Hints that Pamela is an unreliable narrator are a motif in the novel. One example is the opening of Letter 15, when she apologizes to her mother for cutting off her previous letter abruptly:
Dear Mother,
I Broke off abruptly my last Letter; for I fear’d he was coming; and so it happen’d. I thrust the Letter into my Bosom, and took up my Work, which lay by me; but I had so little of the Artful, as he called it, that I look’d as confused, as if I had been doing some great Harm.
The previous letter did indeed end abruptly, but Pamela did not mention there that Mr. B. was on his way into the room. The revelation here that he interrupted her writing suggests that Pamela is writing all of her letters at least in part under his supervision. There is no telling how often he might barge in and disrupt what she is writing. Furthermore, there is a question of how much access he has to her letters. Could he be forging any of them?
In Letter 13, Pamela described how another letter she wrote was stolen after she hid it in Lady B.'s room. Mr. B. already seems to be deciding which letters make it to Pamela's parents. The idea that he could be editing her letters, dictating parts of them, or forging them altogether does not seem so far-fetched. And if he is in control of the information that makes its way from Pamela to her parents, how much control might he have over the information that makes its way into the novel?
In the Journal, Richardson reveals a bit of dramatic irony surrounding a letter Pamela supposedly sent to Mrs. Jervis after Mr. B. kidnapped her. The dramatic irony not only stirs up intrigue but also demonstrates that Pamela can be an unreliable narrator:
The Letter [Mr. B.] prescribed for me was this:
‘Dear Mrs. JERVIS,‘I Have, instead of being driven, by Robin, to my dear Father’s, been carry’d off, to where I have no Liberty to tell. However, at present, I am not us’d hardly; and I write to beg you to let my dear Father and Mother, whose Hearts must be well-nigh broken, know, that I am well; and that I am, and, by the Grace of God, ever will be, their dutiful and honest Daughter, as well as
‘Your obliged Friend.
‘I must neither send Date nor Place; but have most solemn Assurances of honourable Usage.’
The reader has already seen a version of this letter. In Letter 31, Pamela tells her parents about her plan to get away from Mr. B. and return home to them. Richardson then cuts in to reveal that Mr. B. is fooling Pamela: he is in fact sending her to another house he owns. Richardson includes a letter Pamela manages to send to Mrs. Jervis, assuring the woman and Pamela's parents that while she has been kidnapped and can't share many details, she is nonetheless safe. Now, encountering the same letter in Pamela's journal, the reader learns that Mr. B. "prescribed" it for her (wrote it ahead).
Even this letter to Mrs. Jervis, which previously stood out as a way Pamela was fighting back against her captor, was part of his master plan to manipulate everyone. The people most interested in protecting Pamela believe that she is safe because she has told them so—except that it was not her, after all, who wrote those words. Mr. B. thus buys himself some time to do what he wants to Pamela without the interference of worried parents or protectors. The reader now sits in suspense, wondering just how bad things will get for Pamela.
Pamela is not at fault for Mr. B.'s manipulation, but this revelation nonetheless demonstrates that just because Pamela writes something and signs her name to it does not mean that it is really true. Almost the entire novel consists of her letters and journals, documents typically associated with authenticity. But Mr. B. has the power to read and influence Pamela's writing. Likewise, Richardson, as the book's editor, can also decide what material to present and how to present it. Richardson is playing with the idea that the truth is always being mediated, even in someone's journal or letters.
