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- Title
Minor Characters and Sympathetic Service in Samuel Richardson's Pamela.
- Authors
Nadeau, Katherine
- Abstract
Critical analysis of Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740) has focused too narrowly on the conflict between Pamela and Mr B as a power struggle between a lower-class, female servant and her master. I argue that we must extend our attention to Pamela's relationships with the novel's numerous minor characters. I connect Pamela's understanding of these relationships to eighteenth-century moral philosophy, particularly as articulated by Adam Smith, to show that Richardson redefines power in the novel to include sympathetic service, a process in which narrative inspires an individual to engage sympathetically with others, and in turn to act beneficently on their behalf. In tracing Pamela's desire to identify all characters, irrespective of class, as sympathetic servants throughout both Pamela and Pamela in Her Exalted Condition (1742), and in taking Pamela's self-identification as a servant even after her marriage to Mr B seriously, Pamela emerges from the novel as a moral philosopher who seeks to model an ideal community in which social relations are structured around reciprocal sympathetic service.
- Subjects
PAMELA (Book : Richardson); RICHARDSON, Samuel, 1689-1761; 18TH century fiction; 18TH century literature; SOCIAL classes in literature; HOUSEHOLD employees in literature; FICTIONAL characters
- Publication
Eighteenth Century Fiction, 2020, Vol 33, Issue 1, p77
- ISSN
0840-6286
- Publication type
Literary Criticism
- DOI
10.3138/ecf.33.1.77