Education and communication

VIEWS OF WOMEN IN 18TH CENTURY BRITISH LITERATURE:

RICHARDSON VS. FIELDING

Adrian BRUNELLO¹, Florina-Elena BORŞAN²

Assist. Prof. PhD, Faculty of Medical Dentistry, “Apollonia” University of Iaşi, Romania
1

English Teacher, “Virgil Madgearu” Technological Economic High School, Iaşi, Romania
2

Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract Meanwhile, Henry Fielding, Richardson’s

The eighteenth-century British literature described contemporary and rival, was also doing a great
middle-class life and debated what would later be called deal to raise the novel’s reputation, but the
bourgeois morality. Its role was somewhat connected to tradition he followed was different. The
the greater education of the ordinary woman. As soon as
Richardson wrote Pamela the novel became major differences were both technical and moral. The
intellectual nourishment. In this period, females were able difference in the two writers’ moral visions is
to express their cultural power by means of theatre and obvious in the contrast between Fielding’s comic
novel.
and satiric realism and Richardson’s creation of
Issues of gender were widely debated in the eighteenth-
century English society. The period witnessed an upsurge exemplary characters. Richardson hoped to have
of argument about women’s roles. The purpose of this a good influence on his readers by depicting
article is to compare and contrast two of the most important goodness. His Pamela and Clarissa, though
works written in this period: Fielding’s “An Apology for
the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews” and Richardson’s
highly individualized and not quite unrealistically
epistolary novel “Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded”, focusing perfect, were clearly intended as good examples
mainly on the views of the two feminine protagonists. worthy of imitation. For Fielding, exemplary
Keywords: femininity, masculinity, 18th century literature, fiction was out of touch with reality. He
Pamela, Shamela
deliberately made his Tom Jones lack the proper
heroic qualities, arguing that imperfection made
1. OVERVIEW - HENRY FIELDING VS. him human. He warned his readers “not to
SAMUEL RICHARDSON condemn a character as a bad one, because it is
not perfectly a good one. If thou dost delight in
Richardson’s Pamela, published in 1740, had a these models of perfection, there are books now
significant effect on the status of the novel. The written to gratify thy taste; but as we have not,
story of a young servant who preserves her in the course of our conversation, ever happened
virginity despite the repeated attacks from her to meet with any such person, we have not
master, Mr B, and marries him when he reforms chosen to introduce any such here.” (Fielding,
offers the readers a variety of attractions. There 1992)
are the satisfactions of female virtue rewarded In Tom Jones, Fielding distinguishes his own
by true love with honour, and lower-class virtue “heroic kind of writing” from novels and
rewarded by true love with honour, and insight romances, insisting on his adherence to the Truth
into the mind and heart of an innocent yet feeling of Nature. Like Richardson, who tried to convince
heroine. The combination of romantic wish that he was not writing romances but “copying
fulfilment and inflexible morality was very Nature”, Fielding stressed the duty of the
popular, and changed the concept of the novel. “historian” of private lives to “keep within the
With Richardson, fiction became more limits not only of possibility, but of probability
respectable. He was following a long tradition of too” (Macsiniuc, 2003).
epistolary fiction, much of it written by women, The conception of character in eighteenth
and his achievement was based on the traditions century fiction follows two main directions. On
established by women writers. the one hand, novelists interested in the

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Adrian BRUNELLO, Florina-Elena BORŞAN

