Blog Task : 'Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded' by Samuel Richardson.

Question : Is Pamela a reliable narrator? If Yes, then Why? If No, then Why?

Answer : Pamela, in the first epistolary novel 'Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded' by Samuel Richardson, is a girl who is a secondary narrator in the novel. We can say that she can be both - a reliable and unreliable narrator at some extent to each.

But, here, one can find that she is imbued with the so-called conventional notion of being a chaste and pure in character, so we can say that she is already steeped in the influence of outward factors and thus lacks the voice of her own, so guessing by this inference, we can say that she is an unreliable narrator in the course of the novel.

"Be sure don't let people's telling you, you are pretty, puff you up; for you did not make yourself, and so can have no praise due to you for it. It is virtue and goodness only, that make the true beauty." (Letter VIII)

So, when her father tells her that come what may, she should remain virtuous and never let herself be puffed up by the lascivious talks of people who want to take advantage of her. Thus, Pamela cannot set forth her own views in counter but naively accepts whatever is being insinuated in her innocent mind.

Another exemplary incident to prove that she seems to be unreliable is when she writes to her father and entrusts them of her honesty :

"DEAR FATHER,

I must needs say, your letter has filled me with trouble, for it has made my heart, which was overflowing with gratitude for my master's goodness, suspicious and fearful: and yet I hope I shall never find him to act unworthy of his character; for what could he get by ruining such a poor young creature as me? But that which gives me most trouble is, that you seem to mistrust the honesty of your child. No, my dear father and mother, be assured, that, by God's grace, I never will do any thing that shall bring your grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. I will die a thousand deaths, rather than be dishonest any way." (Letter III)

Let us try to see how unreliable she is when she seems to praise Mr. B. at some little extant in the novel :

"DEAR MOTHER,

You and my good father may wonder you have not had a letter from me in so many weeks; but a sad, sad scene, has been the occasion of it. For to be sure, now it is too plain, that all your cautions were well grounded. O my dear mother! I am miserable, truly miserable!—But yet, don't be frightened, I am honest!—God, of his goodness, keep me so!

O this angel of a master! this fine gentleman! this gracious benefactor to your poor Pamela! who was to take care of me at the prayer of his good dying mother; who was so apprehensive for me, lest I should be drawn in by Lord Davers's nephew, that he would not let me go to Lady Davers's: This very gentleman (yes, I must call him gentleman, though he has fallen from the merit of that title) has degraded himself to offer freedoms to his poor servant! He has now shewed himself in his true colours; and, to me, nothing appear so black, and so frightful." (Letter X)

Now at the point of summing up the justification, we can safely say that the character of Pamela is an embodiment of Victorian feminine spirit and the conventional thinking of the society back then. Richardson involved psychological aspect of Pamela by acting as a third-person limited omniscient narrator in the novel, which divulges the norms and the concept of 'true woomanhood' of the 19th century society of Victorian England.

Thank you!

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