Virtue on Trial: Sentimentalism, Subordination, and the Narrative Architecture of 'Pamela'
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📑 Table of Contents
- Abstract
- Keywords
- Research Question
- Hypothesis
- Introduction: A New Species of Writing
- The Trial Narrative and the 'Shamela' Paradox
- The Politics of Virtue: Scribal Subversion and Authorial Control
- The Semantics of Subordination: Class, Gender, and the "State of Childhood"
- Conclusion: The Birth of the Moral-Emotional Novel
- Works Cited
Abstract
This paper analyzes Samuel Richardson's 'Pamela' as a foundational moral and emotional novel. It argues that 'Pamela' pioneers a "trial narrative" that redefines virtue as a textually proven commodity. The heroine's "scribbling" functions as an act of "scribal subversion" against the patriarchal and political "censorship" of Mr. B. This narrative structure, however, creates the "Shamela paradox," where the documentation of virtue risks appearing as a performance for a reward. The paper further examines the novel's social-linguistic framework, showing how instrumental, hierarchical definitions of "family" and "friend" and the "great law of subordination" shape its sentimentalism. Ultimately, the novel resolves its conflict by assimilating the heroine into the power structure, reinforcing a submissive "state of childhood" and transforming the classical concept of "happiness" from a public judgment into a private, affective "reward."
Keywords
Samuel Richardson, Pamela, trial narrative, sentimentalism, subordination, gender, class, 18th-century novel, happiness
Research Question
How does Samuel Richardson's 'Pamela' utilize the narrative mechanics of sentimentalism, scribal documentation, and social hierarchy to construct a new, paradoxical definition of virtue, and what are the lasting consequences of this narrative model for the novel form?
Hypothesis
Richardson's 'Pamela' pioneers a "trial narrative" that, while appearing to champion the subversive power of female sentimentalism and literacy, ultimately works to reinforce conservative social structures. By reframing virtue as a commodity to be textually proven and happiness as a private "reward" for submission, the novel establishes a powerful but contradictory template for the moral-emotional novel, one that resolves the conflict between class and gender by demanding the heroine's willing subordination and regression to a "state of childhood."
I. Introduction: A New Species of Writing
When Samuel Richardson, a fifty-year-old printer, anonymously published 'Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded' in 1740, he did more than create an unprecedented bestseller; he provided the definitive template for a "new species of writing" and a didactic text intended "In order to cultivate the Principles of Virtue and Religion in the Minds of the Youth of Both Sexes" (Blanchard 93, citing Richardson). The novel's success, which famously inspired "novel panic" and a host of parodies (Soni 8), was built on a potent and paradoxical foundation. Its propulsive energy comes from a deeply emotional, sentimental, and voyeuristic narrative that allows readers "to enjoy the attractions both of fiction and of devotional literature at the same time" (Blanchard 93, citing Watt), combining "calico purity and underclothing excitements" (Dussinger 55, citing Lawrence).
Figure 1 : Pamela's "scribbling" as an act of "scribal subversion" to document her trial.
This paper will argue that 'Pamela' establishes the novel as a uniquely powerful moral and emotional art form by pioneering a "trial narrative" that redefines virtue (Soni 5). In Richardson's hands, virtue is no longer a static, assumed quality, but a "well-try'd" and textually proven commodity, meticulously documented by the heroine herself (Soni 9). While the novel's sentimental themes appear to champion a new, affective individualism, its underlying semantic, political, and social-psychological structures reveal a deeply conservative project.
Ultimately, 'Pamela' leverages the subversive act of a woman's writing to navigate and, in the end, reinforce the rigid hierarchies of class and gender it purports to challenge. It resolves its central conflict not by liberating its heroine, but by assimilating her into the power structure that oppresses her, a resolution that demands her willing submission to a "state of childhood" (Hilliard 203) and fundamentally transforms the classical, public concept of "happiness" into a private, affective "reward" (Soni 18).
II. The Trial Narrative and the 'Shamela' Paradox
Richardson's most profound innovation in 'Pamela' is not its epistolary format, but its narrative architecture. The novel invents what Vivasvan Soni terms the "trial narrative," a new form that fundamentally restructures the Western concept of happiness. The classical, or Solonian, "hermeneutic of happiness" was predicated on the proverb, "Call no one happy until dead." Happiness was not an experience or an emotion, but a public judgment rendered by others upon the "narrative totality" of a life after its completion (Soni 5-7).
The trial narrative suspends this hermeneutic. It brackets off the main action of the novel as a "state of emergency," or epoch, governed by a different, more urgent question. Pamela's letters, under the tutelage of her parents, methodically shift the narrative's central inquiry away from "Is this conducive to my happiness?" and toward "Does this threaten my virtue?" The events that befall her (abduction, attempted rape, and imprisonment) are thus reframed. They are not hardships that detract from a happy life, but trials designed to prove her virtue (Soni 8-12).
