Pamela: Metaphors 5 key examples

Pamela's parents personify Virtue and Goodness as the creators of "true Beauty." On the other hand, they tell Pamela not to let herself get "puffed up" by other people's comments that she is pretty. This warning suggests that compliments are, metaphorically, air that can fill Pamela's ego like a balloon. If she sees herself as beautiful because of all this empty "air," she is seeing a sort of illusion that will disappear as soon as the air is let out. If instead she allows Virtue and Goodness to fill her up, she will be truly beautiful. No matter what anyone says, and no matter what happens to Pamela's appearance as she ages, this "true Beauty" will never leave her because it is real and substantive.

The idea that Pamela can make herself beautiful through Virtue and Goodness reflects her parents' deeply Christian worldview. Virtue essentially means abstinence from sex, and Goodness essentially means obedience and demureness. As a Christian girl, Pamela is supposed to do as she is told and guard her virginity at all costs. These two directives are somewhat at odds with each other when obeying Mr. B. would involve having sex with him. Pamela's challenge throughout the book is to be both "virtuous" and "good." Mr. B. makes walking this line very difficult for her, but one way of interpreting his character is as the ultimate test of Pamela's ability to fulfill her parents' wishes for their daughter. By rising to the challenge, she proves her "true Beauty" and her worthiness for marriage and riches (at least according to her parents).

Sir Simon's joke compares a wife's abandonment of her husband to a citizen's treason against their king. The way he draws this equivalency speaks to the politics of marriage in the 18th century. A husband (or "house bondman") was supposed to rule over his property like a king on a miniature scale. The idea was that many well-ruled households, presided over by loyal subjects to the actual king, could be the building blocks of a strong country. Wives were supposed to serve their king by way of their husbands, by keeping house and raising children. Sir Simon is lightheartedly accusing Pamela of "treason" against her "liege lord and husband," but a wife's disloyalty to her husband really was considered a parallel crime to a subject's tyranny against the king.

The fact that Pamela does not immediately understand the metaphor or the joke demonstrates how out of her depth she is in the social class she has married into. Sir Simon is not trying to be hostile, but Pamela has just endured extensive insults from Lady Davers, who does not believe she is good enough to marry Mr. B. Showing up at this party and immediately being unable to engage in the banter reinforces for Pamela that even though she has married Mr. B., she still has work ahead of her to fit into her new life.

Pamela's idiomatic phrasing may not seem all that remarkable, but it reflects the fact that she lives in a world that habitually speaks of happiness as a direct metaphor for marriage. Although these neighbors may genuinely wish Pamela and Mr. B. well, they are not simply happy that the two of them are happy. Rather, this is a ritual acknowledgment of Pamela as Mr. B.'s new wife a few days after he "debuted" her at church. Notably, it is not just anyone who comes by to congratulate the couple. It is specifically "almost all the neighbouring Gentry, and their good Ladies." These are all high-status, wealthy neighbors who are welcoming the new couple into their midst as an organized unit. They stay for dinner. Pamela does not describe the dinner in detail, but the fact that they are all willing to sit at a table with her is a signal that they see her as one of them.

Pamela has spent the whole book working toward the position she now occupies, as the wife of a wealthy man. It is difficult to imagine for most of the book why Pamela would want to marry Mr. B., her longtime tormentor. However, this scene (and the idiom itself) helps illuminate what is so attractive about him. When Pamela marries him, she does not just marry the man. Furthermore, she marries the entire social life that comes along with being his wife. This is the reward Richardson promises her in the subtitle to the novel should she remain virtuous.

Pamela compares families to well-established plants with complex root structures. Just because a poor family cannot point out how deep its roots run, she argues, does not mean that it isn't just as honorable or well-established as a rich family. Gentry, or upper-class families, generally have detailed records of their family histories for a variety of reasons. For one thing, they understand these records to secure their families' places forever in the gentry, where they enjoy riches and disproportionate influence over politics. Showing off one's lineage was well-established among rich people by the time Richardson was writing. On top of their motivation for keeping records, rich families have also had the means to do so for much longer than poorer families. They could read and write, they had access to paper and ink long before these resources were widely available, and they had family libraries where they could store records long before the internet made data storage more accessible. But, as Pamela argues, rich families' "elaborate" records often reveal a history of "good-for-nothingness." Instead of praising the mere existence of elaborate records, Pamela wonders why people don't look for a real, "rooted" history of honor, like there is in her family.

What Pamela does not quite note here is the irony that Lady Davers takes issue with Pamela's suitability to marry Mr. B., rather than the other way around. Mr. B. is the one who has behaved horribly toward Pamela. If one of them is lacking honor, it is certainly him. Pamela's suggestion that her family is just as well-rooted as Mr. B.'s is somewhat radical given 18th-century class politics. Richardson helps the reader digest it by packaging it in this situational irony. Pamela's parents in fact used to be rich, so she is not as far from Mr. B.'s social status as she could be. The fact that they are not so far apart socially coaxes more conservative readers to drop their own elitism and consider Pamela's metaphor in light of the fact that she is so much more morally upstanding than Mr. B.

Pamela is excited to marry Mr. B., but she does not trust that her trials and tribulations are over. She expects that "still worse Hazards than those I have escap'd" may await her in her marriage if she becomes "conceited," "vain," or "prideful." Even if Mr. B. is on his best behavior from now on, Pamela is sure that she will need outside guidance to keep disaster from happening in her marriage. She metaphorically compares herself to "a frail Ship in a tempestuous Ocean." If she does not have "ballast" (something to weigh her down) or "other Pilot than my own inconsiderate Will" to navigate this "tempestuous Ocean," she is sure that she will encounter her greatest "hazards" yet. Pamela feels that her parents' prayers and the pressure to please them will help keep her on course when her own "inconsiderate will" would have her drift off in a different direction.

Paradoxically, Pamela's insistence that she cannot trust herself makes her seem all the more trustworthy. She demonstrates that she understands the big risk she is taking by marrying Mr. B., and she has enough self-awareness to know that she will not be able to take on every challenge herself. If Pamela did not show this level of caution, she would seem far more foolish for marrying the man who has spent half the book manipulating her. Acknowledging her own shortcomings in fact helps her look more competent, virtuous, and ready to make what looks on the surface like a rash decision. In turn, she ends up using ethos.