re-creation of larger, more comprehensive women novelists of the time, and outside of the
pictures of contemporary life would inevitably unlearned Richardson’s range, too. He also
choose to explore the surfaces of experience and treated subjects that were now being indecent,
would make their characters intelligible in terms and therefore out of bounds for moral and
of their “words and actions,” as Fielding put it. modest women writers. On the other hand,
To them a character is a certain type of social Richardson’s concentration on female characters,
behaviour, more precisely, characters are defined on feeling, and his exemplary morality, meant
through a particular interaction between their that he wrote as women were ideally supposed
inner, private beliefs and their outward to write.
manifestation under the pressure of social In conclusion, the two distinct modes of the
demand. As Cornelia Macsiniuc shows, two famous rivals reflect the philosophical divide
“characters conceived in this way, with an of the age. They approached reality from two
ultimate interest in their social self, in their different angles: “with Richardson, it is the
capacity of integrating themselves satisfactorily emotional reality of the characters that counts and
in the social pattern, are best illustrated by Henry the focus is on the inner world of feeling; with
Fielding’s fiction” (Macsiniuc, 2003). They are, in Fielding, the “reality” becomes panoramic, and
Dr. Samuel Johnson’s terms, characters of manners, our attention is drawn to the larger pattern of
as distinguished from the characters of nature, best relationships that define man in a community, to
illustrated by Richardson’s novels. On the other aspects of typical behaviour and to social manners.”
hand, this other direction in character delineation
entails greater attention to the inner springs of 2. RICHARDSON’S FEMININITY AND
action and to the psychological intricacies of the FIELDING’S MASCULINITY IN
human personality. QUESTION
Richardson and Fielding stood in contrast
with regard to yet another aspect: point of view.
The popularity of Richardson’s Pamela was Richardson’s alleged ‘femininity’ in Pamela
mainly due to the effective technique of revealing may be thrown into question if one thinks of the
the story through the letters written by the implications that a woman’s virtue was her
protagonist and exchanged by characters. Thus virginity and the reward of staying a virgin was
a multiple perspective is offered, and also a marriage. If one takes the next step to feminist
greater sense of immediacy. In Joseph Andrews implications, how can the reader reconcile the
and Tom Jones, Henry Fielding deploys a narrative notion of a woman’s virginity as her dowry - in
mode in which a “reliable narrator” as the effect, her worth - with any sort of feminist ideal?
“dramatized spokesman for the implied author” By the same token, Fielding should not be
offers his own perception and understanding of labelled a ‘masculine’ author, if this implies
the events and characters, purporting to build chauvinism. For one, while Richardson’s Pamela
the readers’ confidence in his own judgements is didactic, Joseph Andrews makes no pretentious
and thus to promote a certain vision of life. This moralizing claims. Apparently modelled after
kind of novel is linked with the comic mode, Don Quixote, according to Fielding’s title page,
since the comic vision in fiction presupposes Joseph Andrews is a sort of travel narrative,
precisely such complicity between author and satirizing the preachy quality of Pamela.
reader (Macsiniuc, 2003). It can be argued that the two novels cannot be
While Fielding’s picaresque novel of compared as easily as attaching ’masculine’ and
manners was clearly masculine, Richardson’s ’feminine’ labels to them. Judging from the first
sentimental novel was essentially feminine, in half of Joseph Andrews, Fielding is interested not
eighteenth century terms. Expounding his theory in punishing or rewarding anyone, but in
of the novel as “comic–epic-poem in prose”, exposing the difficulty of making moral decisions.
Fielding gave the new form legitimacy by He seems to give female characters the benefit of
claiming a place for it within the classical the doubt, allowing them the freedom to be both
tradition, which was outside the range of most promiscuous and honest - something Pamela

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wasn’t allowed to be in Richardson’s novel. Flint’s conclusion that Pamela’s reward is “a

