Pamela- Unreliable Narrator!
Basic Knowledge about the text:
Pamela or Virtue rewarded is an epistolary novel published in 1740 by English writer Samuel Johnson, Novel of a Neo- classical era. Epistolary novel is a novel written in a series of documents, it can be the series of letters or diary writing or newspaper clippings. This novel has the series of letter writing by Pamela, a protagonist to his father and later in other parts of the novel it is a series of diary writing by Pamela. Pamela tells the story of a fifteen-year-old maidservant named Pamela Andrews, whose employer, Mr. B, a wealthy landowner, makes unwanted and inappropriate advances towards her after the death of her mother. The full title, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, makes plain Richardson's moral purpose. The novel Pamela brings out the commentary of the domestic violence of that time and brings into question the dynamic line between male aggression and a contemporary view of love.
Pamela, a novel of manners, is divided into 32 letters starting with the publisher’s note. It is set in Bedfordshire, England and Lincolnshire, England. This Novel deals with the psychological changes taking place in various characters. The novel Pamela deals with various themes like the social classes of English society, the importance of chastity, virtue and femininity, religion, a bit of feminism, and love and marriage. The novel Pamela is narrated by two narrators, first is third person narrator who is an editor who presents Pamela's letters to us and comments on her life and fate. Second, the first person narrator Pamela herself. In this blog I am going to discuss whether Pamela is a reliable character/ narrator or not. 
Here the question of Pamela’s reliability as a narrator rises because when the novel is written in the letter form it presents a direct view of characters' thoughts and feelings without any interference of the author. We see the events and acts happening from one point of view. In this case it becomes difficult to know whether the narrator is telling us right or just forming a good or bad image of a particular character. When we read novels in the form of letters we get to know a shade of a character from one perspective only. As we know ‘one is always bad in someone’s story’. It might happen that the character tower which is built in front of us might be wrong and if we get to know the same character from another perspective we might favor that character. So it becomes very much important to question the reliability of Pamela as a narrator as we also find that in spite Mr. B is not a person with good character as told by Pamela yet she marries him. The Saying and Actions of Pamela don't Go parallel to each other. So here let us discuss in detail about the reliability of Pamela as a narrator.
Unreliable Narrator:
We cannot rely on anyone unless we see with our naked eyes. Sometimes the view scene with our own eyes turns out to be incorrect so listening to something through others and believing it might bring us to the wrong conclusion.
No one more control over the plot than the narrator. Whether its first person limited or third person omniscient the narrator controls the pacing chooses the language and is often the moral compass telling you who to root for and how you should feel about what happens the reader listens, believes and empathizes so what happens when the person telling the story isn't telling the whole story? How can we even tell if a narrator is unreliable?
The term unreliable narrator was coined in 1962 by literary critic Wayne C Booth in his book ‘The Rhetoric Of Fiction’. ‘I have called the narrator reliable when he speaks or acts in accordance with the norms of the work (which is to say the implied author’s norms) unreliable when he does not’ which says that the narrator is not reliable when it does not share the perspective of reality or morality shared by author and reader.
An unreliable narrator is a character whose telling of the story is not completely accurate or credible due to problems with the character's mental state or maturity. An unreliable narrator, however, holds a distorted view of the events, which leads to an inaccurate telling of the story. This can give readers or viewers a chance to offer their own interpretations.
In context to Text:
The novel Pamela is divided into two parts. Pamela was a 15 years old young girl, working as a maid far from her family. This shows her love and self- sacrifice for her family. In the whole novel she seems to be a virtuous character. She was working as a maid for Mrs. B from many years ago. But she dies suddenly handing over Pamela responsibility to his son Mr. B. The first impression of Mr. B to Pamela was of Gentleman. "Indeed he is the best of gentlemen, I think!” we find this image of Mr. B in Pamela's mind through her letters to her parents.
“I always thought my young master was a fine gentleman, as everybody says he is: but he gave these good things to us both with such graciousness, as I thought he looked like an angel.”
Even moving further in the novel towards sixth letter of Pamela we realize that she has still positive thoughts about Mr. B but reading of letter from her father shows that they are afraid for her daughter and finds Mr. B fearful for her.
In the same part of the story happens so that Mr. B starts getting a lustful feeling for the young girl Pamela. And instantly in the letter ten and eleven we find the negative personality of Mr. B drawn. In this letters she claims to be sexually harassed by is master.
"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 colors; and, to me, nothing appears so black, and so frightful.”
In further reading also we find that Pamela was mentally broken and harassed by Mr. B. Mr. B tried to have physical relation with her but she to safeguard her virtues did not allow Mr. B to touch her. Mr. B started harassing Pamela and insulting her. Mr. B asks for marriage to Pamela but she refuses to marry him. He gets angry on her and spreads rumors of Pamela’s relation with Mr. Williams. And he kidnaps her.
In part two, Pamela is kidnapped in another house. From where she isn't able to send or receive the letters from her family. So she started writing a journal.
“I looked after him out of the window; and he was charmingly dressed: To be sure he is a handsome fine gentleman!—What pity his heart is not as good as his appearance! Why can't I hate him?—But don't be uneasy, if you should see this; for it is impossible I should love him; for his vices all ugly him over, as I may say.”
After reading this statement of Pamela how can one resist believing that she is not on love with Mr. B. and here she is again contradicting with her own statements she wrote in the letter before.
Here these things can be interpreted in two ways. First there can be psychological changes happening in Mr. B. it might happen that firstly when Pamela ignored or didn't support him or did not agree for physical advances his male dominant ego or his standard of socially upper class than Pamela might be hurt. Which resulted in abducting Pamela and having rude behavior towards her. And later he must have realized that Pamela is doing everything for her virtuous family and he had a change of heart towards her. And this change of Mr. B bright changes in the statements of Pamela.
Or the second interpretation can also be the psychological changes in Pamela. Pamela is a teenage girl. This is the age when generally children get attracted to the opposite gender. In the starting she was in a frame of mind that Mr. B is a master and she is a maid. Mr. B is generous towards her and was not able to understand his early advances. Later when He tries physical advances she was not able to accept it. After being kidnapped she was all alone and we can see through her writings that she was always in thoughts of Mr. B. This was her beginning to fall for Mr. B. Also, when in the second He proposed to her for marriage and she agreed to it shows that she was attracted to her little or more. We can also say she has the temptation of being a part of upper class society.
Here we see that we are interpreting Pamela with different views. We can also say that Pamela herself is not clear in her own mind! Pamela is presenting us two different shades of Mr. B. we as a reader cannot connect to the character of Mr. B or cannot draw her specific character sketch. So it becomes difficult to say that what Pamela is telling is correct or not; not only in terms of Mr. B but in the overall novel. So we conclude Pamela is an unreliable narrator.
I hope my interpretations and blog is useful to you. Thanks for visiting.
[words- 1606]
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