For Friday: Richardson, Pamela, pp.11-59 (Letters 1 through 24)

William Hogarth, Portrait of his Servants 

Remember our discussion about the early novel on Wednesday, and how Richardson is writing to the biggest consumers of novels in the mid-18th century: aristocratic women (or women of means, who had leisure time) and their servants, who wanted to be entertained and looked for the means to advance in status. Richardson intended Pamela, to some extent, to be a morality tale for servants who had many temptations to steal, gossip, and/or sleep with their superiors. However, he wasn't blind to the many dangers that a servant faced in an aristocratic household, since they had virtually no form of redress and could be turned out in a moment's notice. By and large, people loved this novel, so he must have done something right! But does it still make essential reading today? We'll have to see...

Answer two of the following:

Q1: Following from our discussion on last Wednesday (before Fall Break), does Pamela strike you as a flat or a round character? Novels are traditionally about round characters growing and developing over time/plot, so does Pamela show the potential to grow as a person? Or is she merely a blank slate for Richardson to shine his moral lessons on? Would a round character interfere with these intentions? 

Q2: In the opening Preface by the Editor, he claims that most novels these days (in the 1740's) "tends only to corrupt their Principals, mislead their Judgements, and initiate them into Gallantry and loose Pleasures" (9). In other words, novels teach vice rather than virtue. However, vice (and sex) sell in the marketplace, and Richardson seems to pile on the 'bad behavior' in his novel with a pretty liberal hand. Do you think he really means to write a manual of vice and virtue for young servants to follow...or is this a cover for him to get away with writing a novel that would appeal equally to men, who fantasized about being a Mr. B themselves? In other words, in this yet another novel of vice masquerading as virtue? 

Q3: Pamela has several chances to leave the house after Mr. B harasses her, and indeed, she could simply run home and quit her job. Why does she continue to stay even after Mr. B has made his sinister attentions clear? For example, why does she insist on staying "to finish the Waistcoat; I never did a prettier piece of work" (44)?

Q4: In Letter XXII (22), Mrs. Jervis tells Pamela that "you have it in your Power to make [Mr. B] as sweet temper'd as ever; tho' I hope in God you'll never do it on his Terms!" (48). And she's clearly right: if Pamela flirted with him more, couldn't she win him over even without sleeping with him? Why doesn't she take a more Wife of Bath approach, rather than making him angrier and angrier, and even more desperate? OR, is this her strategy all along? Do you think she's actually playing hard to get to make him more interested in her? Or is she just scared and naive?