The Epistolary Novel and Pamela

In my brief research on Richardson’s Pamela, I came across BBC Radio 4’s program In Our Time and a segment they did on March 15, 2007 on epistolary literature. The speakers on the program (who included host Melvyn Bragg; John Mullan, Professor of English at University College London; Karen O’Brien, Professor in English at the University of Warwick; and Brean Hammond, Professor of Modern English Literature at the University of Nottingham), discussed many aspects of the epistolary form, as well as the progression of the form and how it was the logical precursor to the novel as we know it today.

It is that idea of the epistolary form as an instrumental building block to what we understand as a novel that allows me to understand the importance of Pamela better than when I first started reading it. Having never read the novel but knowing the basic plot, I came to Pamela with a lot of baggage. How was I going to enjoy, or even get through, a book that details the continuous sexual harassment of a servant by her master that ultimately ends in a consensual marriage? It just seems too...horrendous.

However, I actually found myself enjoying the reading while still being disgusted by Mr. B. and Pamela’s naive forgiveness and love for her “Master.” I found myself being scared, sad, and annoyed for Pamela, and it wasn’t until I heard In Our Time’s episode on epistolary literature that I remembered our previous class conversations on this idea of empathy and identification with characters. One of the commentators (I’m not sure which one), argued that Pamela is such a landmark work because the way Richardson uses the epistolary form invented a new way of reading based on empathy and an extreme identification with the characters. The personal form of letters works to erase the boundary between fact and fiction in such a way that readers cannot help but identify with Pamela’s journey. The commentators suggested that it is for this reason that Pamela was such a media event that it spurred operas, fans, and paintings, among other things.

In other words, using letters to tell a story allows the reader insight into the mind of the character in a way that other early forms of the novel were unable to do. This extremely close and personal access into the character’s thoughts, motivations, hopes, and fears would, of course, encourage an empathetic reaction and identification with the character and I would argue that this certainly does happen in Pamela. In Pamela’s passionate letters to her parents, the reader sees her sincere fear of losing her virtue, as well as her desires to go home, her love of her family and humble background, and even her admiration of Mr. B. Despite how unlikely we as modern readers may find Pamela’s motivations, it is difficult not to believe she as a character is sincere in them and thus, we as readers feel for her in her struggles.

I want to note a couple of other interesting things the guests on this radio program pointed out both about Pamela and the early epistolary novel. First is the actual logistics of what an epistolary novel means, mainly in that the characters are the writers and creators of the narrative, and they become the true organizers of the plot. I think that is very interesting and liberating, especially in someone like Pamela who as a woman and a low class servant, could become an author. Secondly, one of the guests noted that as an epistolary novel, Pamela is different than those that came before it in that previous epistolary novels were usually “seduction” tales where the woman’s secret was a loss of her virtue. The letters would expose her lack of innocence, while in Pamela the letters expose her complete innocence. The guest noted that this really exposes a difference between the perceived values of the aristocracy and the bourgeois. Indeed many of the morals of Pamela seem to align more with the middle class than the aristocracy.

Creating Identity in Robinson Crusoe

I think I am beginning to realize why I wasn’t too taken with Robinson Crusoe when I first read it: the overtones of religion and economy are just too much for me. Not only are they two of my least favorite themes, but they are also interconnected in this book? Whew.

Luckily, I think I found a saving grace during our class discussion, which we got to through individualism and privacy. Shelley noted during her presentation that the rise of literary culture devalued oral tradition to the status where only “the poor, uneducated, superstitious and illiterate” would participate. This devaluing of oral culture would suggest a strong emphasis on the written word and it is this idea of writing and visual imprints, which act as stamped proof, that strikes me in Robinson Crusoe. I talked in my last journal about the importance that Crusoe places on procuring writing utensils and of the written representation of his experience on the island through his journal and makeshift calendar. Thinking through these instances of documentation, I am struck not just by the importance placed on the written word, but on the multiple instances of reciprocal acknowledgement of existence which works to carve out an identity for Crusoe.

In thinking through Crusoe’s journal, I found Hunter’s discussion of diaries very interesting. The rise of individualism and the popularity of keeping a diary would not just change the way one would think of their religious journey, but also the way one views one’s own subjectivity. Not only would journaling suggest that as individuals we all have something unique and therefore worthwhile to say, but also the written account of one’s days and experiences creates external proof of one’s independent existence and life. Through their diaries, people could write their subjectivity into existence.

