"Pamela- Virtue Rewarded"

This task is given by Prakruti Bhatt ma'am.

1.What do you understand by the term Realism? Discuss the realistic elements present in the narrative of Richardson's Pamela-Virtue Rewarded.

● Introduction:

Samuel Richardson’s Pamela Or Virtue Rewarded is a beloved English novel that beautifully captures the trials and tribulations of a young woman in a highly patriarchal society. The novel opens with two letters – one from Mr. B, the other from Pamela’s parents. The characters are relevant to the story arc and their words contain real, true-to-life elements that draw readers in and make them feel as if they were truly living through Pamela’s experience.

The exchanges between these characters immerse readers in an authentic setting, thus making them relate to the realism of each interaction. This layering of realism helps establish an atmosphere in which readers become invested in, thereby making them more likely to continue the journey with Pamela in her struggle for autonomy and justice.

The opening letters of Pamela or Virtue Rewarded set the tone for the rest of the novel:

The opening letters of Samuel Richardson’s novel Pamela or Virtue Rewarded provide the reader with a glimpse into the central themes, attitudes, and values explored in the narrative. Not only do they introduce many of the characters, but they also provide insight into their backgrounds, personalities, and motivations. The first letter sets up a pivotal moment in the story – when Pamela is suddenly removed from her rural home to service her wealthy employer Mr. B. In subsequent letters, readers gain an understanding of how Pamela must delicately navigate a difficult moral landscape full of choices between right and wrong, always under threat of her virtue being taken advantage of by others. As such, these opening letters become a strong foundation for the remainder of the novel and invite readers to journey with Richardson’s characters on their respective paths toward redemption and moral growth.

Richardson establishes a realistic and believable tone through his use of language and description:

Samuel Richardson’s writing accurately captures the nuances of human emotion and brings his characters to life. Through the use of vivid, realistic language he is able to affect a strong connection between text and reader. Even in passages of dialogue that are fundamentally different from one another, Richardson employs precise details such as tone, accent, and inflection to differentiate between conversations.

His commendable attention to detail also extends to his descriptive scenes; every element whether it be lighting or facial expressions immerses the readers in an engaging atmosphere. It’s no wonder people still find ‘Pamela’ inspiring today; Richardson knows exactly how to bring a scene together using convincing language for an undeniably believable narrative.

Richardson’s letters are full of humor and irony, which help to create a strong sense of realism:

Richardson’s use of humor and irony gives his characters a distinct authenticity. Through such devices, he conveys the daily struggles and joys of his characters in regard to their personal histories, relationships, and situations. Humor allows us to sympathize more easily with the characters we encounter in his novels while irony helps us recognize our own humanity by highlighting the idiosyncrasies within us all. It is this strong sense of realism which has kept Richardson’s writings so relevant even hundreds of years later.

Pamela is a character that readers can relate to, due to her down-to-earth nature:

Pamela is a remarkable character that appeals to readers with her genuine, down-to-earth nature. She stands out from other characters due to her everyday struggles, affirms the fact that she is not perfect, and isn’t afraid to take chances in life. While Pamela may be faced with difficulties at times, she never gives up hope and continues to search for the answers she so desperately needs. Readers appreciate her honest portrayal of the human condition and can relate to the emotions and situations she faces throughout the story. As a result, Pamela has become one of literature’s most beloved characters.

The opening letters provide readers with an understanding of the characters and their motivations:

The opening letters of a piece of literature have the power to introduce readers to its characters and plot directions. By carefully crafting important conversations and inner monologues, authors can provide a wealth of information on the characters’ motivations that can lead up to crucial plot points later in the story. These opening letters demonstrate how characterization links to conflict resolution and inspire readers to look forward to finding out more about their beloved characters throughout their literary journey. From heart-wrenching tragedies to magical fantasies, these opening exchanges help establish the tone for the rest of the book, setting expectations for an incredible reading experience.

● Conclusion:

Thus, We can say that here are some realistic elements of the novel " Pamela- Virtue Rewarded " by Samuel Richardson.

2.Comment on the use of letters as a medium of narrating the plot of the novel. Do you like reading an epistolary novel, or do you find yourself wishing you had a third person narrator to have clarity and objectivity in the narration?

Introduction:

The evolution of the novel happened over a period of centuries before it took the form we witness today. There have been several landmark contributions to the development of storytelling all over the world. One book, however, which remains ground-breaking in various aspects is Pamela. Written by Samuel Richardson, Pamela is widely regarded as one of the earliest novels in the English language. The author himself was one of the greatest ones in the 18th Century. The novel is also arguably the first novel to introduce Epistolary as a style of fiction writing.

What is an Epistolary Novel?