However, it may also be argued that the kind of self-annihilation, a willed penetration
feminist ideals embedded in Richardson’s into the system that victimized her in the first
Pamela extend beyond her virginity. Pamela, place” can be read in connection with at least two
despite her low-class standing, understands that interpretations of femininity and the body in
her soul not only has worth, but it belongs to her. Pamela (Flint, 1989). Laura Fasick is concerned
Pamela contains strands of feminism because her with the relationship between the attempt to
character believes in her equality. Juggling with split the female mind and body and authority
possibilities and also challenging deep-seated (Fasick, 1992). She argues that Richardson
perceptions of Richardson in terms of a constructed Pamela as a virtuous character
masculine/feminine divide, Richardson can whose body and soul move as one and that to
even be called a ’masculine’ author, though deny the body inevitably diminishes female
‘masculine’ does not necessarily imply authority. One example from the novel cited by
‘chauvinism.’ According to the Oxford English Fasick is when Mr. B refuses to allow Pamela to
Dictionary, ‘masculine’ can mean nothing more breastfeed. By asserting domination over her
than referring to the male gender. The subject body, Mr. B is attempting to control her. “Whereas
matter of Joseph Andrews is a male paragon of Pamela in the first volume has opposed Mr. B’s
virtue, and this is an argument in favour of its patriarchal power with a claim for her
alleged ’masculinity’. But the OED also defines autonomous worth that relied on the dissolution
masculine as “of a woman’s qualities, attributes, of gender and class hierarchies, she now draws
or actions: characteristic of or befitting a man.” her authority from him. His stature as a model
This part of the definition may be extremely husband proves her excellence as a wife and thus
interesting, indeed unsettling. It may imply that her expertise as an advisor in domestic matters”.
although these characteristics (some good, some Fasick traces the development of the link between
bad) are found in a man, they can be found in body and authority through both Pamela and
women as well. Clarissa. She concludes by saying that to “accept
a version of the body that strips it of moral
3. PAMELA VS. SHAMELA meaning apparently entails an acceptance of a
version of moral presence that upholds
patriarchal norms” (Gwilliam, 1991).
As a matter of fact, Richardson’s treatment of Tassie Gwilliam reads the relationship
femininity is a complex issue, which goes beyond between body and femininity in terms of
apparent dichotomy. In “The Anxiety of Affluence: duplicity, which resonates with Flint’s argument
Family and Class (Dis)order in Pamela”, Christopher that Pamela both undermines and supports the
Flint argues that Richardson is able to both patriarchal order of the novel and with Fasick’s
destroy and support the patriarchal order of the idea that the heroine moves from opposing
novel. Flint begins this essay by noting that patriarchal power in the first volume towards
“Samuel Richardson, and by extension his art, accepting patriarchal norms in the second.
perfectly embodied a bourgeois class that was (Gwilliam, 1991). Gwilliam points out that the
consolidating its power, challenging aristocratic historical shift of the eighteenth-century from
institutions of control, and transforming cultural overt misogyny toward the “Cult of the True
as well as economic means of production”. Womanhood” has been linked to “women’s
Because of this cultural influence, Richardson presumed loss of productive work to an increase
has Pamela learn that her identity is based on in leisure under capitalism, and thus to the new
two distinct modes of behaviour: “one teaching status of women as ’consumers rather than
the value of bourgeois industry, the other contributors to the household economy’”
establishing her aristocratic behaviour” (Flint, (Gwilliam, 1991). Because of this ideological
1989). Having established these two premises, change, the view of women began changing.
Flint explores the influence of family and class Women now must embrace this duplicity and
on Pamela. behave in such a way as to provoke desire

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Adrian BRUNELLO, Florina-Elena BORŞAN

