Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Pamela, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Value of Virtue
Class and Morality
Religion and Marriage
Sexual Politics
Summary
Analysis
Pamela writes to her mother, continuing the story where she left off last time. After she finished crying, Pamela went into town, wishing she still had her older, simpler clothes to wear. She didn’t tell Mrs. Jervis anything about Mr. B kissing her out of fear of disobeying his command to keep it a secret. Later, however, when Pamela did see Mrs. Jervis again, she asked if she could spend the night with Mrs. Jervis, lying and saying she was afraid of spirits. Mrs. Jervis agreed.
Pamela’s desire to wear her older, simpler clothes suggests a desire to return to her old lifestyle. She finds that although Mr. B is willing to give her a decent amount of money, the tradeoffs that she has to make for the position don’t seem to be worth it. Pamela’s initial shame about telling Mrs. Jervis the truth reflects how afraid she is to challenge Mr. B’s authority.
Themes
Quiz
Test Yourself
Pamela writes that that night, while she was in bed with Mrs. Jervis, she finally changed her mind and decided to tell her about how Mr. B kissed her. At hearing everything, even Mrs. Jervis herself cried. Still, she pleaded for Pamela not to leave the house right away. She believed that Pamela acted so virtuously that Mr. B’s sense of shame would likely keep him from ever doing something similar again.
Although Mrs. Jervis feels sympathy for Pamela, she is also a relatively traditional person, and so she is unwilling to challenge the authority of a gentleman like Mr. B or suggest that he is unworthy of his position. Like Pamela, Mrs. Jervis struggles to reconcile her belief in a rigid class system with her knowledge of how upper-class people like Mr. B actually act.
Themes
Quiz
Test Yourself
Pamela describes writing her earlier letter that got stolen after she hid it somewhere in Lady B’s bedroom. Both Pamela and Mrs. Jervis now suspect that Mr. B took it, particularly since soon after the letter’s disappearance, Mr. B ordered Mrs. Jervis not to let Pamela write so much. For the time being, Pamela feels safe sleeping in Mrs. Jervis’s bed, but she longs for the early days of her new job when she felt happy.
Mr. B wants to take away Pamela’s agency, and so he doesn’t like her writing, partly because he doesn’t understand it and partly because it’s something she does in private, where he can’t control it. Although Pamela remains passive for much of the story, her ability to express her opinions through her writing gives her one place where she always has control to herself.
Themes
Quiz
Test Yourself
