Pamela: or virtue rewarded” is an epistolary novel written by Samuel Johnson (1689-1761)

and first published in 1740. Being one of the first – if not the first – novel told entirely
through fictional letters made it very new and exciting narrative concept at the time. “Pamela”
is widely considered one of the first and most influential romance novels in the english
language. Many later novels were named after the female protagonist; Clarrissa (Samuel
Richardson, Evelina, Cecilia, Camilla (all Frances Burney), Fantomina (Eliza Haywood),
Emma (Jane Austen) etc.

So, being very intrigued, I ordered the book and started reading it as soon as it arrived. I had
very low expectations and certainly didn’t expect this book to be a pleasure read and I
intended to read it for the analytical and historical value. Also, I was/am kind of intimidated
by 18th century literature as I’m not an avid reader by any means. English isn’t my native
language either so I expected to understand very little of an english text that is almost 300
years old. But I was positively surprised. The edition that I bought had modernised the 18th
century grammar for the convenience of the reader (though still left in some of the original
spelling to give it an old-fashioned feel) – like instead of spelling it “show” it was spelled
“shew”.

Plot-wise the book did drag sometimes for my taste. The main character reiterated the same
thing again and again which becomes quite tiresome to read. Although the book definitely
afforded much insight into fictional but contemporary 18th century accounts of servitude,
marriage life, gender roles. Even the way that the letters were written, the formal, elegant
style of letter-writing by the main character was very intriguing to me. It’s such a stark
contrast to the way that we communicate today, and our messages are often brief and direct
instead of long-winded, sincere and sentimental. I scribbled down some of my thoughts on
topics like gender, class etc. while reading the book, and will be sharing them in this blogpost.
It’s not an in-depth analysis by any means but just some observations I made.

Story (spoiler alert)

Pamela writing her letters. Being approached by (presumably) Mr. B. Painted in 1740 by Joseph
Highmore who composed the illustrations for the release of the novel.

Pamela’s lady-in-waiting dies shortly before the beginning of the story, and the household
management is consequently left to her son Mr. B. The wealthy young ‘gentleman’ sexually
harasses Pamela, and when she refuses his advances, he abducts her and keeps her prisoner in
a mansion. In the end, Pamela ends up falling in love with Mr. B and marries him. So,
essentially, it’s about a victim of sexual harassment and abduction falling in love with the
perpetrator. No wonder a lot of people find this story strikingly similar to the ‘Stockholm
Syndrome’ condition.

As a modern reader, you can’t shake off the uncomfortable fact that Samuel Richardson
barely acknowledges that Mr. B is a for the majority of the book a sexual predator
and attempted rapist. Everything even ends well for Mr. B – he is given a happy ending and
marries the underage waiting-maid he’s been trying to seduce. What kind of message does
that convey? Because of this, the romantic relationship doesn’t seem very believable. But of
course, putting it into historical context, 18th century notions of consent and sexual
harassment were radically different than how we see it now. I think the very regressive and
problematic understanding of consent and ‘virtue’ is what makes the book interesting.

Illustration of a disturbing scene in the novel (spoiler), in which Pamela is about to sleep in the
same bed as the housemaid Mrs Jewkes whilst Mr. B hides in the corner dressed as a sleeping drunk
maid, waiting to (presumably) catch her off guard and rape her.

Like I mentioned, this epistolary novel is one of the first of its kind and caused quite a
sensation when it was first released. It was a bestseller. Samuel Richardson had popularised
the epistolary novel. Pamela was a bestseller and people were apparently divided into those
who were pro-pamela and anti-pamela. Some people the didactic element of the novel was a
great way to teach young women about virtue and chastity, while those in the other camp
thought the character of Pamela seemed deceitful and hypocritical.

experiences – many also call it a “psychological” novel. This was kinda new, rarely before in
english fiction have the reader had access to the main characters private feelings, thoughts and
emotions.

I feel like the plot is similar later novels like Tess of D’ubervilles or even modern romance
stories like Fifty Shades of Grey where a young poor or disadvantaged girl is sexually pursued
by an older wealthier man. The plot of Pamela goes on to become a cliché in later romance
novels. The “forbidden romance” if you will.

