Sunday, October 2, 2011
Required Post: Shamela, Probable or Problematic?
We've talked a lot in class about how some of Richardson's contemporaries read between the lines of Pamela and came to the conclusion that she was, in fact, purposefully seducing Master B through her letters. Some of us agree with those individuals, siting her continued journal-keeping and letter-writing, despite her knowledge that B is reading all of her correspondence, as evidence. Still, others lend Pamela a little more grace, and attribute her seeming coyness to innocence and girlish curiosity. Fielding, obviously, falls into the first category: Shamela leaves little room to doubt his opinion of Pamela's motivations. What do you make of his extreme interpretation of Richardson's supposedly morally upright novel? Is there enough textual evidence in Pamela to support Fielding's reading, or is he reaching outside of the original novel? If he is reaching, what does that say about his motivation for writing Shamela; does it change the impact of his criticism?
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I don't believe that Fielding was reaching outside of Pamela. I read Shamela as being the sort of exaggeration of Pamela. Fielding creates his characters as opposites of Richardson's characters. For example, Shamela seems as if she is more in more in control of Squire Booby(this name just strips him of all authority for me) than Pamela was in control of Squire B. Also, the fact that Fielding switched the roles of Mrs. Jervis and Mrs. Jewkes. Fielding used what was already in Richardson's novel, switched it around, and produced Pamela.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Fielding is reaching at all. I find it really hard to read Pamela as a completely innocent and naive. As we have discussed in class, she seems to almost enjoy the attention (even though it borders on sexual assault) that Squire B. is giving her. I find that Fielding's interpretation is more of an exaggeration of Pamela's desires as Robin remarked. I think Fielding, like many of my classmates, is skeptical of Pamela's moral superiority and tries to show how ridiculous it is that so many people to uphold her as this moral guide for young women.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Robin in that Fielding was not reaching outside of Pamela. I feel that as a class, we made similar conclusions about Pamela as a character and about Richardson as a writer. We evaluated the novel deeper than the average reader would and for that reason we were able to find her faults. Richardson wrote cleverly by not outright telling the readers about the deeper side to Pamela's manipulative personality. Fielding is also writing in a clever manner. He pokes fun at Pamela by reversing the roles of the characters. It was creative and provocative and I liked it.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard for me to say if Fielding was reaching or not. I want to say yes, and I would use the fact that this is written in epistolary form as evidence. We are only getting her side of the story, and she's also consciously writing to her parents the whole time, so it is possible that she cleans up her stories to look more innocent in her parents' eyes. In this regard, maybe Fielding read into Pamela the same way I did. However, I also realize that I am reading this story as a twenty-first century critic, and as this story was written at the birth of the novel, it is possible that readers and writers did not think about the unreliable narrator.
ReplyDeleteI actually don't think that Fielding believes that Pamela was "trying" to seduce her master. I think that Fielding interpreted "Pamela" as a genuine attempt to moralize the concept of Virtue for its readers. He did, however, find this attempt a complete failure; through "Shamela", he critiques the character of Pamela as a seductive woman, but I see his view of Pamela as being one of little credit. He doesn't portray Shamela as a smart or likable character who falls into a seductive relationship, but she has no actual control over her virtue at all and ends up being portrayed as a floozy. I don't think that Fielding was reaching too far outside the realm's of "Pamela", but he definitely used his own perception of the novel's intended meaning and ran with it. Everything that Fielding picked up on through his reading of "Pamela" is included in "Shamela". With the reading of texts like these, where there is plenty of room for reading between the lines, it is hard to say that anybody is wrong, right, or exaggerated in their interpretation.
ReplyDeleteI will be breif here because my secondary lit blog post concerns this question somewhat and you can read it (and please respond) right after this post. Basically, I think that Richardson's original was meant to be read on two levels. The didactic element to it seems sincere especially if we believe that Richardson began by writing a kind of field guid to female manners.
ReplyDeleteI have come, due to my secondary research, to think of Fielding's Shamela as not so much a parody or an homage but just a story he took hold of so he could write his own work without having to create a brand new plot. I consider it in light of cinema. When a director decides to produce a feature film version of a novel it is often because he sees the story as fertile territory for his own ideas. Often the final product often has litte thematically or stylistically in common with the original.
Shamela and Pamela are not different interpretations of the same character. They are two different characters and there is room in the world for them both.
I agree with Jesse that Shamela seems kind of like a cinematic adaptation of Pamela, but it strikes me more like a "Scary Movie" kind of adaptation, in other words, a blatant parody. I don't think Fielding was reaching, the core elements of the story are the same, it's just a matter of heightening the flaws of the original story to such an exaggerated level that they are made plain to the reader. Fielding doesn't reinvent the story as much as he magnifies it to a ridiculous level. He doesn't have to stray too far from the original text for the satire to work (Pamela still writes her parents, encounters all of the same situations, ends up with Squire B), which means that the issues he is pointing out could very well have been present in the original work.
ReplyDeleteI do think that Fielding holds Shamela's actions in low regard, but I do not believe he is attempting to reassemble what he has deconstructed. I appreciate that he gives nothing to correct the problem. I appreciate that his work simply points out the problem without attempting to correct it. Fielding certainly believes that Pamela was trying to seduce B--refer to the scene where Booby is attempting to force her to sleep with him and she has a hand free and she brings him to climax. Fielding does seem to think that Pamela's morals are perhaps a bit looser than she would like us to believe.
ReplyDeleteI am not fully sure on whether or not Fielding was trying to reach out or not because I feel like in many ways Shamela is like a further continuation of Pamela. I definitely know that Fielding felt as if Pamela was trying to seduce her Master rather than simply play as the innocent character within the novel, but at the same time, I don't understand why he would give Shamela a similar role if he wasn't trying to reach out. To me Shamela seems just as disgustful as Pamela if not worse. Shamela seems more of a dictator in her Masters life than was Pamela and I think that because this is true, Fielding was not reaching too far from the idea of Pamela but trying to reach out just a little outside of it by making Shamela more of a independent character. Pamela was constantly seen in the light of her Master and her parents, by always trying to be the perfect daughter whereas Shamela isn't portrayed in such a light.
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