The English Novel Vices and Virtues Pamela Roxana

The English novel

portrait of vices and virtues during the Eighteenth Century

English Restoration literature, which begins during the 1660s, is characterized by the

development of the English novel, with authors like Defoe, Richardson and Fielding,

who were able to go into the complexity of the mind of the eighteenth-century-man.

I mean demonstrating why the Eighteenth Century novelists are considered the first

writers who succeeded in outlining ostensibly the way the eighteenth-century-society

affected human soul, driving some persons to virtue and other to vice.

I mean harking back to two important characters of the eighteenth-century-novel and

going through the main phases of their life: they are Defoe’s Roxana and Richardson’s

Pamela. Through these characters it is possible to see how the eighteenth-century-man

confronts with some of the main matters of the society of the time: economic condition,

aesthetics, marriage, identity and religious belief. Pamela represents determination and

devotion to duty, humility and honesty, capacity of suffering in silence. Roxana, on the

other hand, is symbol of weakness, corruption and wickedness. This connection

between the single and the society represents the innovative element of the novel, that is

its capacity to comprehend human soul’s depth and to show, with an ethical and

educational intent, that human soul is pliable and can be easily being altered by events.

Novelists achieved this intent, being helped by the form of the epistolary novel, used for

example by Richardson, by which the characters can express their thoughts and feelings

with spontaneity.

1. The temptation

Both Pamela and Roxana, when they find themselves in a difficult situation, come

across a temptation that can completely change their life. It is interesting to see how the

two women behave in front of it.

Pamela is a fifteen-year-old servant and after her lady’s death she begins to draw the

attention of her new master, the handsome lady’s son. Initially he is very kind and

generous towards her and she admires him:

“I always thought my young master a fine gentleman, as everybody says he is: but he gave these

good things to us both with such a graciousness, as I thought he looked like an angel.”

1

Later she understands that the man is attracted to her and that he wants her, thereby she

begins to fear him, because she wants to preserve her innocence:

“I will die a thousand deaths, rather than be dishonest any way.” 2

The chastity as a supreme value is not new in literature; what is new is that Richardson

attributes such motives to a servant-girl. Therefore she chooses to reject all the offers of

her master, that would make her rich, and doing this she escapes the temptation that

would take her to vice. Pamela comes from a poor family, so if she gives herself to her

master, she would save herself and her parents from misery, but to the proposal of the

rich gentleman:

“I will directly make you a present of 500 guineas, for your own use, which you may dispose of

to any purpose you please […]I will, moreover, extend my favour to any other of your relations,

that you may think worthy of it, or that are valued by you. […] I will order patterns to be sent

you for choosing four complete suits of rich clothes, that you may appear with reputation, as if

you were my wife. And will give you the two diamond rings, and two pair of ear-rings, and

diamond necklace […] and I will confer upon you still other gratuities, as I shall find myself

obliged, by your good behaviour and affection”

Pamela answers:

“Fine clothes, sir, become not me; nor have I any ambition to wear them. I have greater pride in

my poverty and meanness, than I should have in dress and finery. […] Your rings, sir, your

necklace, and your ear-rings, will better befit ladies of degree, than me: and to lose the best

jewel, my virtue, would be poorly recompensed by those you propose to give me. What should

I think, when I looked upon my finger, or saw in the glass those diamonds on my neck, and in

my ears, but that they were the price of my honesty.” 3

Roxana is a young mother who finds herself in a very miserable condition when her

husband leaves her without any money and with five children to feed. During this

dreadful period, the possibility of a redemption comes up to her: she receives the visits

of her landlord, a rich jeweler, who begins to court her, giving her food and allowing

her to leave rent-free in his house. Initially she wants to defend her dignity as a wife:

Samuel Richardson, Pamela, London, Penguin Books, 1985, p. 50

1 Samuel Richardson, Pamela, London, Penguin Books, 1985, p. 47

2 Samuel Richardson, Pamela, London, Penguin Books, 1985, p. 229-230

3

“Hitherto I had not only preserved the virtue itself, but the virtuous inclination and resolution;

and had I kept myself there I had been happy, though I had perished of mere hunger; for,

without question, a woman ought rather to die than to prostitute her virtue and honour, let the

temptation be what it will.”

4

However later her misery overcomes her moral attitudes and her maid Amy’s

considerations persuade her to accept the offers of his landlord, taking her to fall into

temptation:

"Your choice is fair and plain. Here you may have a handsome, charming gentleman, be rich,

live pleasantly and in plenty, or refuse him, and want a dinner, go in rags, live in tears; in short,

beg and starve. You know this is the case, madam," says Amy. "I wonder how you can say you

know not what to do."

