Pamela and Shamela are the books where the same character is portrayed in a radically different ways. I have chosen these two books for my final paper. My aim in the paper will be to convince you that Henry Fielding’s parody is more than an inversion of Pamela, it  is an exposure to Samuel Richardson’s use of unreliable language to show the realistic image of virtue.

 Pamela is a book written in an epistolary form where our protagonist is displayed as virtuous, young yet courageous. It is a widely popular story where a young maid falls victim of sexual harassment by her master who belongs to an upper social class. With the series of the epistles, she walks us through numerous innocent attempts of her that results not only in the successful transformations of an evil rich squire into a gentlemen but also a life of poor fifteen year old maid that ends with happily ever after. On the other hand, Shamela is although written in an epistolary form, however consists of letters from characters involved in and out of the story. The same girl Pamela by Samuel Richardson is unveiled as the exact opposite by Henry Fielding. Shamela is exposed as a crafty, cunning, unfaithful and wholly designing gold digger.

Henry Fielding is painting a picture of a young and so called virtuous servant whose resemblance to Pamela is slim to none. However, I think Fielding’s parody of Richardson’s Pamela is not what it seems in the public eye. It could be said that Henry Fielding is urging his readers to come to senses that the one deceiving the world isn’t Pamela but Samuel Richardson.

In Pamela, Richardson follows a technique where the heroine of the story writes letters in the present tense. This is Richardson’s style of “writing in the moment”. I will be using excerpts from Fielding’s Shamela to show the falsity in the idea of “writing to the moment” that Richardson follows . As Pamela is a collection of number of letters, it simply sugar-coats the vulgarity in the form of romance or disguises it without the use of an explicit language. I will be analyzing it deeper and interpreting the real meaning of it in the words as mentioned in Fielding’s Shamela. Moreover, taking characters just as it is from Pamela with slight changes in their names or persona such as Shamela instead of Pamela, Mr. Booby instead of Mr. B, old righteous mother of Pamela into conniving woman which is another way of Fielding’s stripping away the characters to help readers deal with the recognition problems.

Furthermore, Henry Fielding’s Shamela to me is a representation of erotic romance novel to some extent more than just a parody. I think it is Fielding’s striking way of bone picking with Richardson. The use of explicit language within the story and morally undermining Shamela as an anti-heroine invokes the idea of how strongly Fielding is disturbed by the unrealistic concept of virtue that Richardson has abused to fool his readers.

 

As mentioned in the footnote, the word “Homunculus” is used to refer to the miniature human figure which early microscopists believed they saw in a spermatozoon. In earlier century fiction, it has historically referred to the creation of a miniature, fully formed human.

In Book I (chapter II), Tristram Shandy provides the details of the fateful night how the troubles had started even before his birth. Tristram Shandy, is found enlightening the reason behind his doomed life which is wrongly passing of animal spirits by his very own parents, “Then let me tell you, Sir, it was a very unseasonable question at least, -because it scattered and dispersed the animal spirits, whose business it was to have escorted and gone hand-in-hand with the HOMUNCULUS, and conducted him safe to the place destined for his reception (6)”.

To me the word “Homunculus” although is used to describe how Mr. and Mrs. Shandy was at fault for Tristram Shandy’s damned life, however is used by our very own narrator, Tristram, like an intangible weapon used for appealing his readers to perk up their ears and get ready to sympathize with his life consisted of pitiful misadventures and accidents.

In most stories in the very beginning, when a narrator narrates a story, a protagonist is described as either virtuous, smart, charming, beautiful or anything that will escalate their personality or status. Whereas in Tristram Shandy’s story, at all times, he leaves no room to belittle himself. He provides deep and lengthy details of his doomed life from the very beginning playing as a victim. In my viewpoint, the word “Homunculus”, helps us catch a glimpse of Tristram’s personality more clearly than the context/theme in that very chapter. I think Tristram reveals himself as a self-obsessed and highly opinionated individual, providing detailed flaws about all other characters playing a role in his misfortunate life. In addition, guiding his readers what the rest of the story is going to be like. In other words, I believe we are able to unveil the flaws of Tristram’s mind rather than Mr. and Mrs. Shandy’s or anybody else’s from the story.

In book II (chapter II), Locke’s theory, ‘Essay upon the Human Understanding’ is mentioned. To me, I think that context relates to this very chapter that could be used to describe the foundation of Tristram Shandy’s life and opinions. Basically, Locke’s theory defines “the association of the ideas” is the flaw of the mind. Now with the words like Homunculus, the wrongly dispersal of animals spirits is how he begins to self describe his ill-fated life even way before he is born which I believe could merely be the flaw of his mind. Evidently, Tristram’s way of narration, unconscious association, random digressions and chaos in his life invokes the thousands of weaknesses in his personality. Which could indeed be the flaw of his mind in association of ideas of the unfortunate incidents that he had encountered before and after his birth.

 

 

 

Works Cited

Sterne, Laurence. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.

 

 

Clara Reeve mentions it in her preface of The Old English Baron (1778), I confess that it may be abused, and become an instrument to corrupt the manners and morals of mankind; so may poetry, so may every kind of composition; but that will prove nothing more than the old saying lately revived by the philosophers the most in fashion, “that every earthly thing has two handles”, and I couldn’t agree more with her. The one handle by which it can be carried and by the other one which it cannot. To elaborate, fiction is a double edge sword capable of transferring a moral message under the sugar coating entertainment. But when the duty of doing so is unsuccessful, one ends up using its attractions to corrupt instead.

As said by Clara Reeve in the novel, The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, the opening excites the attention very strongly. Not many novels would have such a beginning where a certain homely young boy’s somewhat lengthy background is provided in the first page, making readers to perceive that character is to be playing the lead role. Few minutes later, only to find out, the same character dies in the very page. If opening such as this doesn’t excite readers, God knows what will. Furthermore, Clara also praises the artful and judicious conduct of the story, admirably drawn characters; polished and elegant diction. Thus, “every earthly thing has two handles”, can be understood in depth with the same example. Impeccable advantages were available to make The Castle of Otranto an amusing, fun and readable novel

However, the overdoing of supernatural manifestations in the story stood out as a distinct reason for losing its credibility. An amusing event of the young prince who is about to marry dies in the beginning , but a helmet so giant that could force a passage through a court-yard falls from the sky and crushes the young prince to death. A helmet so huge in appearance and weight is flying up in the sky before it lands on the court-yard and yet nobody saw it is one of the many oddities in the novel.Furthermore, series of ghostly manifestation, for instance a picture that walks out of its frame, a skeleton ghost in a hermit’s cowl comes out, happens in the story but readers get a very short time span to play with their imagination. Next thing you know, narrator lays out all the exciting work of imaginations out there for its readers. Thus,  Clara Reeve criticizes, the term mentioned “Enchantment” vanishes so quickly in no time, killing the surprise/suspense down with a witness leaving no room for its readers to be excited about.

While reading through The Castle of the Otranto, these unsettling disappointments were the common grounds of my siding with Clara Reeve’s criticisms as mentioned on her preface.

The mask depicts horror with the devil horns and evil glare and also it has evil laugh at the same time.

Picture found online(Just a mask tattoo design)