The Place of Sally Godfrey in Richardson's Pamela

The Place of Sally Godfrey in Richardson's Pamela Albert J. Rivero Near the end of her journal to her parents, while relating the events of her sixth day of happiness, Pamela describes her not-so-happy quarrels with Lady Davers. Angered by her brother's foolish act of exogamy , Lady Davers fulminates against the docile Pamela with all the aristocratic hauteur she can muster. The scenes, anticipating and answering many of the criticisms raised by the novel's program of social levelling, display the nastiness and vulgarity of the high-born. Indeed, Lady Davers's desperate strategies of subjection recall Mr B.'s treatment of Pamela before his conversion, suggesting that her behaviour is typical of her class. Showering epithets like "creature" and "wench" on her victim, threatening to "confine" her if she fails to obey her commands , Lady Davers stands as the last obstacle to be removed before the heroine's assumption into Mr B.'s social sphere can be considered successful.1 Another obstacle is raised by Lady Davers when she reveals the existence of "poor Sally Godfrey": "Poor Sally Godfrey" she tells Pamela, "never had half the Interest in him, I'll assure you!"2 From this point on, 1 On Lady Davers—and the "rights" of gender and class—see Michael McKeon, The Origins of the English Novel 1600-1740 (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), pp. 378-81. 2 Samuel Richardson, Pamela or, Virtue Rewarded, ed. T.C. Duncan Eaves and Ben D. Kimpel (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971), p. 356. References are to this edition. Since Richardson continued to revise Pamela throughout his life, adding a second part in late 1741, and leaving at his death a corrected copy eventually published in 1801, several editions of the work exist. The Eaves and Kimpel edition reprints the first edition of 1740 (though 1741 appears on the title page). I have used it as my text because my reading here hinges, among other things, on EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION, Volume 6, Number 1, October 1993 30 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION "poor Sally Godfrey"—she is rarely mentioned without the adjective— becomes a narrative obsession, both for Pamela and, I suggest, for Richardson. It seems as though the novel cannot end until Sally Godfrey has been disposed of. I say "disposed of because Sally Godfrey is the unpleasant secret this narrative has concealed from both its heroine and its readers until near the end, only to be blurted out by a character who has been instrumental in keeping "poor Sally Godfrey" in her proper place, out of everyone's sight and knowledge. Now that the secret is out, Pamela must discover the secret within the secret and what she discovers is what Richardson wants her and his readers to discover. That, however, is not the whole story. Given its prominent place in Richardson's narrative, the Sally Godfrey story has elicited surprisingly little critical attention, perhaps because, as several readers have noted, it appears in that part of the novel where, after concluding the energetic narration of Pamela's struggles with herself and Mr B., Richardson turns his attention to demonstrating why Pamela belongs in high life. As Nancy Armstrong has brilliantly shown, one context in which to read eighteenth-century novels in general—and Pamela in particular—is that of contemporary conduct books; after Pamela and Mr B. agree to marry, the novel begins to sound more and more like a conduct book and less and less like a romantic tale.3 As the narrative energy flags, our interest is likely to do so too. Thus Sheldon Sacks remarked that "though the final section—especially the auspicious solution of the problem of Sally Godfrey—deftly resolves the action, it is anticlimactic and detracts from the novel's effectiveness."4 Margaret Anne Doody, one of Richardson's most astute and sympathetic readers, while acknowledging the change in narrative strategy, does not see it as detracting, since she, like Armstrong, agrees that this part of the narrative is crucial to establishing Pamela in her new station. Doody, however, concedes that something is wrong with the "Sally Godfrey sequence ": "The Sally Godfrey section is but clumsily done, resembling the...