This narrative reframing is essential because Pamela's virtue (chastity) is an internal, hidden quality. Unlike Aristotelian virtue, which is visible in public action, Pamela's "honour" requires an epistemological test to make it legible. The trial functions as a "Satanic logic" (as in the Book of Job): to prove her virtue is genuine, it must be subjected to extreme temptation. The suffering is what gives the virtue its value (Soni 12).
Figure 2 : The "trial narrative" , with Mr. B. as the "censor" and "voyeuristic" reader.
This logic finds its climax in the famous pond scene. As Pamela contemplates suicide to escape Mr. B., she rejects it not only as a sin, but as an avoidance of the trial. She reframes her endurance as submission to a divine test:
"How knowest thou what Purposes God may have to serve, by the Trials with which thou art now tempted? ...wilt thou dare to say, that if the Trial be augmented... thou wilt sooner die than bear it?"
(Soni 13)
This narrative structure, however, creates an inescapable paradox: the "Shamela paradox," named for Henry Fielding's biting satire. The trial narrative requires that virtue be endured for its own sake, with the "hermeneutic of happiness" fully suspended, yet the subtitle 'Virtue Rewarded' announces a reward is forthcoming. This concession "threatens to nullify the effects of the trial" (Soni 20). It invites the "anti-pamelist" suspicion that Pamela was never virtuous at all, but was merely a "subtle artful Gypsey" (Blanchard 95) consciously performing virtue to "make a great one by my Vartue" (Dussinger 54, citing Fielding). The novel's reliance on virtue as a trial creates the very suspicion that it is a performance.
III. The Politics of Virtue: Scribal Subversion and Authorial Control
If the trial narrative is the novel's engine, Pamela's "scribbling" is its fuel. The act of writing is the mechanism by which her private virtue is made public and her trial is documented. As Jane Blanchard notes, Pamela's purpose for writing evolves: it is at once informative, therapeutic, and, crucially, a tool for moral self-reinforcement. She writes so she can "examine, and either approve of, or repent for, her own Conduct," ensuring she will not "have Reason to condemn myself from my own Hand" (Blanchard 95, 97).
This documentation, however, is an inherently political act. As John Dussinger argues, the novel is a "dialogical rendering of the conflict between private expression and public authority." Pamela, with her "supplies of pens, ink, paper," becomes a one-woman "scribal technology that subverts all efforts of authority" (Dussinger 39). Her writing is a "threat" to Mr. B. precisely because it is an engine of "news-making" that damages his reputation by "reveal[ing] his true character" (Blanchard 95).
Mr. B., in turn, becomes the state censor. He is "worried about the damage done to his reputation" and angrily demands, "And so I am to be exposed in my House, and out of my House, to the whole World, by such a Sawcebox as you?" His attempts to intercept her mail, steal her letters, and forbid her from writing are acts of "censorship" aimed at controlling the "tales you send out of a family." This political dynamic is unsurprising, given that Richardson himself was a printer for Robert Walpole's government and "was certainly no proponent of the freedom of the press" (Blanchard 95; Dussinger 40, 42, 45).
The novel's central irony, however, is that the censor becomes the writer's "most assiduous reader." Despite his prohibitions, Mr. B. "does not really want to eradicate her activity and rob himself of his voyeuristic pleasures." He becomes addicted to her narrative, admitting he is "quite overcome with your charming manner of Writing." It is precisely Pamela's writing that ultimately converts him. Her "Papers" are the evidence in her trial; by reading them, Mr. B. can "judge of the Sincerity of my Professions." Her texts are what "satisfy'd all his Scruples" and convince him to marry her, and they later perform the same function for the hostile Lady Davers (Dussinger 40, 44; Blanchard 101, 102-03; Soni 14).
The novel's political conflict is thus resolved not by the triumph of a free press, but by a "rapprochement." The subversive writer (Pamela) marries the censor (Mr. B.), forming a new, stable domestic and political union. As Dussinger notes, this is a pragmatic, Whiggish compromise, allegorized in the whist game where Pamela wins: the Ace (the Law) is "above the King or Queen," but the game is "as much owing to the Knave" (the Prime Minister) (Dussinger 58-60). Virtue is rewarded, but only after it has been read, vetted, and approved by the very authority it sought to subvert.
IV. The Semantics of Subordination: Class, Gender, and the "State of Childhood"
While the trial narrative provides the novel's form, the rigid structures of social class and gender provide its content. The sentimentalism of 'Pamela' does not exist in an affective vacuum; it operates within a precise social-linguistic reality. As Naomi Tadmor's analysis demonstrates, the very language of the novel reveals a world of "traditional," hierarchical, and instrumental relationships (Tadmor 301-02).