without the (at least apparent) intention of doing Fielding’s heroine Shamela, on the other hand,
so. As Gwilliam concludes, “feminine hypocrisy is an artful insolent who uses her “Virtue” to rise
and duplicity are convenient fictions potentially in the world. By poking fun at every aspect of
covering masculine identification with Richardson’s method and message, Fielding
femininity”. (Gwilliam, 1991). The critic exposes the hypocrisy of contemporary mores.
concludes that “in Pamela Richarson attempts to The work is more than a simple parody of
legitimize possible means of self-display and Richardson, however, as Fielding lampoons
self-exploration for women, while confronting political figures, the clergy, and contemporary
the compromise and contortion necessary for writers.
living within a system that so strictly controls Fielding takes special care to parody even the
and limits women’s possibilities” (Gwilliam, smallest details of Richardson’s work, and the
1991). form of Shamela closely follows that of Pamela.
In 1740, three books appeared that particularly The novel is introduced by the “author,” one
displeased Fielding. In addition to Richardson’s Conny Keyber (a combination of the names of
Pamela, there was An Apology for the Life of Colley the writers Conyers Middleton and Colley
Cibber, a book full of grammatical mistakes and Cibber), who claims he presents the “authentic
misused words, and Conyers Middleton’s Life of Papers” of the heroine of Richardson’s novel.
Cicero, which was dedicated to Prime Minister Keyber dedicates his work to “Miss Fanny,” a
Robert Walpole’s Privy Seal, Lord Hervey. parody of Middleton’s dedication to the
Shamela satirizes all three of these works by supposedly effeminate Lord Hervey. He also
imitating their content and style. In early 1741 includes letters to the editor (including one from
when Fielding found himself in a “sponging the editor himself) congratulating him on his fine
house” because of his debts, he dashed off the work, just as Richardson had appended letters
manuscript of Shamela, which he published in praise of his novel to his second edition of
anonymously. Fielding thought Pamela a bad Pamela. The novel begins with a letter from the
book, crude and pretentious in the writing and gullible Parson Thomas Tickletext, who,
pernicious in the mentality it so piously overcome by the loveliness of Pamela, writes to
inculcated: that Providence would reward with his friend, Parson J. Oliver, enthusiastically
pounds and social position the virtue of shrewdly recommending the novel. Oliver, however, has
chaste servant girls by marrying them to their in his possession certain letters that reveal the
sexually obsessed masters. Richardson suspected true nature and history of Richardson’s heroine.
that Fielding was the author of the parody, and Oliver explains that Pamela’s name is actually
never forgave him. His enmity was unremitting Shamela and transmits her authentic
toward the man (i.e. Fielding) who produced correspondence. There follows a series of letters
what Richardson called “lewd and ungenerous written between the various characters in the
engraftment” on his work (Gwilliam, 1991). novel: Shamela; her unwed mother, Henrietta
Hailed by Sheridan Barker as the “best parody Maria Honora Andrews; Squire Booby, the
in English literature,” Henry Fielding’s Shamela master of Booby Hall; Booby’s housekeeper and
is the best known of a number of novels written Shamela’s confidante, Mrs. Lucretia Jervis;
in the 1740s that satirized Samuel Richardson’s Booby’s more loyal housekeeper, Mrs. Jewkes;
hugely popular 1740 novel, Pamela. Fielding’s and Reverend Arthur Williams. The letters reveal
sixty-page book condenses and imitates that Shamela, formerly a servant in Booby’s
Richardson’s two-volume epistolary novel, household, becomes his wife by supposedly
poking fun at the original work’s narrative resisting his attempts to seduce her and flaunting
method and pretence at moralizing. The heroine her “Vartue.” She has done this with the help of
of Pamela is a paragon of virtue, a servant girl Mrs. Jervis, who pretends to help Booby to win
who resists the sexual advances of her master, Shamela but who actually aids Shamela in her
and Richardson’s purpose with the novel was to designs on his worldly goods. In the meantime
“cultivate the Principles of Virtue and Religion Shamela has an affair with Reverend Williams,
in the Minds of the Youth of Both Sexes.” which according to Parson Oliver, is eventually

