The Legend of Pamela: Or, “Oh the sword! The sword!” in which Pamela Defeats Villains Equipped with Nothing but Physical Weakness and Verbal Strength

Emerging victorious after conquering the first bosses presented in Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded, the Would-Be Ravishing Rake Mr. B. and his servant, “do as I’m told” Beastly Mrs. Jewkes, by marrying then subduing him, Pamela, our hero, has not seen the last of her trials on the quest from poverty to prosperity. Combining damsel-in-distress and hero qualities, she must face down the Gossiping Gentlewomen; and, worst of all, the Livid Lady Davers (the sister-in-law from hell) and her rapey kinsman. Marriage alone has not redeemed her. The Davers Family Bullying backfires when, held hostage in her own house by her own sister-in-law, after secretly marrying her master, Pamela writes:

“[Lady Davers’s] kinsman set his back to the door, and put his hand to his sword, and said, I should not go til! His aunt permitted it. He drew it half-way, and I was so terrified, that I cried out, ‘Oh the sword! The sword!’ and, not knowing what I did, I ran to my lady herself, and clasped my arms about her, forgetting just then how much she was my enemy, and said, sinking on my knees, ‘Defend me, good your ladyship! The sword! The sword!’ Mrs. Jewkes said, ‘Oh! My lady will fall into fits;’ but Lady Davers was herself so startled at the matter being carried so far; that she did not mind her words, and said, ‘Jackey, don’t draw your sword! You see, as great as her spirit is, she can’t bear that” (211).

Lady Davers finally stoops to “let her sit till she is … recovered of her fright,’” Pamela writes: “‘and do you set my chair by her.’” (211), evening the playing field and marking the beginning of the end for Lady Davers, who is no match for Pamela’s wit and propensity for passing out at convenient times. All’s fair in love and war until your kinsman whips out his “sword.”

Pamela racks up the allies: first Mrs. Jewkes–whom she describes as “for my master, bad I have thought him, is not have so bad as this woman–she must be an atheist!”–comes to her rescue.

Now Pamela runs “to my lady herself, and [clasps] her arms about her.” She refers to the Livid Lady as “my enemy” and exclaims again, “the sword! The sword!” leading the reader to wonder, with all the sexual violence hithertofore threatened in this novel, whether she means the weapon or the male body part swords represent. Throughout Pamela, we witness threats of sexual violence and acts of physical violence at the hands of her master, Mrs. Jewkes, and Lady Davers, who used to “make nothing of slapping her Maids about, and begging their Pardons afterwards, if they took it patiently; otherwise, she used to say The Creatures were even with her”:

“She gave me a Slap on the Hand, and reached to box my Ear; but Mrs. Jewkes hearkening without, and her Woman too, they both came in at that Instant; and Mrs. Jewkes said, pushing herself in between us, Your Ladyship knows not what you do. Indeed you don’t. My Master would never forgive me, if I suffer’d, in his House, one he so dearly loves, to be so used; and it must not be, tho’ you are Lady Davers.”

“As great as her spirit is, she can’t bear [the sword]” points to the fact that Pamela never faints due to mere physical violence; only when Mr. B.’s attempts at violating her “virtue” come to a head does she “fall into fits.” In part one of the novel she writes that she told him: “I will bear any thing you can inflict upon me with Patience, even to the laying down of my Life, to shew my Obedience to you in other Cases; but I cannot be patient, I cannot be passive, when my Virtue is at Stake!”

The Legend of Pamela is the legend of 18th century women and servants–or, more specifically, hot servants who display honorable, middle-class traits–elevating to the same level, nay, above, the likes of their masters, higher-ranking servants such as Mrs. Jewkes, the gentry class and judgmental in-laws who say things like “Consider, Brother, that ours is no up-start Family; but is as ancient as the best in the Kingdom; and, for several Hundreds of Years, it has never been known that the Heirs of it have disgraced themselves by unequal Matches …” after they’re married (ouch).

As Mr. B. puts it: “I must observe as I have an hundred times, with Admiration, what a prodigious Memory, and easy and happy Manner of Narration, this excellent Girl has! And tho’ she is full of her pretty Tricks and Artifices, to escape the Snares I had laid for her, yet all is innocent, lovely, and uniformly beautiful.”