Pamela is a novel, it was written by Samuel Richardson in the 18^th century. As the reader can see, the title of the novel is a proper name of a person; the idea of the title was taken from Sidney's pastoral romance called Arcadia. The novel is an epistolary novel, it means that it is made up by letters which are written by Pamela who is the main character of the novel. She is fifteen and she works for an aristocratic family as a servant. Pamela writes the letters to her parents to explain them what happens and her situation in the family. Reading the letter XXI, the reader can understand that Richardson (the novelist) does not want to tell about Pamela's life but he wrote the novel to explain the relationship between man and woman, between two different social classes (aristocracy and poor people) and last but not least he wrote about the situation of woman in his century.

In letter XXI, Pamela writes an episode happened one day. She says that she spoke about his master, Mr B., who felt in love with Pamela but first she doesn't accept his feelings, with Mrs Jervis who is a servant like she. Reading the letter the reader can make some conclusions about the protagonist: Pamela welcomes the attentions of Mr B. Richardson speaks about Pamela's situation to explain also the conception of the woman in the 18^th century: she had to be virtuous like Pamela. As a matter of fact the title of the novel is Pamela, Virtue Rewarded.

So if Pamela accepted Mr B. feelings, she would not become a virtuous woman.

Pamela had a great success because it reminded to Cinderella folk tale in which a poor woman becomes a Lady of the middle class or of the aristocracy and moreover people of Richardson's period would recognize themselves in Pamela's situation.