Which we shall hurl through the iron gates of something or other… Heh… imagine that. “Let us roll all our sweetness and all our strength into one ball, dearie, and throw it through something. That, by the way, is a sexual pun. Didja like it? Huh? Huh?” Ohh, Marvell, you crack me up… but that’s basically Pamela’s little lover, there: a very unintelligent version of Marvell. I think Richardson got carried away with the oh-so popular Cavalier lyrics, then said “omigosh I couldn’t do that,” and then said “I think I’ll make a man just like myself: reserved, wussy, and probably a latent homosexual.” Because, seriously, I have to agree with everyone who says that Mr. B could use with a good heart-to-heart. “It’s okay, Mr. B, you don’t have to assert your masculine authority to compensate for what you think is wrong. Lots of people do it! Let me introduce you to Walpole and the Libertines of the Black Mass…”
But the reading I like of Pamela the most is the socio-economic one. The fact that she’s so damned obsessed with being a “poor virtuous maid” does grind my gears, but it’s something which Richardson does to really empower her. Now, granted, Richardson is a complete moron in saying “hey, girls, if you’re all this virtuous, you’ll be able to sway men’s hearts and move up in social class!” but he is right in saying that education and writing and being amazingly steadfast can have effects of some sort. Let’s imagine that Pamela had not had the education which her father, theoretically a rather well-versed man because he could open a school (but only theoretically, because his school might have consisted of only singing Psalms), and had neither the education given to her by Mr. B’s generous mummy. Well, there’d be no story. And guess what? Most servants had neither! zomg! Richardson is saying that without education, women really cannot be that virtuous. I bet that the fat keeper in Lincolnshire cannae quote a line of the Metamorphoses, or identify who said “Veni vidi vici.” Disregarding the fact that if anyone really read Ovid closely they might become the most sexual creatures on this planet, knowing and having a solid education about the world and its goings-on gives a person a much stronger base to work from. There are slight feminist veins running through this, since Pamela is really given a great deal of power which women would simply not have had.
On the other hand, it’s ridiculous. She would likely have been thrown out of the house, or simply raped, and she would likely not have constantly fainted (even though it was obviously the sensible thing to do). Where ideal clashes with reality is always a problem, and Pamela is in no way a reliable guide except for the grounds of “education=power.” After all, the further we move from forms of education, the more like robots we become – hence the extravegently BAD idea of shutting down Universities, or making them into “Universities that are sorta different and not really Universities, but can still have a University name because we can name it, even if it won’t be recognised…!” …
Another issue that springs up in Pamela is that of religion. Obviously Mr. Williams isn’t a very reliable source. He’s as taken with her as any other man, and really jumps at the first opportunity to get into the sack with her. Now, I want to say that Richardson is continuing in his jackass vein, but it’d be a slight cop-out. Richardson is a jackass.
But a rather tenacious jackass; so tenacious that he figures if he writes enough, he’ll come up with something right. … not to be taken in conjunction with my long posts… Mr. Williams is a portrait of a religion that is over-trusting and, really, rather corrupt. In all of his social commentary, Richardson has the backbone of an amoeba, but he is pointing out the weakness that inhabits men and the weakness and vulnerability that an uninformed opionin leaves one to. For example, Haywood’s story, part of it, says that Richardson was leaving out any proper warnings for people who might want to avoid fortune hunters who masqueraded (Masquerade!!!!! Paper faces on Parade!!!!… sorry) as Pamelas. This isn’t actually the case – in his thick, fat novel, he just so happens to have the character of Mrs. Jewkes who is able to seduce the Priest by using Pamela. Now this is a less direct seduction (if she flashed the priest, she would likely fall apart like Swift’s Corinna and kill the priest with fright), but it is a seduction nevertheless which springs from naivite. Richardson is trying, the dear little (gay) man.
