The Performativity Of Feminine Virtue In Pamela

Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740) is the first epistolary novel of the eighteenth-century English novelist Samuel Richardson. In the novel, Richardson creates the heroine Pamela as an ideal woman with feminine virtues of chastity, diligence and modesty that are rewarded. He does feminine virtue performativity through Pamela's letters and diaries and preaches morality upon his readers by means of their psychological resonance. Pamela's self-fashioning reaffirms Richardson's morality for the rise of the middle class.Since Pamela's first publication, it has caused great stir in the world. The critics study it from such perspectives as epistolary fiction artistry, psychological analysis, feminism, historical significance and religious attitudes. In light of these, this thesis aims to apply the theory of literary performativity to analyze how Pamela successfully performs in the fictional world as well as in the real world, that is, to see this novel as a speech-act so as to explore how the text and reality interact with each other.According to the modern English language philosopher J. L. Austin, a speech act is first an utterance which corresponds with the language habits and has grammatical meaning. In a special context, it will produce illocutionary act. If the illocutionary act conforms to the felicity, it will probably produce perlocutionary act that affects upon the feelings, thoughts, or actions of the audience, or of the speaker, or of others. In the novel, Richardson performs the illocutionary act on virginity promising, labor appreciating and self-communion demanding through the heroine Pamela's writing. As they conform to the moral requirements in the eighteenth-century England and reveals the social hot issues in women's courtship and marriage, Pamela's utterances not only affect the readers in the novel but also produce effect to the women readers in the real world.This thesis consists in three chapters besides Introduction and Conclusion. Chapter One analyzes the feminine chastity performativity in Pamela. The heroine Pamela regards chastity as her supreme value. When confronted with temptation and sexual harassment, she performs illocutionary acts of virginity promises to show her resolution to preserve her chastity. As they conform to the requirements on women's virginity in the eighteenth-century England, the promising utterances produce both textual perlocutionary act to Mr. B. who is convinced of Pamela's virtue and marries her and actual perlocutionary act for readers to imitate or condemn. Chapter Two examines the feminine diligence performativity in Pamela. Pamela is a hard-working girl, who is good at needling and writing. She praises labor in her writing and shows her intelligence in work. As such appreciating utterances conform to the social felicities of the booming female servant market, they produce the perlocutionary act to Mr. B. who shows respect to Pamela. In the real world, such diligence performativity also produces the performative effect as encouraging female servants and inspiring new women novelists. Chapter Three is devoted to the feminine modesty performativity in Pamela. Feminine modesty includes women's prudent speech and behavior and appropriate dress. Pamela does self-communion towards her speech and dress in her writing, and turns them into behavior criteria in daily life. As such performance conforms to the bourgeois'requirement for gentlewomen's general behavior, Pamela's self-communion language produces the perlocutionary act of promoting her social position as a real gentlewoman. In the real world, such modesty performativity also produces the effect to inaugurate sentimental novels.After analyzing the feminine chastity, diligence and modesty performativity in Pamela and their performativity effect in both fictional and real world, the thesis concludes that Pamela's successful virtue performativity is the dynamic result from the joint efforts among author, text, context and reader. In Pamela, Richardson creates the heroine Pamela as a"moral model"through literary language, which conforms to the social moral convention and realizes the feminine virtue performativity.