Pamela or Virtue Rewarded

  Pamela as an Epistolary Novel by Samuel Richardson

       This blog is written as part of assignment of semester 1, assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad, Department of English, MKBU. In this blog I am going to discuss Samuel Richardson's work 'Pamela Or Virtue Rewarded' as an Epistolary Novel.

Introduction:-

           Pamela or Virtue Rewarded is a novel by the Neo Classical writer Samuel Richardson. This work is written in Epistolary form in which Richardson was master. This work is a story of the trials, tribulations, and the final happy marriage of a too young maiden, named Pamela. It was published in Four Volumes extending over the years 1740 and 1741. The chief fame of this work lies because it is our novel in the modern sense.(Long) Richardson's works are very much connected to his life. His impact of early life to write love letters for young ladies provided him to make up his career as a writer and that's why he got enormous success and fame in writing Epistolary Novels.

What is an Epistolary Novel?

"Epistolary" is simply the adjectival form of the noun epistle, from the Latinized Greek for letter.(Gottlieb)

    "The term "epistolary novel" refers to the works of fiction that are written in the form of letters or other documents."(Gottlieb)

          Author adds letters in the narrative of the novel. These gave readers a chance to hear from characters in their own voices, adding realism and psychological insight, and they usually advance the plot as well. In Epistolary novels, letters function simultaneously as a narration of what has happened and as an instrument for making things happen. In this Epistolary novel, complete or half of the narration is done by letters. The main advantage of this style is It presents an intimate view of the character's thoughts and feelings without interference of the writer.

       The first novel in English to be composed entirely of letters is usually considered to be 'Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister', published in 1684 by Aphra Behn. The genre novel came into its own with the popular novels of Samuel Richardson in the 18th century with his works 'Pamela' in 1740 and 'Clarissa' in 1748.

        

Richardson as Epistolary writer:-

             Samuel Richardson is considered as the first modern novelist. He was born in 1689 in Derbyshire, England and died in (1762). He became a master printer, which produced the journals of the House of his Commons, and later on he became printer to the King. His early life is not as known as his later life around fifty. 

         As a boy he received very little education, as William J. Long writes in his book The History of English Literature, "He had a Natural talent for writing letters''. As a boy he used to write love letters for girls and this is how he got mastery in writing letters. By this experience in his early life and with his "fondness for the society of 'his dearest ladies' rather than of men, gave him that intimate knowledge of the hearts of sentimental and uneducated women which is manifest in all his work". After going through the works of Richardson, we will realise how he depicts sentiments of women in his works.

                Around the fifties of his life he got a small reputation as a writer of elegant epistles, which led some of the publishers to approach him to write a series of "Familiar Letters". He accepts this proposal and he has an inspiration to make these letters to tell the connected story of a girl's life. As a result of this inspiration, we get his masterpiece 'Pamela Or Virtue Rewarded'. After the succession of this novel, he began to write another series of letters named 'Clarissa or The History of a young Lady', which was published in eight volumes in 1747-1748. The other letter series of his resulted in his work 'Sir Charles Garndison'(1754), in which he depicts the story of a man as in his earlier works he told stories of women. 

In the Editor's note of the Novel 'Pamela' it is written that, "His works are an almost microscopically detailed picture of English domestic life in the early part of the eighteenth century".(Richardson Pamela, or virtue rewarded by Samuel Richardson). Richardson favoured the epistolary style because he believed that it brought the reader into close contact with the emotional and psychological world of the letter writer. Here is the video of Samuel Richardson as an Epistolary writer in detail.

Pamela as an Epistolary Novel 

               Pamela is an endless series of letters, telling of the "trials, tribulations, and the final happy marriage of a too sweet young maiden"(Long). It was published in Four Volumes extending over the years 1740 and 1741. This is the first novel written in the modern sense. It is sentimental, grandiloquent and wearisome. Samuel Richardson began with Pamela the purpose of teaching his hearers how to write, which ended with the deliberate purpose of teaching them how to live; and in most of his work his chief object was, in his own words, to inculcate virtue and good deportment.(Long). This work is made as an outcome of what he used to do in his early age to write love letters for girls. The mindset and deportment of girls understood by Richardson can be seen in this work. 