She justifies her behaviour by the fact that misery has taken her to this decision:

“ My blood had no fire in it to kindle the flame of desire; but the kindness and good humour of

the man and the dread of my own circumstances concurred to bring me to the point, and I even

resolved, before he asked, to give up my virtue to him whenever he should put it to the question.”

She is aware of the fact that satisfying the jeweler, she would adulterate and live in a

corrupt way:

“Pity human frailty, you that read of a woman reduced in her youth and prime to the utmost

misery and distress, and raised again, as above, by the unexpected and surprising bounty of a

stranger; I say, pity her if she was not able, after all these things.” 5

She go ahead in her vicious life and after the jeweler’s death, she becomes the Prince’s

mistress and her vanity increases:

“I must not forget that the devil had played a new game with me, and prevailed with me to

satisfy myself with this amour, as a lawful thing; that a prince of such grandeur and majesty, so

infinitely superior to me, and one who had made such an introduction by an unparalleled bounty,

I could not resist.”

6

And she’s aware of the fact that not only rich men are a temptation for her, but also she

is herself a provocation that makes rich men fall into vices:

Daniel Defoe, Roxana, London, Penguin Books, 1987, p. 47

4 Daniel Defoe, Roxana, London, Penguin Books, 1987, p. 74-75-76

5 Daniel Defoe, Roxana, London, Penguin Books, 1987, p. 104

6

“I am a standing mark of the weakness of great men in their vice, that value not squandering

away immense wealth upon the most worthless creatures.”

7

It is curious to see how, having fallen into vices, it is almost impossible to come out of

them. Temptations comes up suddenly with an irresistible intensity and, like a

whirlwind, they drag men in ruins. Vice is an indelible mark upon human soul.

Roxana wonders: “What was I a whore for now?” and at the end she realizes that it is

too late and that she can’t be saved in no way. Her life is her punishment:

“I had begun a little, as I have said above, to reflect upon my manner of living, and to think of

putting a new face upon it, and nothing moved me to it more than the consideration of my

having three children, who were now grown up; and yet that while I was in that station of life I

could not converse with them or make myself known to them; and this gave me a great deal of

uneasiness.”

8

2. Wealth and poverty

Poverty is a serious problem in the Eighteenth century in England because it involves

more than half the population, who have to struggle against starve. During these hard

times, the poor are helped by local parishes, according to the guidelines of the Poor

Laws and several private charitable institutions sprang up in order to offer assistance to

the needy. But despite these forms of support, misery drives people to despair and so to

try in any way to survive, especially through immoral means like begging and

prostitution. But immorality exists also among rich people, as asserts Defoe (as a

journalist): “Poverty, which is no crime at all, is being treated as the key crime of the

society” , he argues. According to Defoe, the laws against vice should be used also

9

against the rich. So this aspect plays a predominant role in the works of the major

English novelists of the Eighteenth Century, who try to depict the English society,

where the rich get richer and richer, whereas the poor starve, as it is shown through by

Defoe and Richardson.

Daniel Defoe, Roxana, London, Penguin Books, 1987, p. 109-110

7 Daniel Defoe, Roxana, London, Penguin Books, 1987, p. 250

8

9 Maximillian E. Novak, Daniel Defoe: Master of Fictions : His Life and Ideas, 2003

They both insist on the contrast between the world of the rich and the world of the poor.

The risk of a life in uncertainty looms over both Pamela and Roxana, but they have two

opposites views of poverty.

Pamela is aware of her humble origins and she’s not afraid of getting back to her simple

way of life with her poor parents:

“For although I have lived above myself for some time past, yet I can be content with rags and

poverty, and bread and water.”

10

According to her, poverty is strictly connected to honesty and virtue: she is virtuous

because of the education of his poor mother and father.

This contrast between wealth and poverty is emphasized also by the recurring references

to the way of dressing: the fact of wearing her “poor honest dress” represents to Pamela

the return to her modest way of life and she feels unworthy of wearing her lady’s

dresses:

“My master has been very kind since my last; for he has given me a suit of my late lady's

clothes, and half a dozen of her shifts, and six fine handkerchiefs, and three of her cambric

aprons, and four holland ones. The clothes are fine silk, and too rich and too good for me, to be

sure.”

11

Pamela recurs to reflect upon this contrast when she gets engaged to Mister B: she feels

unworthy of becoming his wife, because of her humble origins, and she fears

gentlemen’s judgment:

“It will be said by everyone, that Mr B. a man not destitute of pride, a man of family, and ample

fortunes, has been drawn in by the eye, to marry his mother’s waiting-maid.” 12

Thanks to Pamela, also the evil gentleman, Mister B., has a “re-education” about

marriage and virtue and it represents, according to Watt,” the tri