Gender and the character of ‘Pamela’

There’s a power imbalance between the two sexes in the 18th century and it’s reflected in
Pamela and Mr. B’s relationship in the novel. Due to their different social classes in society,
Mr. B and Pamela starts out having a completely unfair power imbalance; not only is Mr. B a
man, but he is also a very wealthy man of authority and Pamela is a poor subordinate servant.
Mr. B encapsulates men’s role in society as patriarchal and authoritarian and Pamela
epitomises 18th century notions of femininity with her submissiveness and compliance.

In the novel, Pamela is viewed as the epitome of virtuous and christian femininity with her
dedication to chastity, docility and humility. She’s emotionally fragile, hysterical and faints
under stressful circumstances. People in the novel regularly praise her for conforming to the
ideals of femininity with phrases like “you’re an ornament to your sex” and “called me an
exemplar of all my sex”. But Pamela isn’t all passive and compliant, because
she does courageously stand up Mr. B’s ill-treatment of her and is therefore quite complex.

Curiously, many of the same gender stereotypes we assign to men and women today also
dominated the understanding of masculinity and femininity all the way back in the mid 18th
century.

Mr. B describes men uncontrollable sexual thirst the same way the male gender is still
sometimes stereotyped as sexually aggressive and fundamentally unable to control their
urges. “Boys will be boys” kind of talk. Mrs. Jervis says to Pamela that she should “stay out
of the way of men” if she doesn’t want to become a victim of rape or sexual harassment. This
echoes the way many still blames the victim in sexual assault cases today.

Women are also accused of being vain, gossipy and obsessed with fashion. Pamela herself has
a very low opinion of women

The novel also reveals the sexual double standards that are present today as well as back then.
Men are free to call on prostitutes or relieve their urges by having a mistress without too much
damage being done to their reputation. But the same cannot be said for women. As Pamela
says:

Religion and morals

Samuel Richardson was a very moralistic and conservative writer. He was very inspired by
the religious puritan ideal of innocence and virtue. He denounces the idea of sexual and
materialistic “self-indulgence” and thinks it is the root of all evil. Pamela exemplifies the ideal
puritan woman; she refuses any sexual relationship with Mr. B. Pamela also declines to
receive any pecuniary gifts continually offered by Mr.B and his servants. And despite being
delighted at receiving fine clothing and luxury items by the wealthy Mr. B upon his mothers
death, Pamela rejects the fine clothing when going to her father’s poor village house in fear of
being considered vain and out of place; Pamela’s purity and good behaviour is essentially
“rewarded” with her being married to a noble man and the story having a happy ending.

Also throughout the entire novel, Samuel Richardson makes it clear that Pamela knows her
place in society. She’s born lower-class and she embraces her family’s poverty. She’s by no
means ashamed of it or repulsed by poverty like other haughty snobbish 18th century people
were.

In the end, this is a moralistic conduct novel (as there were many of in the 18th century).
Samuel Richardson is saying; this is how young girls should conduct themselves, if you
resolve to be pure, innocent, religious and humble like Pamela, everything will end well for
you.

Class

The marriage between the poor servant Pamela and the wealthy nobleman Mr. B caused quite
an uproar in 18th century english society. It was scandalous that a servant should marry her
master, someone so above her own class. But a lower-class girl marrying a higher-class man
is a plotline found in surprisingly many romance-novels, and there’s a reason for it. In the
18th and 19th centuries, a woman’s social ranking was determined by either her father or
husband’s place in the social hierarchy. To quote Mr. B himself:
This is probably linked to the legal doctrine of “coverture” which purports that a woman’s
legal existence is ‘suspended’ during marriage and is ‘consolidated’ into that of her husband
and the wife loses almost all the privileges she’d have as a single woman (to own property,
keep salary, sign contracts etc). It may also be linked to why women has historically assumed
her husband’s last name instead of keeping her own.

But the problematic thing about this, is that while the gender difference of ‘man and woman’
in an 18th century relationship is unequal (due to men being considered superior), the class
distinction creates even more of a power imbalance. Pamela should not only listen and obey
her husband because he’s male, but also because he’s higher-born than her. After their
marriage, Pamela willingly continues to address her husband as “master”. Some of Mr. B’s
friends even jokes that all wives should call their husband’s ‘master’.