Haywood’s Fantomina was a rather good read, but I read it rather cynically after reading some of the “other works” by her. So my post will probably consist mostly of that. But first I should say that Annie, and Dr. Jones in showing us some lovely Nun porn, has given me hope that Fantomina’s little foray to France shall be as wonderfully smutty as any rich Libertine who smutted his way across Europe. Smut’s a fun word…
Indeed, Fantomina is a devilishly clever woman, which I had loved from the very beginning. This, I read as an extremely empowering thing – she can switch through a million costumes and keep the object of her love fascinated in her as long as she doesn’t get pregnant (which she does. WOopeis!). In having the same lady act all the different parts, though, Haywood is, very effectively, subverting the Libertine. To say that a man loves nothing but variety is one thing, but to give him variety in one person is a strategy which really goes to show that it’s nothing more than a cultural illusion. This “love” which the Libertine culture has produced is as succeptible to being captivating as anything. See, the Libertines held their lack of falling in love as a shield to the world, but the truth is this guy is very much in love with the same woman throughout the story, and he is really powerless within her grasp. This is not something that a Libertine, who should ideally be able to take 3 or 4 women into a back room, one at a time, while their husbands are in the front rooms, and distribute china in a most agreeable and satisfactory fashion, would enjoy. Women are objects, damn it! But this woman makes an object of her passion. Haywood leaves little room for power in any other source except for Fantomina, and she would have continued had she not been caught.
Ah, but then the “other works.” Well, the one I found most interesting was “Reflections on the Various Effects of Love.” Of the whole work, ranging over some 50 pages, about a paragraph (127) is devoted to saying that men are just as bad as women. See, much of her argument consists of the fact that the effects of love are so bad, except for the few times when they are good – she gives two lists of historical figures who are either really saintly at love, or really evil in it, and the list of saints turns into a list of evils… But that’s not what bothers me: no matter how clear it is that it’s men who fuck up the worst because they’re abusing their power, she always turns it back on women. It’s like stupid fucking Pamela who says “what sort of creatures must the womenkind be, do you think, to give way to such wickedness? Why, this it is that makes everyone be thought of alike: And, alack-a-day! what a world we live in! for it is grown more a wonder that the men are resisted, than that the women comply” (Richardson 68). Pam, I’ll tell you you why people don’t fucking resist: they’ll DIE OF HUNGER if they fucking resist. Oh, but that’s not such a bad idea, is it? Go ahead ‘n starve yourself, and let the rest of us smut, will you?
Gah… okay… back to Haywood. It’s a very unrealisitic, once again, portrayal of the actual state of facts. If we strip away a lot of the idiocy that she allows herself to become rife with in this work, however, she comes up with some pretty grand things – there’s a story about some paranoid king who locks his son away from women so that he cannot fall in love, then, on his the prince’s 20th birthday when he is let out, he falls in love right away. It’s grand commentary on the whole idea of being over-chaste - many of our human family who have been over-chaste have touched little boys. But, of course, Haywood ruins it by telling a story of Sophiana who wants nothing more than to harrow her soul with passion.
I think, in the end, Haywood was really just writing for two separate audiences to make more money, but when we get down to the bones of it, the fact is not actually virtue. It’s marketability. The long novel by Richardson fails to really present the sheer value of market – it almost separates Mr. B from pretty P, and the sister is in a hissyfit, but virtue overrides it… Hey, Rich, I got news for you: No it fucking doesn’t! Haywood discusses it well in her Anti-Pamela, and also gives it a rather fine face in Fantomina – the fact that Fantomina will have problems marrying a rich dude now and therefore has to go to a Nunnery (Get thee to a nunnery!) is a fair representation of the market ideal. “Reflections on the Various Effects of Love,” though, doesn’t really cut it. It’s just a bunch of old people going over the stereotypes which are made to make the market of marriage stable. Crickey, I could go on, but fuck this is a long post and my excessive cursing shows just how late it is and that I should be sleeping… but I’m caught up now, yay!
