Pamela Analysis

Literary Devices in Pamela

Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

Setting

Most of the action in the story takes place inside the B family's fancy-pants Bedfordshire and Lincolnshire estates, what with Pamela spending a good portion of the book imprisoned in one or the ot...

Narrator Point of View

The fictional editor who presents Pamela's letters to us comments on Pamela's life and fate from a position outside the situations he describes, so he's definitely a third person (objective) narrat...

Genre

Pamela makes use of a kind of psychological realism that was unprecedented in the larger genre of the novel up to that point. But just because it's realistic doesn't mean it's realism, and Pamela p...

Tone

Even during her darkest moments, Pamela holds on to her faith in a higher power that will help keep her safe. When she considers drowning herself but ultimately abandons the plan, despite the fact...

Writing Style

Pamela consists almost entirely of letters, which means it's—drumroll—an epistolary novel. This was pretty much the way people wrote novels up through the end of the eighteenth century, and it...

What's Up With the Title?

Given that the novel consists almost entirely of Pamela's reflections and descriptions of her personal experiences, it seems only fitting that the novel would be named, uh, Pamela. It fits in with...

What's Up With the Ending?

Pamela's editor gets the last word, and the world is that Pamela and her hubby live happily ever after. In addition, the editor presents us with lots of observations, extrapolated from Pamela's sto...

Tough-o-Meter

This novel was published close to 300 years ago, so you're going to run into some references, words, and weird spellings that are going to be unfamiliar. Lucky for you, Pamela's straightforward and...

Plot Analysis

The Age of InnocenceWhen we meet Pamela, she's a sweet, pious, innocent teenager who is as heartbroken that her mistress has died as you would be to find out that One Direction broke up. (We kid!)....

Booker's Seven Basic Plots Analysis

Initial wretchedness at home and the 'Call'Pamela comes from a loving and pious home, but some bad breaks (including her brothers' insolvency) send the family into poverty. To help out, she has t...

Trivia

If Pamela had you rolling your eyes a little too hard, you're in good company: literary great (and Richardson contemporary) Henry Fielding almost immediately wrote a parody of Pamela called Shamela...

Steaminess Rating

Compared to modern media, Pamela is reasonably tame, and its references to sex aren't very explicit or racy. (Unless you find the idea of a man dressing up as a drunk servant to rape a girl titilla...

Allusions

Argus Panoptes (40.6)Boileau-Despréaux, Nicolas (78.19)Epictetus (27.20)Fleetwood, William, The Relative Duties of Parents and Children, Husbands and Wives, Masters and Servants (1.3)Guy of W...