Pamela

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1740

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-15

Chapters 16-31

Chapters 32-51

Chapters 52-70

Chapters 71-84

Chapters 85-96

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

Clothing

Content warning: This Symbols and Motifs section includes references to attempted rape and sexual harassment.

Clothing draws attention to a character’s social status, reflecting the theme of Inappropriateness of Transgressing Class Boundaries. When Pamela anticipates returning to her parents, she worries about “hav[ing] nothing on my back that will be fit for my condition” (76), since she knows it would be inappropriate to wear her elegant estate clothes in her small rural village. Consumed with performing scrupulous propriety, Pamela divides all of her clothing into three piles, explaining to Mrs. Jervis that she only wants to retain “my dear third parcel, the companion of my poverty” (111). Pamela’s insistence that her clothes align with her context and social position, and her eschewing clothes that are grander than what she deserves or can afford reflects her belief that individuals should be content with their social station, and not attempt to supersede it.

Pamela’s wariness around clothing also reflects the theme of Choosing Personal Integrity over Material Rewards because Mr. B often gifts her clothes—an expensive luxury in 18th century England. These gifts have seductive overtures since the clothing will be in contact with Pamela’s body, just as Mr. B wishes he could be. Over time, his desire to trade gifts of clothing for sexual access to Pamela becomes more explicit: When he proposes that she become his mistress, he offers her “four complete suits of rich clothes” (229). However, Pamela maintains her integrity even in the face of this temptation, and of the desire that he sometimes provokes when he appears in his own fine clothes.

At the end of the novel, clothing symbolizes the reward of Pamela’s virtue. When Pamela and Mr. B make their first public appearance as a married couple, Pamela wears a gown of “white flowered with silver, and a rich head-dress, and the jewels I mentioned before” (505). As a married woman who has won Mr. B’s respect and heart, she now has the right to wear lavish and elegant clothes.

The Black Bull

When Pamela is imprisoned at the Lincolnshire estate, she contemplates running away, but hesitates to do so because of a black bull that is kept in a field she would have to pass through. The bull symbolizes aggressive masculine sexuality, and the threat it poses; Pamela describes the animal as “an ugly, surly, grim creature” (187) and recollects how her mother once told her that “bulls, when fierce and untameable, were to be compared to wicked men” (187). Pamela has also heard that the bull hurt another maidservant (presumably by goring her with its phallic horn), symbolically foreshadowing what she will eventually learn about Mr. B and his past with Sally Godfrey. When Pamela does try to escape, the sight of the bull “staring me full in the face, with fiery saucer eyes” (191) terrifies her so much that she gives up on her plan. Her reaction to the bull reveals that Pamela’s dread of what could happen to her keeps her passive, and that she is also somewhat fascinated by the danger. While Pamela is afraid of the prospect of sexual aggression, she also seems unwilling to fully avoid it.

Fainting

When Pamela experiences intense stress or fear, she faints or has a series of fits that lead to her falling unconscious; this motif appears most strongly in the two scenes where Mr. B attempts to rape her. In the first episode, at the Bedfordshire estate, “Pamela sighed, screamed, and then fainted away” (96). In the second episode, Mrs. Jewkes holds Pamela down until, eventually, “with struggling, fright, terror, I quite fainted away” (242). When Pamela comes to, Mrs. Jewkes urges Mr. B to continue his assault, and Pamela “fainted away once more” (242). The fainting confirms Pamela’s refined and fastidious nature—she is so sensitive and delicate that her body physically rejects the possibility of a sexual encounter. This sensitivity is important given her working-class origins, since fainting would more typically be associated with a delicate and sheltered upper-class woman.

Fainting also serves to develop the theme of Change of Male Behavior Due to True Love: when Pamela faints, she forces Mr. B to question his assumptions that she is simply a sexual object to be used for his convenience, by making it clear that the pursuit of his gratification is traumatic for her. Mr. B is sometimes skeptical, and notes that Pamela is “apt to fall into fits, or at least to pretend to do so” (64), but over time, her fainting persuades him to respect her. The fainting also allows opportunities for Mr. B to demonstrates his own integrity, and for the novel to insist that he is not really a bad man: “he […] vowed that he had not offered the least indecency; that he was frightened at the terrible manner I was taken with the fit: that he would desist from his attempt” (242). Thus, the motif of fainting moderates and tempers the threat of sexual violence in the text; transforming the attempted rapes into episodes that actually lead to the development of mutual respect and affection between Pamela and Mr. B.