Virtue in 'Pamela' is inextricably bound to class. This is most evident in the 18th-century meaning of the word "family." Tadmor shows that "family" had three meanings: the nuclear/domestic group; the lineage or pedigree; and, most commonly, the household servants. As a servant, Pamela is initially outside the first two definitions. Her poor parents are her "parents," but she never refers to them as her "family." This linguistic fact has profound moral implications. When Sir Simon Darnford jokes about Mr. B.'s attempts, he says, "He hurts no family by this." Because Pamela has no "family" (in the sense of lineage or social standing), her ruin is not a social crime. Her marriage to Mr. B. is revolutionary precisely because it restores her (and her parents) to the status of "family" (Tadmor 295-97).
The term "friend" operates under a similar hierarchy. While it can mean an affective companion (the modern sense), in 'Pamela' it most often means a guardian, protector, or patron. This is an "instrumental" term, not an "expressive" one. Pamela calls her parents her "best friends" because they are her natural guardians. When, after marriage, her husband becomes her "best friend," this is not a sign of egalitarianism. As Tadmor notes, the relationship is a "clear vector, bestowing 'friendship' downwards from above" and "Pamela is never referred to as her husband's 'friend'" (Tadmor 299-301).
This "great law of subordination" (Hilliard 202) is the novel's psychological engine. Raymond Hilliard argues that Richardson, a "conservative exponent of a deferential social order," intuits a devastating paradox: this system traps everyone in a "state of childhood."
- Superiors as "Children": Those in power, like Mr. B. and Lady Davers, are "only overgrown children." Because they have never been "controuled," they are "violent in [their] Wills," lack "rational self-control," and are prone to "temper tantrum[s]."
- Subordinates as "Children": The novel's first half depicts Pamela's forced march to autonomy. The "disappointment" of the second half is her regression back into childhood. To be the ideal wife, she must become a "conduct book stereotype," a "meek, humble, grateful Wife" defined by "slavish Submission." (Hilliard 202-05, 210-12, 214, 217).
The sentimentalism of the novel, therefore, is not a force for liberation. It is the emotional lubricant for this system of subordination. Pamela's autonomy during the "trial" was a temporary state, necessary to prove her worth. Once proven, that autonomy is relinquished, and she "stops writing" (Blanchard 103-04), her "composing purpose" fulfilled (Blanchard 93). She has successfully transitioned from her father's "friend" (guardian) to her husband's, exchanging one form of subordination for another (Tadmor 300).
Figure 3 : The "reward" for virtue: assimilation into the hierarchy and a submissive "state of childhood"
V. Conclusion: The Birth of the Moral-Emotional Novel
'Pamela's' innovation, and the reason for its status as a "landmark in the history of the novel," is not its advocacy for social change. Its true genius lies in the narrative form it created to manage the profound anxieties of a society in transition. It synthesizes a "traditional," patriarchal, hierarchical worldview (Tadmor 304) with the new, "progressive" language of sentimentalism and domesticity.
Richardson's novel is "moral" because it establishes a new narrative technology (the trial) for proving interior virtue and making it legible. It is "emotional" because it uses the sentimental, first-person "writing to the moment" to create an intense, voyeuristic bond between the reader and the heroine, forcing the reader (like Mr. B.) to become a complicit participant in the trial (Soni 5; Blanchard 96; Dussinger 40).
But this new art form comes at a cost. It resolves the tension between social class, gender, and virtue by rewarding the virtuous subordinate with assimilation into the hierarchy, but only at the price of her autonomy and "slavish submission." Most profoundly, as Soni argues, 'Pamela's' narrative structure sounds the death knell for the classical, public "hermeneutic of happiness." By severing happiness from the narrative of a life and "reifying" it as a private, affective, and material "reward," something to be experienced in "ecstatick Minutes" after the trial is over, Richardson creates the very template for our modern, sentimentalized, and banal concept of happiness. The novel is born as a moral and emotional art form, but it is one that confines emotion to the domestic sphere and exchanges the classical quest for a good life for the modern trial to prove a good self (Hilliard 214; Soni 6, 18-19).
Works Cited
- Blanchard, Jane. "Composing Purpose in Richardson's 'Pamela'." South Atlantic Review, vol. 76, no. 2, Spring 2011, pp. 93-107. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43050924.
- Dussinger, John A. "Ciceronian Eloquence: The Politics of Virtue in Richardson's Pamela." EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION, Oct. 1999, https://ecf.humanities.mcmaster.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2015/10/dussinger12_1.pdf.
- Hilliard, Raymond F. "'Pamela': Autonomy, Subordination, and the 'State of Childhood'." Studies in Philology, vol. 83, no. 2, Spring 1986, pp. 201-17. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4174239.
- Soni, Vivasvan. "The Trial Narrative in Richardson's Pamela: Suspending the Hermeneutic of Happiness." NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, vol. 41, no. 1, Fall 2007, pp. 5-28. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40267716.
- Tadmor, Naomi. "'Family' and 'Friend' in Pamela: A Case-Study in the History of the Family in Eighteenth-Century England." Social History, vol. 14, no. 3, Oct. 1989, pp. 289-306. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4285789.
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