Virtue Rediscovered in Samuel Richardson’s Pamela

Abstract

This paper aims to study the sociopolitical background of the rise of domesticity that Samuel Richardson successfully represents within Pamela. It seeks to understand how the changing economic conditions in modern England influenced and transformed the social recognition of individual virtue. The historian J. G. A. Pocock explains that the public identification of virtue went through a significant transformation in eighteenth-century England. Virtue traditionally signified a person’s capacity to participate within the realm of the political and to become devoted to the public good. The development of the commercial economy and the emergence of new ruling elites, however, brought about changes to the ways in which virtue was publically identified. Virtue in the austerely Roman sense was redefined with the aid of a concept of ”manners.” I situate Richardson’s identification of Pamela’s virtue within this historical context. I examine how the construction of Pamela’s virtue relies heavily upon the economic conditions of her time. I specifically look at how her embodiment of virtue allows her to acquire material value. By examining how Pamela achieves socioeconomic benefits through her public demonstration of virtue, I argue that her embodiment of virtue empowers women to assert a form of political and financial power.