The extract is taken from a Samuel Richardson’s novel. The title is “Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded”. Reading the letters the reader can understand the storyline. The story is about a beautiful 15 years old maidservant named Pamela Andrews, whose country landowner master, Mr B, makes unwanted advances towards her after the death of his mother. The aim of the novel is teach to the girl how to behave. Pamela in a way or another is subdued by her master. In Richardson’s epistolary novel the reader comes into direct contact with character’s thoughts, conviction and not only with their behaviour. In the novel Pamela writes to her parents and through the letter the reader comes to know about her doubts, her dilemmas on what behaviour was the most proper. There is a first person narrator and the novel includes direct and indirect speech. Pamela quotes the exact words to create sense of reality and to stress personalities of the different characters. There are also two register: an informal register, which is used in the relationship between Pamela and her mother and a formal register, which is used in the relationship between Pamela and her master. The function of the two register is to create the distance between the two social classes they belong to.

From the extract the intelligent reader can know Pamela’s characterisation.

She comes from a poor family but she is able to read and write. So we can suppose that she went to school. She received an education . she is proud. She doesn’t accept money from her master. She s self-conscious but she doesn’t want to lose her dignity. The act of giving money to a woman to keep her mouth shut represents for her an offence. Giving money to a woman hints also to prostitution.

She is honest. She shows hyperbolic reaction when her master’s attempts to seduce her, underlined by  a climax of emotions (from “afraid” to “terror”).

The relationship between her and her master is unbalanced. Her master is class conscious (“Do you know whom you speak to?”), he is a villain (the negative hero) and he stresses his authority (he uses a lot of imperatives). He is both kind and aggressive; his aggressions are both verbal and physical in fact he gets closer and closer to her. he tries to provoke her reaction.