In our final essay, I will be focusing on Samuel Richardson’s Pamela. In my opinion, it was the most interesting novel that we’ve read this semester, as well as the easiest to get through. In the novel, there is an obvious distinction between the roles of the main characters, Pamela and Mr.B. However, while they obviously have very different roles, perhaps even opposite ones, I do not think it is actually so obvious what those roles are. Although it may seem that Pamela and Mr.B adopt the traditional female and male gender roles, respectively, that is not actually the case. Their roles, in regard to gender, are actually switched; with Pamela taking on a traditionally male role and Mr.B taking on a traditionally female one.

Earlier in the semester while discussing Pamela, the importance of gender roles in the novel was brought up in class. Our discussion was mostly about how Pamela and Mr.B fulfill the traditional dominant male and submissive female tropes, respectively. However, the in class discussion led me to think deeper about the relationship between them and who actually fills which role. It seemed to me that it could be argued that Pamela plays the role of the traditional male and Mr.B fills the role of the traditional female, based on the gender expectations and stereotypes at the time of the novel being written. For example, Pamela is the one who must remain strong and virtuous while rebuking Mr.B’s advances, while Mr.B is the one who lets himself be controlled by his desire for Pamela. Traditionally, women are the ones who are seen as emotional and abandon logic to sate their desires while men are seen as the more level-headed ones.

Another thought that occurred to me is that the relationship between Pamela and Mr.B somewhat models the biblical tale of “Adam & Eve” and “The Fall of Man”. In the tale, Eve is the one who gives into temptation, in her case curiosity, and draws Adam into her downfall. This is similar to how Mr.B gives into temptation, in his case desire, and eventually draws Pamela into it which diminishes the status of her morals and virtue. I think that this could be an interesting comparison to expand on, especially because of the presence and importance of religion and morality in the novel.

In this essay I plan to analyze the relationship between Pamela and Mr.B and how the roles they play, in relation to gender, is unconventional. I will use evidence from the text, and possibly also from secondary sources to further my argument and make my points even clearer.

Early on in Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman there is a reference to the theory of Humorism. According to the Oxford English Dictionary Online, humorism is “the theory that health, disease, and temperament are determined by the four humours of the body”. A humour is “any of four fluids of the body (blood, phlegm, choler, and so-called melancholy or black bile) believed to determine, by their relative proportions and conditions, the state of health and the temperament of a person or animal” (OED Online).  

In the first chapter of Volume I, Tristram describes his conception and the failure of his parents to take it seriously. He claims that the manner in which a man is begotten can effect “the production of a rational Being. . .the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind; –and. . . even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost” (Sterne 5). There is also a footnote for this passage included by the editor, Ian Campbell Ross, listing what the four humours are and further explaining that it was thought in “ancient physiology” that “the ideal person had an equal mixture of the four, while a predominance of one would lead to a person who was sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric or melancholy” (541). It was thought that the four humours, and body fluids in general, completely determined a person’s health and emotional stability. By referencing the theory of humorism, Tristram is further affirming his belief that conception is the most important factor in how someone turns out later in life. This reference is also a bit ironic because while the four humours are not actually the fluids that determine who a person becomes, DNA is, which is contained in another bodily fluid, semen.

Ross likely included this footnote because the word “humour” or “humor” has a much different meaning in current english than it did in the time Sterne wrote the novel. Those who have not encountered this theory in other works or through research of their own would have been confused to its meaning in this context. Also, because this was such a important aspect of ancient medicine and ideologies, it also gives the reader some insight into how important Tristram’s idea about conception is to him and how seriously he takes it.

The image that I chose is an illustrative representation of the four humours, also called the four temperaments, (clockwise, starting from the top left): Sanguine (Blood), Choler (Yellow Bile), Phlegm, and Melancholy (Black Bile). Each of the separate images represent the emotion that humour is associated with. Sanguine is associated with contentment or carefreeness, Choler with anger or aggression, Phlegm with neutrality or a lack of emotion, and Melancholy with depression. The four humours are also associated with seasons, which is also depicted in the illustration: Sanguine is associated with spring, Choler with summer, Phlegm with winter, and Melancholy with autumn.

Works Cited

“humorism, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, September 2016. Web. 17 November 2016.

“humour | humor, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, September 2016. Web. 18 November 2016.

Sterne, Laurence. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Edited by Ross, Ian Campbell. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.

In Edmund Burke’s A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful, he discusses the relationship between what he calls the sublime, how it is invoked, and how it effects people. Burke describes sublime as being sourced from “whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger” and “whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror” (Burke 131). He also states that sublime is “the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling” (Burke 131). In other words, sublime is a particularly strong feeling of dread, revulsion or terror. It can be invoked though literature, such as in the gothic novel The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole.

In Section III, titled “Obscurity”, Walpole argues that “to make anything terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary” (Burke 133). Here he is saying that there usually needs to be an air of mystery in order for something to be scary. This is seen in the novel in the first few pages when suspense is built up by the servants shrieking in horror at something the main characters, and the audience, have yet to find out about. The element of the unknown makes the situation scarier as anything could have happened and it prompts your imagination to run wild with possibilities. Another example of this is when Isabella runs from Manfred and is hiding in a vault, but then sees “a human form, standing close against the wall” (Walpole 37). She screams because she initially thinks that it is “the ghost of her betrothed Conrad” (Walpole 37), and based on the weird happenings in the novel thus far this seems plausible. However, it is later revealed that it is not a ghost or anything supernatural but is instead just a peasant boy. The initial angst felt by Isabella and the audience when she did not know who was in the vault is another way in which obscurity can prompt fear.

The image I chose to accompany this post is a manifestation of the aura associated with gothic novels and their mystique. The painting has a mysterious and creepy appearance due to it’s use of colors and shading. The darkness of the sky and the surroundings makes it hard to see anything in detail and makes it look intimidating. The mysterious figure in white is also hard to identify as a person or as something not human. This ambiguity adds to the aura of creepiness in the painting.