Thank you Nancy. Actually another article about Pamela's pregnancy that
actually outlines her "career" as a pregnant wife is this one:
The Pregnant Pamela: Characterization and Popular Medical Attitudes in the
Eighteenth Century
by Dolores Peters Eighteenth-Century Studies , Summer, 1981, Vol. 14, No.
4 pp. 432-451
It is indeed clear from the moment they get married during the first
*Pamela* novel, that Mr. B wants her to become pregnant right away. - he
hints at it at least a couple of times, as Peters explains. So when he
speaks about the olive-branch at the very end of the first *Pamela* novel,
he either knows she is pregnant, or fervently hopes she is. That makes the
likelihood that Mr. Collins's final wink about Charlotte being pregnant was
Austen's wink at this line in *Pamela *that much greater.
The above-cited article also discusses Pamela's fears of dying in
childbirth, and her Austen-like chagrin at being serially pregnant since
her marriage, as expressed in the fourth from the last letter in the second
*Pamela* novel ("Mr. B. kindly accompanied me, apprehending that his
presence would be necessary, if the recovery of them both [Pamela's sick
parents], in which I thankfully rejoice, had not happened; *especially as a
circumstance I am, I think, always in, added more weight to his
apprehensions*.")
Given my assertion since 2008 (that you always deny, Nancy, in our eternal
dance here in Janeites) that this theme of serial pregnancy and death in
childbirth is a major subtext of *Northanger Abbey *vis a vis Mrs. Tilney*,* I
believe this is the first time I have ever found these fears explicitly
described or enacted in fiction that we *know *Jane Austen read, and read
closely. How ironic and sad if Pamela was the only book she ever read that
made explicit what so many married Englishwomen of that era feared during
their entire childbearing married years.
ARNIE
On Sun, Sep 22, 2024 at 3:46?PM Nancy Mayer via groups.io
<regencyresearcher@...> wrote:
Mr. B was definitely the father.
I found the article on JSTOR South Atlantic Review N.1 1993
The Edible Woman: Eating and Breast-Feeding in the Novels of Samuel
Richardson
Laura Fasick
<
On Sun, Sep 22, 2024 at 5:17?PM Arnie Perlstein via groups.io
<arnieperlstein@...> wrote:
NANCY: "I think Mr. B is referring to a baby Pamela is carrying. A part
of
the book that is less published mentions that Pamela had a baby son and
that Mr. B thought that her nursing the baby herself would remind people
that he married some one from a much lower class. ( of course, class
wasn't
used then.) According to the author of an essay, husbands of the 18th
century had a great deal to say about whether the wife nursed the child
or
not."
Interesting, Nancy, thanks!
Do you mean that there were multiple editions of Pamela, and in some of
them it mentions Pamela having been pregnant, but in others not?
Was Mr. B the father, or was that unclear?
If you can point me to where in Pamela that is mentioned without
inconvenience, that would be wonderful
Thanks, ARNIE
At the end of Richardson¡¯s *Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded*, after Mr. B
has
married Pamela, he reveals to Pamela the story of his illegitimate
daughter, Miss Goodwin. He does this in a back-handed way, by first
introducing Pamela to Miss Godwin, whom he had placed in a boarding
school
nearby, without revealing her true relationship to him. Then, after
Pamela
begins to suspect that he is more than an ¡°uncle¡± to the girl, he
tells
Pamela that she is in fact his daughter, and how that came about.
Pamela
warmly accepts the little girl, whom they will then take into their
new
marital home.
Then we read this statement by the buoyant Pamela in her letter to
her
parents:
¡°Yesterday we set out, attended by John, Abraham, Benjamin, and
Isaac,
in
fine new liveries, in the best chariot, which had been new cleaned,
and
lined, and new harnessed; so that it looked like a quite new one.
But I
had
no arms to quarter with my dear lord and master¡¯s; though he
jocularly,
upon my taking notice of my obscurity, said, that he had a good mind
to
have the olive-branch, which would allude to his hopes, quartered for
³¾¾±²Ô±ð.¡±
Wikipedia informed me thusly as to the meaning of ¡°arms to quarter¡±:
¡°a heraldic term that refers to the practice of dividing a shield
into
four
or more sections, or compartments, to display multiple coats of
²¹°ù³¾²õ¡±.
My question is, does Mr. B mean by that reference to the olive-branch
to
symbolize his hopes that Pamela will continue to accept his daughter
as
if
she were her own; and moreover, to accept his reformation from
predatory
rake to faithful husband as bona fide.
Of course, a few of you have been reminded by the above of the
references
by Mr. Collins to olive-branches, and in particular the baby he hints
Charlotte is carrying ¨C it's interesting to think of them as
allusions
to
the above passage in *Pamela.*
ARNIE
Arnie Perlstein