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found out. Events and characters in the novel virtuous will gain her greater rewards in her
parallel Pamela, but things are seen in a very situation. She is conniving and clever, although
different light, with Parson Williams appearing uneducated and amoral. She does not passively
as a scheming rogue, Mr. Booby as a fool, and sit and await life’s whims for her pain and
Pamela as a calculating insolent girl. pleasure, but rather seizes her opportunities. It
As a parody of Pamela, Shamela aims to may very well be argued that even if she is doing
overturn what Fielding considered to be the the wrong thing, at least she is doing something.
sententious moralizing of Richardson’s novel. Richardson’s and Fielding’s narrative point of
Richardson claims that Pamela is a model of views seem almost as sharply contrasted as their
virtue, whose chastity is rewarded, but Fielding heroines’ characters. Richardson is incredibly
in his novel equates morality with expediency, optimistic. Although life has forced him to
as Shamela behaves as she does in order to secure recognize that negative things do happen, he
material comforts for herself. Throughout the insists on finding positive results from them. The
novel Shamela uses words such as “feign,” “act,” narrator interprets Pamela’s reserve as
and “pretend.” She tempts Booby but pretends epitomizing her great virtue. It is not that she
to do so unwittingly, thus retaining her virtuous does not like the man and/or likes someone else,
image, resisting him in order to appear virtuous or some other reason; she becomes merely a
and lures him into marriage and elevates herself vessel for the narrator’s ideal virtuous woman.
socially. Shamela is not the virtuous woman Fielding’s narrator is comic where Richardson’s
Richardson supposes but rather a calculating, is grave, insightful while the other is fanciful.
conniving creature. While Fielding parodies Fielding’s narrator is the voice of a sceptic, a
Richardson’s views on morality and virtue, at the cynic, and a good-natured comic. There are no
same time he presents his own moral message pretensions to the character’s actions, and they
about hypocrisy and feigned goodness. His are not idealized into something greater than life.
criticism of hypocrisy also extends to the clergy This contrast shows the two writers’ opposite
(represented by Parson Williams), the gentry (by worldviews.
Squire Booby), and the political establishment. Tiffany Potter argues that Fielding’s more
The theme of faith versus good works is also relaxed attitude to female sexuality is part of a
explored in the character of the parson. Fielding’s complex of ideas she calls ‘Georgian libertinism’
Shamela attacks corruption on many levels, from – a kinder version of the Restoration variety,
the perversion of language to the exploitation of encouraging freedom where others are not
the nature of decency and uprightness for harmed. As a result of this, he writes favourably
political purposes. of women seeking self-determination (Potter,
The differences between the two women are 1999).
both obvious and deep-seated. Pamela, on the With a rather different emphasis, Jill Campbell
one hand, was created as a pinnacle of virtue and has also challenged the Richardson-Fielding
steadfastness. It is true that she withstands both polarity, suggesting that we turn from the
temptation and difficult circumstances, but she differences between the writers to an analysis of
may also be seen as weak and stupid. She does “differences within” them (Campbell, 1995). Her
not possess the strength to change her situation, own discussion of the differences within Fielding
and so she complains about it instead. Rather draws attention to his interest in the blurring of
than even asking for assistance, she assumes that gender distinctions, shown in the cross-gender
her tormenter is ‘greater than any constable.’ casting of his plays, his treatment of male
When he finally realizes that she will not gratify impersonation in The Female Husband, and his
his desires and asks for her hand in marriage, she movement from burlesque “treatment of a
consents. woman in the hero’s role in Tom Thumb to the
Conversely, Shamela presents only a mirage serious development of an ideal of female
of virtue. From a distance it seems solid and true, heroism” in Amelia. In this last novel she finds a
but in reality it is sham. She does not care for her recurrent ambivalence, as Fielding moves
virtue, but rather realizes that pretending to be between older codes of masculine honour and

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Adrian BRUNELLO, Florina-Elena BORŞAN

new sentimental conceptions of manhood, themselves to be participating in it. Moreover,

between allegiance to a new ideal of domestic women writers recognized the arguments about
femininity and fear of the independent female the novelty of the new fiction as gendered
authority that might issue from it (Campbell, arguments, and responded strategically to this
1995). distinction. Despite the gendered literary
histories which seek to marginalize women
4. CONCLUSIONS within the authorized “new species,” women
writers are participating in its definition, shaping
the practices of reading it produces, and
The eighteenth century developed a significant
contesting the terms of their own exclusion.
interest in defining woman as a special being.
Women were not inferior, just different. Because
of their dependence on marriage, and the
References
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