Fielding and Haywood Hate Pamela

Well, what horrible people Eliza Haywood and Henry Fielding have lampooned of poor Pamela. I mean really, I never would have expected such behavior in titles such as Anti-Pamela and Shamela. It does seem quite terrible that a mother and daughter would go to such great lengths to ensure an easy living, and yet for some reason all the more entertaining. With Pamela I found myself rooting that she might get away from Mr. B and getting back to her parents, if only because there was never any indication that she had intended to manipulate Mr. B into any sort of arrangement. She seemed to be truly the victim and helpless to the point of despairing of ever receiving her freedom before relinquishing her 'vartue.'
And yet, in the end how much of a stretch is it to assume she had planned it from the start, and had every intention of ensnaring Mr. B into a long term commitment based on mutual affection and respect? The hussy! Also, sawcy chops. (Which I will hopefully be able to enjoy as a phrase for a long time.) The seething reactionary writing of Haywood and Fielding seems to be saying in a phrase: No virtuous women would hold out for marriage above her station. What stands out as a major diversion from Richardson's work is the larger role that the mother plays in the narrative. In Pamela, the is little back and forth between the parents, and what there is seems strictly cautionary. Then we have in Anti-Pamela, a character in the mother that goes so far as to have her daughter abuse herself in order, not to win over Mr. L, but to trap him in a situation where his confusion would only serve to deepen his appearance of guilt. How horrifically does Eliza Haywood portray the women in her writings?
Haywood's language between how women and men pursue the opposite sex shows a great rift, if not necessarily in itself privileging one or the other, between the sexes.  on Page 76, Haywood is describing the scene where Vardine is attempting to force Syrena to drink enough wine to make some poor decisions. Granted she only sees it as a poor decision as Vardine is not rich enough to warrant the later fake rape gifted toward Mr. L. Haywood describes a battle, "the young Officer perceiving the Ground he gain'd, did not fail pursuing the Attack, and bombarded her... with speeches... pressures, kisses... and the Juice of the Grape, that at length the Town was wholly his." While the plans of Syrena and her mother are referred to as 'plots' or 'tricks' and 'stratagems' as if playing a game rather than fighting a war to achieve the most favorable terms.
Haywood seems to have a dimmer view of women even than Fielding, given that Fielding was attempting a satire of Richardson, while Haywood's work, while still critical of Richardson, seems to be more serious. There is less of the scandalous language involved in Anti-Pamela that makes Shamela more entertaining to read, and yet a great deal more detail involved describing how cunning and deceitful the main character and her mother are.

Pamela Continued

I must confess that I do not understand quite how Pamela turned out the way it did. The turns of emotion just don't make all that much sense. Even if you trace back the actions of the Squire throughout the novel, and can think, "Perhaps he really did love her and was just incredibly confused at feeling this way," why, or how, does Pamela just forget all of the events of the novel as soon as Squire B proposes to make her his wife in an honest fashion? The common strain of 'love' between Haywood's Love in Excess and Pamela suggests an idea of love  as uncontrollable, irrational, and confusing. For Haywood, at least, there were examples where love is depicted as being somewhat constant, but then the main character, in both novels, seems only to be truly in love with the one woman that continues to reject them.
Still, I found "Pamela Censured" a great deal more disturbing. From this vantage point a few hundred years later, I found the criticisms of Richardson's form of advertising to be rather flat, and somewhat nonsensical. It just seems to be common sense to have only good things about your novel printed inside of the actual novel, regardless of whether or not they are real. Who is going to print their own criticism (except in those rare circumstances where it might help sales)? Which is part of the reason that I found the article disturbing, as from where I am standing the criticism is written in just such a way as to amount to a teaser of the actual novel, including several of the more racy bits of prose, all in a show for just how immoral the novel is. The author himself even seems to be secretly delighting in the scene where Squire B molests Pamela, putting his hand inside of her shirt, while condemning the scene as putting impure thoughts into the readers head that they should never have had otherwise, and now young girls will be running around attempting to concoct ways of putting themselves into similar situations. If indeed a scene like this is so damaging to the morals of youth, why then are you reprinting it nearly in full, in a letter to the editor? Were I think of effective forms of censorship or protest of a work, this is nearly the exact opposite of a book burning.
How effective is a censorship that shows what is deemed to be the worst aspects of the novel? The article reads more as a free advertisement to any not so morally outraged that a teenage girl would behave in a fashion as to drive her master to such lengths to possess her. Which in itself is ignored as a no win situation for Pamela. If she relents, she is shameful, if she resists, she is shameful. I find it quite wondrous that the book could be read as a great 'how-to' guide for ensnaring your employer to enable class jumping, and that this might be portrayed as the most reprehensible part of the story. Sure, the author of "Pamela Censured" addresses that the squire should have known better, but with a 'wink and a nod' he couldn't help himself in his desire. The true moral problem with the novel, is not the attempted rapes, the kidnapping, or the plans for sham marriages. What is morally askew is that a serving girl was allowed, and accepted, as a member of the upper class,and if this becomes a common place who will bring the dinner?

Virtue is not so much rewarded as kidnapped...

Pamela - a teenage girl is sexually molested, but displays the strength to fight off her attacker and shame him with her speech. Unused to rejection as the finest and most powerful man around, he stoops to such great lengths as kidnapping her and holding her ransom to his own demands of while simultaneously employing people to either look the other way, or to AGREE that she is the sort that you just don't let go. And of course, if she would just submit to his wishes, everything would be fine.
And it makes for such great fiction (I do hope it is fiction...) that I am not surprised at all of the anecdotal blacksmith in the introduction reading the copy on long summer nights to the gathered villagers. Yet, what I find most compelling is that Pamela's main argument seems to be closer to an economic one than one of love, or age, or even proper behavior as Richardson seems to have written so many conduct manuals. Before she is kidnapped to Lincolnshire, the character ominously referred to as Mr. B offers her a literal sack load of money, and a yearly sackful to her father as well as gainful employment. While Mr. B never fully names the price of this, which I assumed at this point would make Pamela a mistress or even a wife, her argument against acceptance is as much for her father as it is for her. She seems to be stating that her father rejecting the money is as much a matter of virtue as it is for rejecting becoming a mistress. She asks, "How many ways are there to undo poor creatures?" on page 84, but she does not seem to be referring only the assumed loss of innocence from sexual behavior.
There is definitely a connection between the hard work and poverty of her parents, and her idea of a virtuous life as evidenced by her repeated embrace of their poverty (My poor parents, with their poor house...) and by their willingness to borrow money in order to pay back a gift to a man that continually attempts harm to their daughter. I wonder if there is not a connection here as well to the life of Robinson Crusoe and his finding God, and therefore the supposed virtuous life that accompanies it, only when he has no room for considerations other than his very survival. It seems that the idea stretching between them is that money and power bring with them wicked diversions, and abuses of power through money. While the opposite is the idea of virtue and innocence through poverty and labor.  It seems that what Mr. B could not take by force, he was more than willing to buy what was not for sale, but is unable to understand why poor people might reject wanting to be made rich. So I wonder, is Mr B. not a similar case to D'elmont, in that he seems to want only those things that reject him? If Pamela, like Melliora, had been less conscious of their virtue, would the interests of their respected crazy men have persisted?