Samuel Richardson wrote the entire story of Pamela in the form of letters that the eponymous protagonist writes and hides. The writing style is intimate and it helps the author present Pamela’s point of view as a first-person account. Therefore, we can call this an epistolary novel.
The author meant for Pamela to be an advice book, meant to “cultivate the principles of virtue and religion in the minds of the youth of both sexes.” The book and the heroine were meant for the ethical edification of female readers, who, when they contemplated on the heroine’s many lovely virtues, could become like her.
Pamela works very well as a book of advice because it uses character types that symbolize good and bad human strengths and frailties. There is Mr. B, “a fashionable libertine, who allowed himself in the free indulgence of his passions.” We also have Lady Davers, who exhibits “a deformity of unreasonable passion.”
Pamela, on the other hand, has numerous virtues that the author suggests are worth emulating. Among other things, she is shown to be obliging to her equals, possessed of generosity and a forgiving spirit, meek and kind, prudent and charitable, betrothed to her God, and restrained in her feminine passions.
To buttress his claim that the book is based on a true story, the author employs the realist technique, describing events in extensive detail, and characterizing people and situations with clarity and elaborateness. He forms our opinions of his characters both through direct commentary as well as through their own revelatory actions.
In other places in the novel, the author also uses the melodramatic and sentimental novel forms to drive home his agenda.
The author meant for Pamela to be an advice book, meant to “cultivate the principles of virtue and religion in the minds of the youth of both sexes.” The book and the heroine were meant for the ethical edification of female readers, who, when they contemplated on the heroine’s many lovely virtues, could become like her.
Pamela works very well as a book of advice because it uses character types that symbolize good and bad human strengths and frailties. There is Mr. B, “a fashionable libertine, who allowed himself in the free indulgence of his passions.” We also have Lady Davers, who exhibits “a deformity of unreasonable passion.”
Pamela, on the other hand, has numerous virtues that the author suggests are worth emulating. Among other things, she is shown to be obliging to her equals, possessed of generosity and a forgiving spirit, meek and kind, prudent and charitable, betrothed to her God, and restrained in her feminine passions.
To buttress his claim that the book is based on a true story, the author employs the realist technique, describing events in extensive detail, and characterizing people and situations with clarity and elaborateness. He forms our opinions of his characters both through direct commentary as well as through their own revelatory actions.
In other places in the novel, the author also uses the melodramatic and sentimental novel forms to drive home his agenda.
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