I would like to begin with the difficulty of gathering all the knowledge we have acquired to formulate a question on a topic worth researching. Like many other students, I will not worry about the word count but have a more focus on a strong topic and question. After analyzing some of the novels we have read, the two novels that caught my eye is Roxana and Pamela. From what we have read, we can say that these two novels share a common issue in the eighteenth century. That issue may pertain to marriage, gender inequality and women’s virtue. Social values during this time was considered an important aspect of life. For example, Roxana prostituted herself to gain wealth, as well as to obtain a higher rank in society which ultimately forfeited her virtue. This was a valued element in a woman at the time and when Roxana married the Dutch Merchant, she had to hide a lot from him. She hid the fact that she was wealthy with many children in order to preserve her virtue in the marriage.
Richardson’s Pamela also contained similar examples of how social values affected their daily lives of women. Similar to Pamela, Roxana showed how social values during the time affected women. Women were forced to choose from following the norms of society or pursue their desired wishes in life. Pursuing their wishes may lead to sacrificial decisions, such that their virtue may be loss in the process. In this essay I would like to analyze these two novels and how social values during the eighteenth century affected the decisions of women which ultimately led to the sacrifice of their virtue. (temporary but I may go deeper).
hello!
I am also working on ‘Pamela’ for my final essay and I really like your opinion that ‘pursuing their wishes may lead to sacrificial decisions, such that their virtue may be loss in the process’. I will write about that Pamela was just young victim of domestic violence (Mr. B) and she was just forced to choose to marry him for her own safety not for “love”. So, in my version, Pamela’s wish was protecting herself and her virtue (or faith, which was not being a mistress and protecting her virginity before marriage) and pursuing that wish lead her to marry to Mr. B, which I think Pamela’s unavoidable ‘sacrifice’.
Hi, i will be following a similar train of thought in my essay. One thing that stands out to me in your writing is your mention of Roxana’s decision to gain wealth at the expense of her virtue, only to later attempt to reclaim said virtue with the Dutch Merchant. I think it would help to really delve into why Defoe chose to have his heroine take on these transitions. That is, what do her choices symbolize in the greater context of the story. Maybe Defoe is expressing the illogicality of their views on virtue; arguing that it is not as essential to a woman’s identity as society may want us (or them) to believe.
In your second paragraph you mention the sacrifices that women had to make in order to preserve their virtue and keep their status in society. I think you should touch up on the many sacrifices that Pamela had to make in order to preserve her own (ie. being held captive for so long). Also, you could be able to derive some controversy from the differences between Roxana’s unvirtuous adventures and Pamela’s virtuous misfortunes. Where do your thoughts lie on virtue? this could stir up a lot of content.