Skip to main content

III. Pamela, Part 2

I'd like to apologize for the tardiness of this post. It was meant to go up last night, but it has been a rough week and I must confess that even now, I'm not sure how productive or insightful I can be regarding the completion of the novel Pamela.

The second half of Pamela is as unrewarding to this reader as the first. I'm not sure why I have been so put off by this novel, because even though the language and the nature of the novel seem appealing and attractive and easy to read, I've really struggled with this book in more ways than I would have ever imagined. I'm not finished with it and I don't know if I'll ever be finished with it. At this point, I've read as much of it as I can bear to read. And that's not to say that it isn't a good book, it's just to say that for whatever reason, I've felt this struggle and this desire to just throw the book away and never approach it again. It's not a common feeling for me. I love reading. But the characters! My god, I hate Pamela. And I hate Mr. B even more.

There's this controlling aspect of the novel that really bugs me. I can't stand the fact that Pamela seems unwilling to defend her own sense of worth (outside of her refusal to give it up. I mean that's pretty much a defense, but it's troublesome as well that she'd fall for this guy. I mean come on!). There's the imprisonment and then the later Mr. B / Pamela falling in love / marriage thing that seems so beyond the realm of reason or possibility, that I can't imagine how any reader could have taken the text all that seriously. And yet I guess they did? I don't know. It bothers me. The possession of her writing is equally bothersome, and I feel the entire time that Pamela is knowingly giving in to abuse, and yet she seems to be borderline happy and in touch with whatever sense of virtue Richardson is trying to express to the readers. I don't get it. I just can't see it and maybe I'm being harsh because I am unfamiliar with novels and writing of this era. Whatever the case, I don't know.

I think that's where I leave things. I simply don't know what to think or make of the text.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I. Seductive Forms and the Progression of the Novel

I am no authority to speak on behalf of the development of the novel, but regarding the various theories presented in the first chapter of Ballaster’s Seductive Forms , I can only conclude that reason and logic would seem to indicate a preference for Michael McKeon’s theory / understanding of the development of the novel as form and object.  Ballaster does a wonderful job at expressing the weaknesses of theories presented by Watt, Davis, and others within the formalism / historicism/ hybrid theory debate. When reviewing these theories, I struggled to grasp the complexity of some of these narratives. I also struggled with what appeared to be a lack of basic logic in terms of the progression of structure and device. The historicists seem to ignore or undervalue the progression of literary tradition. The formalists seem to forget that every writer, regardless of position or gender, are people living in a given time; that as individuals who exert themselves as writers of the pag...

Evelina: Identity and Observation

Frances Burney's Evelina is a delightful read. There, I said it! I actually really like an 18th century novel! Like much of what we've read this semester, the text is written as a series of letters (epistolary novel) from a series of different voices / perspectives. The earliest letters regard the background to Evelina's situation. One of the themes that develops in these early letters regards identity / social position. At the heart of Evelina's confusion / search for identity, lie her background and rearing under the guise of her "father", Mr. Villars. In these first letters, we are giving a generational backstory suggesting of a place of prominence for Evelina (her mother, after all, was a Lady). The death of her mother and then the death of her father leave Evelina to Mr. Villars, where he does his upmost to educate her and teach her to lead a mild mannered / virtuous / pious life. We don't really get many details of her formal education (save that ...

Haywood's Anti Pamela

If contemporary pop music has taught us anything, it’s that the “haters” are going to “hate, hate, hate”. I’d imagine that when confronted by all the “haters”, Richardson probably just shook them off. Haywood's Anti Pamela is one such story (yes I'm saying that she was a hater. But to be fair, I'd been a hater of Pamela too!). The narrative structure is a bit different. Anti Pamela does incorporate letters, but some of the story is told in traditional third person narration. This is an interesting technique because it gives the reader a much more fulfilled and rounded view of the events which are unfolding in the text. The structure of the story is easy to follow (even if the language at times is very difficult to fully comprehend. Having now read a few pieces by Haywood, I can firmly say that her writing style isn't suited for my tastes. That being said, she's still vitally important to read, and I do see the importance of her work, even if I don't parti...