Epistolary literally means ‘in the form of letters’, which is exactly what a novel of this style is. It is a novel written in the form of letters, written from the perspective of one person, or multiple persons. As per the Encyclopaedia Britannica,

"Epistolary novel, a novel told through the medium of letters written by one or more of the characters. Originating with Samuel Richardson’s Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (1740), the story of a servant girl’s victorious struggle against her master’s attempts to seduce her, it was one of the earliest forms of the novel to be developed and remained one of the most popular up to the 19th century. The epistolary novel’s reliance on subjective points of view makes it the forerunner of the modern psychological novel.”

Phase I:

“Pamela” is a story of a girl, who works as a housemaid for an upper-class woman in a city away from her village. After the death of her mistress M, Pamela becomes the servant of her son, a knight, who has evil intentions. He tries to seduce her, and when she refuses, he also tries to molest her. Somehow, Pamela is successful every time to safeguard her modesty. Frustrated, the knight creates problems for Pamela. He sends her off to a town unknown to Pamela, where she is subjected to severe hardships.

Life turns bad to worse, as her new mistress in this town begins to physically abuse her for small things. Pamela’s condition deteriorates by the day. The knight visits the town and again tries to molest her, and she again successfully protects herself. In the meantime, Pamela comes in contact with a certain man in the new town and develops a friendly relationship with him. Upon learning her condition, this man tries to help Pamela. However, given the high social position of the knight, he couldn’t do, anything except let her gain sympathy from the elders of the town.

On his subsequent visit, the knight again tries to molest her, and yet, remains unsuccessful. However, this time Pamela’s resistance has a strong impact on him and begins to feel guilty for the sins he committed. The knight falls in love with her but is hesitant to marry her, as she belongs to a lower class. This is the first time when Pamela considers his feelings towards him, though for a very brief period of time. Pamela crosses paths with a fortune teller, who predicts that the knight will take her in a fake marriage, and would then abandon her after fulfilling his desires.

Phrase II:

Pamela’s new mistress gets hold of a letter, in which the unfortunate girl had written about the fortune teller’s prediction, and hands it over to the knight. This time, out of rage and anger, the knight orders Pamela to leave forever. He tells her to go back to her parent’s village, and Pamela heaved a sigh of relief. Interestingly, on her journey back home, she receives a letter from the knight. He mentions that he realizes his mistakes and wants to marry her as he is deeply in love with her. She then receives a second letter upon reaching her village, in which the knight requests her to come back, as he has fallen sick and needs her.

Pamela decides to return back and reunites with the knight. He apologizes for his misconduct and offers her marriage. She informs him about the fortune teller’s prediction, but he assures her that his feelings are genuine, which turns out to be true. However, before getting married, the knight teaches Pamela a number of etiquettes to make her seem from the upper class. Finally, the knight and Pamela get married, in a low-profile ceremony inside a small countryside church.

After her marriage, though the knight remains loving and caring, his sister is rude and disrespectful towards her. She threatens her, insults her, and even tries to physically abuse her. The sister doesn’t like the fact that her brother married a lower-class woman, and therefore, wants them to separate. For this very reason, she informs Pamela about the knight’s affair with a woman in the past from whom he has a daughter.

Pamela, instead of getting upset, calms her husband who is furious with his sister, and this startles the sister too. She realizes her mistakes and apologizes sincerely. The story ends with Pamela and the knight travel to where his estranged daughter lives and meets her.

Analyzing Pamela as an Epistolary Novel:

The novel comprises seven volumes of letters of conversations Pamela has with her parents and others. This makes Pamela a purely epistolary novel, and in fact, it is the first original English novel belonging to this type of writing. In her initial letters written to her parents, she describes her state working for the mistress, the knight’s mother, and describes that she is quite happy. When the mistress passes away, Pamela shows her concerns in the subsequent letters, as she would have to go back to her parent’s village and live life in poverty again. When the knight informs the servants that he won’t terminate any of them, she expresses her joy and relief.

As the story progresses, her letters become more and more intense. With each letter, one comes to know more and more about the characters, especially Pamela. Her feelings, her dilemma, her desire for a financially stable life, her determination to protect her modesty, etc., all her feelings grip the reader, and being letters it come straight out of the horse’s mouth.

The novel also shows multiple conversations Pamela has, like with her parents, and with the man in the unknown town. In fact, with the latter, Pamela exchanged letters by hiding them in sunflower fields, as the meeting wasn’t a possibility. Each conversation gives an insight into her character from a different perspective, which is essentially an important characteristic of an epistolary novel.

Even when Pamela suffers through her worst times in the unknown town, she continues to write letters to her parents, though they never reach them. Somewhere deep inside, by the end of the novel, one realizes the hidden desire she had for the knight, and the only thing that kept her from submitting to his demands was her wish to become a wife rather than a mistress. Subtly hidden throughout the letters, her desire to break from the lower class, and rise up to the higher ones was always there, though not intentionally.

