Frank W. Bradbrook in his article about Samuel Richardson ( The New Pelican Guide to English Literature) claims “Unfortunately, the character of Pamela does not create the impression of pure and injured innocence that Richardson intended. The weakness of Richardson as a moralist is that he appears to be unconscious of the implications of the situations that he describes. There are elements of hypocrisy and coarse-grained vulgarity in his heroine. What repels the reader is not merely the inconsistency of a supposedly chaste maiden whose dreams are filled with ideas of rape, but whose waking moments resound to prate about her honour”.
Do you agree or not? Justify your opinion basing yourself on what you have read.
I agree to some extent: it is true that Richardson's depiction of Pamela may not seem believable at some points, but I took it as intended. If we think of Pamela as a model to be reproduced by ladies, as a book to be used to preach, then it will surely contain elements which may not coincide with reality. In this view of Pamela as the perfect model to be followed, we must expect to find the life of a person which, indeed, is not real.
ResponderEliminarWe must take into account, on the other hand, that the reading public was changing and that more women were beginning to read, more women like Pamela. Thus Richardson provided them with a story they could relate to and dream to achieve. A life much like theirs but also far from reality. A life they could dream of but probably never reach.
I believe Richardson never intended to create a believable character; Pamela was only the means to carry a message.
Interesting! So, in your opinion you wouldn't agree with the need to create a parody of Pamela (as the one Fielding created), since Richardson's intention was not to create a true-to-life character.
ResponderEliminarExactly! Richardson’s work should be judged according to its teachings and not its characters or setting. If the aim is not to reproduce reality it is useless to criticize in that aspect.
ResponderEliminarI agree on what was said about Pamela, there are a lot of inconsistencies. Richardson wanted to show us how a well-mannered, poor-but-honored girl should behave but he didn´t achieve that aim. After reading it what I thought of was that instead of highlghting the good in what she did I enden up paying more attention to what was left to imagination, by reading between the lines. After reading Pamela, and reading Shamela by Fielding,I by far prefer the Shamela version!
ResponderEliminarYes,Fielding unclosed the hidden events which were not narrated in Pamela.
ResponderEliminarI should say that only after reading both novels, Pamela and Shamela, I partially agree with Bradbrook's claim.
ResponderEliminarI add 'partially' because before reading Shamela, I wouldn't have thought of the character of Pamela as not creating the impression of the morally good and decent maiden the writer wanted to depict; especially if we take into account the context in which Pamela was created.
On the one hand, I think Richardson had a clear purpose in mind (that Pamela should be a model of virtue and moral to be followed by young ladies at that time) and he partially fulfilled it; otherwise the novel wouldn't have been as succesful as it actually was.
But, on the other hand, to some people at that time (people like Fielding who were against the hypocrisy of contemporary mores) Pamela was not seen as the heroin Richardson had in mind. I think this is the reason why a parody of Pamela was needed, to show this other way of thinking and of perceiving contemporary reality.
Line 3: 'I wouldn`t have thought' I should have wrote instead 'I didn't think'
ResponderEliminarsould have written!!!! sorry!
ResponderEliminar