S. Richardson, Pamela 

Letter XI

The extract is part of the famous Samuel Richardson’s novel “Pamela”. It is an epistolary novel. In particular, I am going to analyse the 11^th letter, written by Pamela to her mother as you can see from the beginning of the letter, but at the end she addresses both to her mother and father, inviting them to pray for her and not to be angry if she has not yet run away from the house she is.

Reading the letter, the reader can understand the storyline. The story is about a young maidservant named Pamela, whose country landowner master makes unwanted advances towards her. So, the girl is subdued, in a way or another, by her master. 

Since the text is taken from an epistolary novel, the reader comes into contact with character’s thoughts, convictions and her behaviour as well. In the novel Pamela writes to her parents and through the letter the reader comes to know about her doubts on what behaviour was the most proper. So, the narrator is also the protagonist. The choice of the novelist to tell the story in first person allows the intelligent reader to understand that all the events are filtered by Pamela’s point of view.

Reading the letter, it presents both direct and indirect speech. Pamela quotes the exact words between her and her master to convey a sense of reality and to outline the personalities of the different characters. At the same time the use of dialogues commented by the protagonist allows the reader to be involved by the story and to create an own opinion about them.
In addition, the intelligent reader can find out two registers: an informal one, used to communicate with her mother and a formal one, used to communicate with her master. The presence of the two registers creates the distance between the two social classes the two characters (Pamela and the master) belong to.

Right from the start, the reader can understand how much Pamela fears her master from the phrase “I saw some reason to suspect; for he would look upon me, whenever he saw me, in such a manner, as shewed not well” and from the first line of her master, who says that she always runs away from him. Fear is Pamela’s prevalent feeling in the rest of the letter. Her fear can be understood by the reader, who would probably do the same in her situation, since her master tried to harass her. However, by reading the text, the reader can see that Pamela doesn’t criticize her master for harassing her, but for not behaving as his social class wants him to do, since Pamela says: “Well may I forget that I am your servant, when you forget what belongs to a master.”

From the extract, the intelligent reader can ‘build’ Pamela’s characterisation: she belongs to a poor family, but she is able to read and write. So, the reader could suppose that she received an education. She is proud of herself, her situation and origin. Indeed, she doesn’t accept money from her master. It means she doesn’t want to lose her dignity because the fact that her master tried to keep her mouth shut giving her some money represents an offence for her.

Taking into consideration the master, the intelligent reader can understand her master is class conscious by some expressions like “Do you know whom you speak to?” where he highlights his authority. This attitude is also conveyed by the use of imperative, with which it seems to me he is trying to provoke the girl to have a reaction.