The length of the text is too large, and the premise of the story is too common and predictable. However, that’s my analysis from a 21st Century perspective. Back in the day, Pamela was ground-breaking stylistically. It paved the way for a number of epistolary novels that followed, and continue to do so even today.

● Conclusion:

Pamela is not a perfect novel for various reasons. For one, it’s too big to keep the reader engaged. Secondly, the story is too plain. However, in being the first English novel and the first epistolary novel originally written in English, the novel succeeds with flying colours. It has every characteristic of an epistolary and portrays each one sufficiently. With strong characterization, deep conversations, a portrayal of strong emotions, and hidden intentions sprinkled throughout, Pamela is a book that suitably sits among the classics of the early days of the English novel.

What it did, is open the door for future authors to present their masterpieces, and enrich the English literature. The Dracula by Bram Stoker is a cult classic, which was published over 150 years after Pamela. Likewise, Jane Austen’s juvenile novel “Lady Susan”, and her magnum opus, “Pride and Prejudice”, take inspiration from the epistolary style of the novel.

Therefore, one should analyse Pamela as a stylistic text which created a new direction, rather than for its content and story-line.

3.Discuss the character portrayal of the servants of the B household apart from Pamela. [Include Mrs. Jervis, Mrs. Jewkes, and John]

Let discuss servant characters of pamela;

Mr.B:

Mr. B is a rich libertine who is the son of Lady B and the brother of Lady Davers. When the death of Lady B leaves him in charge of the servant girl Pamela, Mr. B wastes no time before taking “liberties” with her, repeatedly holding her and giving her unwanted kisses. As Pamela later learns, Mr. B has a scandalous past—in his younger days, he used to get into duels and even fathered a child (Miss Goodwin) with the unmarried Sally Godfrey. As Mr. B spends more time with Pamela, his actions become increasingly aggressive—at one point, he kidnaps her, imprisons her at his Lincolnshire country estate, then impersonates a maid (Nan) in order to get into bed with Pamela. But perhaps the most important characteristic of Mr. B is his ability to change. While Mr. B plans to trick Pamela into a sham-marriage, he ultimately changes his plans after reading several of Pamela’s letters and journal entries, which make him more sympathetic to her situation. He reforms his old ways and marries her properly in his family chapel, and with Pamela’s help, he starts to finally live up to his reputation as a gentleman. Mr. B represents the flaws and hypocrisies of the gentry in 18th-century Britain, but he also shows the potential of people to change, particularly after being exposed to a positive role model.

Mrs.Jewkes:

Mrs. Jewkes is a servant at Mr. B’s Lincolnshire estate who helps keep Pamela trapped there. At first, she seems like an evil version of the similarly-named Mrs. Jervis. Unlike Mrs. Jervis, Mrs. Jewkes doesn’t care about Pamela’s virtue and is willing to do whatever her master tells her to do, even if that involves locking Pamela in a room or holding Pamela down while her master assaults her. Pamela notes that Mrs. Jewkes isn’t attractive and makes frequent comments about Mrs. Jewkes’s weight, invoking the stereotype that “ugly” people are evil. But by the end of the novel, Mrs. Jewkes proves to have surprising depth. Almost as soon as Mr. B decides he wants to marry Pamela for real, Mrs. Jewkes begins treating Pamela with respect. When Pamela becomes mistress of the house, she not only decides not to fire Mrs. Jewkes, but she also rewards Mrs. Jewkes with more money.

Mrs.Jervis:

Mrs. Jervis is Pamela’s main ally in her new job as a servant for Mr. B. She is an older woman who provides advice to the young and naïve Pamela, acting like a surrogate parent figure. While Pamela and Pamela’s mother and father all have the utmost faith in Mrs. Jervis, she sometimes gives bad advice. Particularly when Pamela is new, Mrs. Jervis underestimates how aggressively Mr. B is willing to act toward Pamela. Nevertheless, when Mrs. Jervis realizes how far Mr. B is willing to go to satisfy his lust, she does whatever she can to protect Pamela, eventually getting dismissed for her efforts. At the end, however, after Pamela marries Mr. B, Pamela rehires Mrs. Jervis and rewards her handsomely for her efforts. Mrs. Jervis’s story echoes Pamela’s, then, as it shows how virtuous behavior eventually pays off.

● John:

John is a footman who carries most of Pamela’s letters back to her mother and father in the first part of the book. Although Pamela feels a lot of gratitude toward John for helping her stay connected to her parents, John is actually helping Mr. B spy on her by reading and even failing to deliver some of her letters. John is an example of a good man who gets corrupted due to his master’s influence, and so after Pamela helps reform Mr. B, John also gets redemption.

Conclusion:

Thus, Here are servant characters of pamela. Some are helping hands for Pamela and other are spy for her.

● Letter writing task: