Laura Fasick is concerned with the relationship between the attempt to split the female mind and body and authority. She argues that Richardson has constructed Pamela as a virtuous character whose body and soul move as one and that to deny the body inevitably diminishes female authority. One example from the novel that she cites is when Mr. B refuses to allow Pamela to breastfeed. By asserting domination over her body, Mr. B is attempting to control her. "Whereas Pamela in the first volume has opposed Mr. B's patriarchal power with a claim for her autonomous worth that relied on the dissolution of gender and class hierarchies, she now draws her authority from him. His stature as a model husband proves her excellence as a wife and thus her expertise as an advisor in domestic matters" (195). Fasick traces the development of the link between body and authority through both Pamela and Clarissa. She concludes by saying that to "accept a version of the body that strips it of moral meaning apparently entails an acceptance of a version of moral presence that upholds patriarchal norms" (201).

Watt, Ian. The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967.

Catherine Gimelli Martin analyzes Pamela using the model developed by Vladimir Propp which defines the essential plot elements which structure the primary quest novel or Quest-Romance. By tracing the thirty-one elements and Pamela's similarity or difference to them, Martin concludes that major deviation occurs in "several important role changes and in the pattern of displaced or deferred marriage, which balances the parallel pattern of displaced or deferred rape" (104). Martin believes that Pamela retains the passivity associated with the role of the bride, but at the same time uses male discourse to present her self to the world. Pamela inverts traditional gender norms by "transferring female terms into male and male into female" (105).

Gwilliam, Tassie. "Pamela and the Duplicitous Body of Femininity." Representations. Spring 1991, 34, 104-33.

Some topics in this essay:
Woman Pleasure, Pamela Shamela, Armstrong B's, Vladimir Propp, True Womanhood, Laura Fasick, Pamela Instead, Whereas Pamela, Ian Watt, Samuel Richardson, samuel richardson, authority pamela, social structure, pamela's virtue, female authority, sel studies english, literature 1500-1900, pamela virtuous, pamela ii, english literature, studies english, memoirs woman pleasure, literature 1500-1900 summer, studies english literature, english literature 1500-1900,