Reading other people's mail....

Letters, letters, and more letters...All this letter reading is making me feel like I'm invading the personal lives of these characters or something...lol. Although, I believe it was common to share letters and read them to others during this time and that they were not a private as we think of them now. If anyone has anymore information on this I would be interested. I've become sort of obsessed with all these letters...

Even though letters are an essential part of Anti-Pamela just as they are in Pamela, they are no longer the predominate source for the action of the story. In Anti-Pamela there are moments where there is a narrator who fills in the gaps between the letters and gives the reader clues about Syrena's behavior. But what is odd about this now that I just looked at it again is that this story is still comprised of a series of letters, but Syrena refers to herself in the third person within the letters and writes it like a story...so i think. Now I'm confused. A lot of this occurs during the relations with Vardine when she is lying about what happens to her mom, but the truth is revealed to the reader.
There are two different things going on between Pamela and Anti-Pamela. In Pamela it is hard to discern what is really going on because Pamela's letters have a very distinct audience which may cause her to be an unreliable narrator. In Anti-Pamela, it is unclear who the audience is since the letters are addresssed to Ann Tricksy but things she isn't supppossed to know are revealed in the process. There appears at some points to be a narrator who intervenes (p71-86 is one spot, among others...), giving the reader true insight into Syrena's charachter that lacks in Pamela's charachter. The reader only knows Pamela through the way she depicts herself in her letters to her parents and her reproduction of letters from others. The reader never gets a glimpse of Pamela from someone else's point of view. In Anti-Pamela, if it was not for this intervention by a narrator, the reader would be forced to believe Syrena's letters to her mother, which are often as inclusive as Pamela's letters to her family. The writing is the same, the responses to the men are similar when depicted in her letters, and even though it is obvious Syrena is lying to these men for her own personal gain, her letters depict her in a different light. This is similar to the inconsistencies I found in Pamela, but without the evidence that is provided in Anti-Pamela.

It is very interesting how the presence of letters can change the way a character and his/her actions are perceived...

One thing I forgot to mention was the issue of intercepting letters. This occurs in both books (I'm really sick of writing the titles over and over...) and changes the fate of the characters, more permanatly for Syrena than Pamela. This goes back to the issue of audience and letters. Now it is considered a federal offence in America to read someone else's mail. But in 18th Century England, what were the rules for letters? As I suggested earlier, I believe that letters were not as personal as we think of them now. In both books because Syrena and Pamela are servants, their masters by default feel that it is okay to read their letters. Is this an invasion of their privacy? Can servants have a private life or is their life fully indebted to their master? Syrena definately has more freedom than Pamela. Getting a little off topic here, does this freedom correlate with her much looser morals?

But anyways...audience and letters.....what does it all mean?!?!?!?!