry her. She still doubts
him and begs him to let her return to her parents. He is vexed
but lets her go. She feels strangely sad when she bids him
goodbye. On her way home he sends her a letter wishing her a
good life; moved, she realises she is in love. When she
receives a second note asking her to come back because he is
ill, she accepts.
 2nd Volume
Pamela and Mr. B talk of their future 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. 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, his sister Lady Davers comes to
threaten Pamela and considers her not really married. Pamela
escapes by the window and goes in Colbrand's chariot to be
taken away to Mr. B.
 2nd Volume
The following day, Lady Davers enters their room without permission
and insults Pamela. Mr. B, furious, wants to renounce his sister, but
Pamela wants to reconcile them. Lady Davers, still contemptuous
towards Pamela, mentions Sally Godfrey, a girl Mr. B seduced in his
youth, now mother of his 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 visit a farmhouse where they meet Mr. B's daughter and learn
that her mother is now happily married in Jamaica; Pamela proposes
taking the girl home with them. The neighbourhood gentry who once
despised Pamela now praise her.
 2nd Volume
Pamela, in one of her early journals, tells her readers that she
writes as a "diversion" from her troubles and indicates that she
utilizes her missives as a vehicle for improving her
psychological and socio-economic well-being (p. 106). For
example, her parents, who often equate dishonor with death,
criticize Pamela's choices toward the beginning of the novel.
Pamela turns to her art of writing journals to, in a sense,
"disappear" from her social reality, at least temporarily, as well
as provide some emotional and personal stability in her life.
 Genre

Richardson began writing Pamela as a conduct book, but as he

was writing, the series of letters turned into a story. He then
decided to write in a different genre: the new form, the novel,
which attempted to instruct through entertainment. In fact,
most novels from the mid-18th century and well into the 19th,
followed Richardson's lead and claimed legitimacy through
the ability to teach as well as amuse.
 Conclusion

Although some critics might complain about a

lack of coherence in Pamela, or its obvious
subjectivity, a closer examination shows that
the content and form of Pamela's letters
actually have a tremendous amount of textual
authority when compared to other narrative
forms.