Pamela herself, in the first few pages of the book, acknowledges that the class distinction
between her and Mr. B should make their relationship implausible. She was also apprehensive
about sharing her fear of Mr. B’s sexual advances with others, as they might consider her
vain; But it also seems that Pamela expects a sort of ‘respect’ from her master. Pamela is
astonished to discover the motives of Mr. B to be completely antithetical to that of a
gentleman. After all, an ideal gentleman would preserve her virtue, not ruin it. So, Mr. B’s
sexual advances towards her shows a lack of respect for her class; he doesn’t consider the
reputation she’d lose nor her right to bodily integrity.

The quote reveals Mr. B’s sense of entitlement; how dare Pamela refuse his advances and talk
back to him when he is her superior. Richardson’s negative portrayal of the immoral,
pompous and entitled Mr. B suggests that he might’ve drawn some from the real world of
18th century society. In another scene, Mr. B actually blames Pamela’s cheekiness as the
reason he’s been ‘rougher’ with her. In response, another servant insists that Pamela should
know her place. This conversation puts the blame on the victim, not the perpetrator.

! “I said, ‘I won’t stay’”

‘You won’t, hussy! Do you know whom you speak to?’

“I lost all fear and all respect, and said “Yes, I do, sir, too well! Well may I forget that I am
your servant, when you forget what belongs to a master’”

Pamela believes in the puritan idea that ‘humility’ is a virtue. These religious ideals also
intertwines with her class – as lower-class persons should ideally ‘embrace’ and acknowledge
their social class and their place the hierarchy. Pamela does this by discarding her late Lady
B’s fine clothing and by continually being “humble” and excusing herself in the presence of
ladies and gentlemen. In the same vein, higher-class people should acknowledge their place in
society and act accordingly. When Pamela marries, she feels it acceptable to finally wear her
late Lady B’s fancy clothes without too much guilt.

Mr. B is complex in terms of how he engages with his own class and class differences in 18th
century society. On one hand, he looks past class differences when he marries his waiting-
maid but is at the same time very aware of his social status and exploits it to seduce and
abduct female servants in his household. After all, Pamela isn’t the first girl he has sexually
pursued, a former servant of his became pregnant and died in childbirth – which Pamela
apparently think she deserved because she forfeited her virtue (actually, throughout the book,
Pamela is quite a judgemental person – but I digress). Like aforementioned, Mr. B thinks
people of high birth are often spoiled and arrogant in behaviour because of lack of discipline,
he himself acts this way “he was very urgent with me to go ashore, or to go the voyage: I
could have thrown him overboard in my mind; for being impetuous in my temper, spoiled, you
know, my dear, by my mother, and not used to controul, I thought it very strange, that wind or
tide, or any thing else, should be preferred me and my money:”

Marriage Life in the 18th century

Curiously, Mr. B chose a maidservant – a lower-class person – to be his wife, specifically

because he knew she would be obedient as opposed to someone of high-birth. A woman of of
fortune and privilege, he says, would’ve been raised without being subject to control or
discipline, and therefore would’ve been too headstrong and independent to be a decent wife.
Mr. B does not, like other high-born men, want to marry someone who is “accustomed to
have her will in everything”. He abhors the idea of men having to “compromise” with their
wives, which is today, I think, conversely thought of as being one the key standards of a
happy and balanced marriage. His wife should “have shewn no reluctance, uneasiness, or
doubt, to oblige me, even at half a word” and always show a high opinion of her husband
whether he deserved it or not and “draw a kind veil over my faults”.

After hearing his lecture, Pamela decides to scribble down 34 rules he expects a wife to
follow. It’s very interesting to read and, I think, differs a lot from how married people interact
and engage with each-other today and showcases staggeringly and frustratingly unequal
gender relations that women had to deal with in the 18th century. Pamela comments on all
these rules though, in her journal, and some of them she agrees with more than others. I’m
happy Samuel Richardson also included Pamela’s own independent thoughts on those rules.