Hello, I am Emisha Ravani . Writing this blog for the Pamela or virtue rewarded.
The question is: Is Pamela a reliable narrator? If Yes, then Why? If No, then Why
first publication of Richardson’s Pamelai.it is surprising to see how emotionally charged the Pamela-debate still is. Its central question, whether Pamela’s narration is reliable, is still able to initiate a heated discussion. The reason for this is that Pamela’s story is far more than the narration of the experience of a servant-girl. It always was and obviously still is a matter of politics and political correctness, almost comparable to the alleged sexual affairs of President Clinton.
In Pamela’s case, however, we do not ask whether he really did it. Nobody wants to spare Mr B. the embarrassment of being guilty of sexual harassment. Mr B.,clearly, is not the point of interest. Instead, we ask whether Pamela is really telling the truth about herself. This aspect of her reliability turns out to be the most important one. What is at stake is Pamela’s virtue, and this is the fate she shares with Mr Clinton. Both have been elected to hold a powerful public position, with the difference that Pamela has not been elected by the people but by her author Samuel Richardson. I want to argue that Pamela’s problems apart from Mr B., i.e. our doubts about her reliability and in turn about her virtue and vice versa, start with the intentions her author had in mind while allowing her to tell her story. It is precisely the tension between her intended public position as an example of virtue and the fact that her story is told in letters written and copied almost exclusively by herself that we start to doubt whether she really is the virtuous and therefore reliable person she has to claim to be.
There can be no doubt that Samuel Richardson intended Pamela to be an example of virtue, a role-model for every woman’s behaviour, an instrument to teach proper conduct. In his preface he solemnly declares that he hopes “to incalculate religion and morality” with his book. In order to achieve this he “paint VICE in its proper colours, to make it deservedly odious; and . . . set VIRTUE in its proper amiable light, to make it look lovely”.Both male and female readers are expected to draw their lessons from a story presented according to these principles. Since our “practicle example” of virtue in this case is Pamela The following description applies to her: she is regarded as “worthy to be followed in the most critical and affecting cases, by the virgin, the bride, and the wife”. In short, Pamela is a didactic representation of virtue.
This virtue is presented to us in the story of Pamela’s resistance against the sexual advances Mr B. makes to her after his mother’s death. Her unwillingness to comply with his desire – with or without payment – is motivated by her determination that she “will die a thousand deaths, rather than be dishonest in any way” . She is “resolved to be virtuous” and remains virtuous through all the temptations Mr B. creates for her. In the end he is not only convinced that she means what she says but is also ashamed of his own behaviour.
Pamela’s exemplary virtue succeeds in converting Mr B. to a virtuous life and exerts the same influence over her growing audience in the novel.
As such an exemplary role-model of virtue Pamela has to be – at least consciously – a reliable narrator for, as Michael McKeon notes, in Richardson’s Pamela “questions of virtue cannot be unravelled from questions of truth.”
the narrator who is deliberately unreliable clearly forfeits her claim to virtuous behaviour. Consequently, Richardson cannot give the subtitle Virtue Rewarded to Pamela and present her as an unreliable narrator at the same time. And indeed,on the level of the narration itself Pamela is treated and presented as both an extremely virtuous girl and a reliable narrator.
First of all the “editor” of Pamela’s letters assures his readers in the preface that “the following Letters . . . have their foundation in Truth” . When He interrupts Pamela’s narration in order to report her abduction to Mr B.’s
Lincolnshire estate and events that happened without Pamela’s knowledge he does neither contradict her version of the story nor expresses doubts about her virtuous behaviour, quite the contrary. The reader learns that Mr B. intends “to prosecute his base designs upon the the innocent virgin”. We also read that all Bedfordshire servants “greatly loved and honoured the fair damsel.” The editor confirms that Mr B. does not only plan to take Pamela’s virtue but also misrepresents her character in a letter to and a conversation with her father. His summary of Pamela’s situation is that “thus every way was the poor virgin beset.”
Not only the editor but also the other characters in the novel share this evaluation. Mrs Jervis is convinced that Pamela “was one of the most virtuous
and industrious creatures she ever knew.” She “never saw any thing
but innocence in her.” Lady Davers remarks that “every body gave . . .
[Pamela] a very good character, and loved [her]”. Mr Jonathan, the butler,is “sure that I will sooner believe any body in fault than you [Pamela]” and his colleague Mr Longman is convinced that “every body must be good to her” since she is “so mild and meek to every one of us in the house” .After Pamela’s victory over Mr B. the whole neighbourhood is full of praise for her. Pamela is regarded as “an honour to our sex, and as a pattern for all the
young ladies in the country.”
But then Richardson’s intention to create such a pattern for every lady in thecountry in the form of an epistolary novel causes several problems. He knows that a story that intends to promote virtue has to be entertaining in order to be read, that is in order to be able to exert influence. Therefore he wants to “divert and entertain” and to “instruct and improve” at the same time. The story is supposed to be “equally delightful and profitable”. He also wishes to do this “in so probable, so natural, so lively a manner, as shall engage the passions of every sensible reader, and attach their regard to the story” . It becomes obvious that Richardson hopes to achieve extremely conflicting ends.
Much of the literary criticism written about Pamela proves that the epistolary form is a very suitable means to engage the passions of the reader and enable him to relate to the story. But a didactic novel that is almost completely told in –supposedly entertaining – letters written by the virtuous heroine herself puts the narrator in an extremely difficult position and creates numerous disadvantages regarding the intended lesson of the narration by making it almost impossible for her to maintain her virtuous image.
First of all it should be noted that Pamela is convinced that she is a reliable narrator. In her opinion her letters and journal entries contain all her “private thoughts . . . and all the secrets of my heart.” What she records on paper is her “heart at the time; and this is not deceitful." When Mr B. accuses her of having encouraged Mr Williams to love her by discouraging him explicitly in her letters Pamela claims that she “know[s] nothing . . . of the practices of artful women! I have no art!” Again and again she assures that “I have only writ the truth” .But then everybody knows that a letter writer’s judgement concerning her own reliability is not necessarily correct. Samuel Johnson’s contradictory statements about the possibilities of the letter illustrate the difficult situation of Pamela.
“In a Man’s Letters”, he writes in his own correspondence, “his soul lies naked
. . . Nothing is inverted, nothing distorted.” This attitude belongs to a tradition
which recognizes the letter “as the true voice of feeling . . . as a means of conveying authentic personality and experience.”4 At the same time, however, the letter was seen as a means of deceit and pretence. Accordingly, Dr Johnson states in his ‘Life Of Pope’ that “there is, indeed, no transaction which offers stronger temptations to fallacy and sophistication than epistolary intercourse.”5 The reason for this is that the letter is a “calm and deliberate performance, in the cool of leisure,in the stillness of solitude” and Johnson cannot imagine that a “man sits downt o depreciate by design his own character.”6 The reader might, therefore, be the victim of a fallacy when he believes in Pamela’s assurances of reliability.Obviously, we have to decide whether to trust Pamela’s narration or not.
Richardson may be said to have compounded his own difficulties by
confining his narrative of his heroine’s triumph almost solely to that
heroine’s voice, thereby violating an implicit rule of feminine behavior that the Lady’s Magazine would later spell out for its readers in one
of its numerous essays ‘On Modesty’: ‘take care you do not make
yourself the heroine of your own story.
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