                  'Pamela'is a story of a 15 year old maiden name Pamela Andrew's victorious struggle against her master's attempt to seduce her. This novel is based on her correspondence with her parents through letters. The whole story is told by 58 letters(Richardson Pamela, or virtue rewarded by Samuel Richardson). Out of 58 letters only three letters are by her parents and which are 2, 12 and 17. Through these letters the whole story is established very well and by this narrative pattern we can understand the emotions and feelings of the protagonist 'Pamela' in a much deeper way. After the death of Lady B, Pamela continues to work in her house which is now has been if Mr. B . So her life with Mr. B is depicted in her letters to her parents about fear of losing chastity, behaviour of Mr. B and later on her happy married life with Mr. B. This series of letters becomes a bridge between her and her parents to communicate what they want to in a time when there were no gadgets like modern time available. 

               These letters paved her path through her parents Mr. And Mrs. Andrew to preserve her chastity by any cost. We can see the conservative mentality of her parents through their beliefs. But at the same time we must consider the education of Pamela. She is working in the house of Mr. B as a maiden. In her letters we can observe magnanimous form and way of writing. That's what Mr. B praises her spellings in writing which is described in the very first letter to her parents, we don't know anything about her education. But through her letters, Pamela seems to be humble and faithful to her religion and her family. It values virginity which contributes to marriage. Her letters can be classified into two categories, first,  in the early stage, she wrote letters to her parents about her Moral dilemmas and after getting abducted and imprisoned by her master Mr. B, she continues to write letters to her parents but she doesn't know whether these letters will reach her parents or not. And unfortunately all these were not reached to her parents and it was like a diary writing.

Scribbling these letters helps the protagonist organize her life and remember the past. She relies on her written correspondences and without them, she has trouble recollecting past experiences. In short, this intriguing  narrative approach illustrates that, for its time period, it would be best to classify this Richardsonian epistolary technique, as Nancy Armstrong (1987) argues, "as something other than common fiction, not a novel according to the standards of the day."

            Pamela begins her narrative without any clear sense of her identity. In 'What Pamela knew: An interpretation', John Dussinger argues that "Pamela is neither as 'reliable' narrator nor a moral stereotype as character. In this article, he also describes the role of Pamela in a much more precise way. He says, She minds her pen more than her needle because her existence as a character in some role depends in the first place in her Role as a writer. Well, considering arguments of Dussinger, and comparing it with the Novel 'Pamela', there is a clear distinction that Pamela is not only a character who plays a role as a protagonist but considering her letter writings, she became the narrator or writer of what is presented in the novel.

           Pamela's writing can be anecdotal, confessional, explanatory, diversionary, defensive or persuasive and her meta-narrative offers insights about her characters and her behaviour with other characters. 

Conclusion:-

           To sum up the discussion of the novel 'Pamela or Virtue Rewarded' by Samuel Richardson as an Epistolary Novel, we can identify that the epistolary style is used to describe life and state of Mind of a character in a much precise way. As it is the first Epistolary Novel of English literature, it has gained very much fame through the characterization of Pamela and Mr. B through letters of Pamela.

Work cited

Beebee, Thomas O., and Beebee, Thomas Oliver. Epistolary fiction in Europe, 1500-1850. Kiribati, Cambridge University Press, 1999

Blanchard, Jane. “Composing Purpose in Richardson’s ‘Pamela.’” South Atlantic Review, vol. 76, no. 2, 2011, pp. 93–107. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43050924. Accessed 2 Nov. 2022.

Gottlieb, Evan. “What Is an Epistolary Novel? || Definition & Examples.” College of Liberal Arts, Oregon State University , 1 Oct. 2022, https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/what-epistolary-novel.

Richardson, Samuel. “Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson.” Project Gutenberg, 1 July 2004, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6124.