This reminds me immediately of Lacan (or at least my fuzzy understanding of Lacan). According to Lacan, one has no inherent concept of Self and must construct their whole notion of Self in an external identity and representation. In Lacan’s developmental stages of the Imaginary, one constructs one’s own identity out of an external entity, never internal. Thus, the subject creates an ego out of a lack; there is a desire for self-identification in the absence of a self, so the subject greedily grabs the external image and claims it as their inner self and identity. As one’s identity is fully invested in this external image, one continually looks to the external world to provide assurance for one’s own identity.

We certainly see this external identity creating in Robinson Crusoe. It is not just his written word which works to create this external subjectivity, but also other external factors. For example, Crusoe teaches his parrot Poll to repeat his own name as well as the refrain, “Poor Robin Crusoe, where are you Robin Crusoe, where have you been?” Alone with no human company to assert his identity, Crusoe teaches his bird to repeat back his name, as well as his condition of being lost. In Poll, he also creates that companion that would lament over his disappearance as if to proof that he is missed and loved by others. Even the sight of the imprinted footprint in the sand is a stamp that works to carve out Crusoe’s subjectivity. In that footprint, he sees part of his identity, that of the lone occupant, deteriorate and it causes a severe crisis. His position as ruler of his island is threatened and here is when Friday’s appearance comes to use for Crusoe’s reconstruction of identity. While the bird can call him “Robin,” Friday must call Crusoe “Master.” Crusoe places his now threatened identity as a ruler and master into Friday to assure himself that yes, he is master of his own domain.

Writing the Internal World in Robinson Crusoe

Like Andie discussed on her blog, I find it hard to enjoy Robinson Crusoe when its strong colonialist overtones are slapping me in the face. I don't think this is unusual for British travel narratives of the time to be steeped in colonial symbolism, but the conventions have been so popularized that they become so easily recognizable. After our discussion today, I was reminded of the last travel narrative I read, Ephraim G. Squier's Waikna; or, Adventures on the Mosquito Shore. Waikna was published in 1855, over 100 years later than Robinson Crusoe, and was written by an American archeologist. It is set up as a travel narrative penned by Samuel Bard, a New York artist who decides to make his fortune and meet adventure in Central America.

Like Crusoe, Waikna is obsessed with the minute details of surviving in "uncivilized" lands, which results in journaling, categorizing, classifying, and mapping. Bard also has a native companion, Antonio, as Crusoe has Friday. Both men view civilizing the land as bringing modern machinery to their aid to manipulate the landscape. However, despite these similarities, the world of Crusoe is much more internal and egotistical than that presented in Waikna. While the classifying and journaling in Waikna is presented as an integral process to map out a new territory of America, the journaling in Robinson Crusoe is intended for Crusoe’s own internal use.

Before Crusoe secures paper and writing utensils, he experiences a want for pen and ink, a want that seems rather superfluous. He writes, “After I had been there about Ten or Twelve Days, it came into my Thoughts, that I should lose my Reckoning of Time for want of Books and Pen and Ink, and should even forget the Sabbath Days from the working Days” (48). He does not want to record what he has found on the island or to even use the journal as a form of diversion. Rather, he wants to have writing utensils for the purpose of measuring time for his own use. This measuring of time is for his own use, for him to situate time for his new personal kingdom.

Thankfully, Crusoe does find ink, pens, and paper. I think it is useful to quote the following passage at length:

I now began to consider seriously my Condition, and the Circumstance I was reduc’d to, and I drew up the State of my Affairs in Writing, not so much to leave them to any that were to come after me, for I was like to have but few Heirs, as to deliver my Thoughts from daily poring upon them, and afflicting my Mind; and as my Reason began now to master my Despondency, I began to comfort my self as well as I could, and to set the good against the Evil, that I might have something to distinguish my Case from worse, and I stated it very impartially, like Debtor and Creditor, the Comforts I enjoy’d, against the Miseries I suffer’d. (49)

It is only once Crusoe procures writing utensils that he is able to reflect on his “condition,” and to take into account what has befallen him since the shipwreck. The act of writing is not employed to leave behind a mark of his existence, but rather is to analyze his self and relieve the stress of his situation. Without writing, Crusoe believes he would be unable to rationalize and accordingly set his mind in order with a plan for his new, deserted island life. Thus, writing becomes an organizing principle, a way for Crusoe to come face to face with his situation.

This is perhaps a hint as to why I wasn’t enthralled with Robinson Crusoe. We discussed in class how Crusoe’s ego is so large in that the entire narrative is centered around him as he is only interested in how events relate to him. Now, that seems likely—he is the only man on this island. However, every activity has to relate back to Crusoe, from writing to teaching his parrot to talk, and this internal world of Crusoe then becomes stifling and suffocating to the outside reader.