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Student Research submissions 2013 (2013 research options)
Research Journal |
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Kristine Vermillion
November 24, 2013
Literary Suicides:
Pamela and
Jasmine
The suicides of literary characters are exit
strategies that authors use to inform, criticize, moralize, and complicate their
writings in a number of ways. While writers bring both male and female
characters to this self-imposed end, it has been argued that the trope is used
differently according to various gender stereotypes. I am currently in the
process of completing an article about the literary trope of the female suicide
in the English Novel. My research expands upon the research done by Margaret
Higonnet in two essays on the literary representation of female suicides titled:
Suicide: Representations of the Feminine
in the Nineteenth Century (1985) and
Frames of Female Suicide (2000). In these essays Higonnet analyzes several
female characters that commit suicide, and she looks into what the exit strategy
lends to the meaning of the novel. Higonnet’s general thesis is bifurcated. The
first branch deals with gendered stereotypes of literary suicides. The
stereotypical catalyst leading to male characters’ suicides is based on the
disintegration of their identities according to their “political standing” and
“their heroic self-image” (108). In
regards to fictitious women “suicidal disintegration far more often has to do
with their sexual and amorous relationships. Traditionally, myths of female
suicide have focused on two themes: defeated love and chastity” (108).
Statistically speaking, this observation holds true with most incidences
of literary suicide. However, Higonnet argues that there is another important
aspect that challenges, informs, and complicates the gender stereotypes. The
second part of her thesis is that the literary suicide provokes narrative and
opens up meaning. “The gesture of self-destruction makes a person into both
subject and object of the action” and instead of giving final meaning to a
character’s life it does the opposite and “generates multiple textual readings”
where the survivors and readers are “obliged to interpret its meaning” (230).
The literary gesture “resists our attempts at knowledge and explanation” (230).
Within the context of Higonnet’s analysis of female suicides she shows how
feminine suicides are used subversively to question social systems and actually
multiply narratives and interpretive possibilities. They have a dialogical
element.
My research on the suicide trope in the
genera of English Novel analyzes the presence and function of suicide letters
written by women. I analyzed Samuel
Richardson’s Pamela, Wilkie Collins’s
The Moonstone, and Charles Dickens’s
Bleak House. In these works, the
characters Pamela Andrews, Rosanna Spearman, and Lady Honoria Dedlock all write
suicide notes that are integral elements in their respective novels. In each
case, their suicide epistles function in three specific ways: they serve as key
evidence in a mystery in the novel, they are pivotal elements in the development
of the plot, and they serve as barometers to the underlying philosophy and
morale of the novel. The narrative function of the suicide epistle is
fascinating because in each instance their narratives are integral to the novel.
Pamela’s case is particularly interesting for the context of
this class because it ties into a similar instance experienced by Daniel Defoe’s
Robinson Crusoe, and it also adds
valuable insight into Bharati Mukherjee’s novel
Jasmine.
Pamela, like both Crusoe and Jasmine,
does not commit suicide. Published in 1740,
Pamela, joined the words of Daniel
Defoe and Henry Fielding as trailblazers in the literary world with their
unprecedented use of the novel as a distinct genre. These authors used the novel
form in ways that reflected the realist and individualist philosophical trends
of their day. Ian Watt, in his book The
Rise of the Novel, explains the major changes their works signify.
The
novel is the form of literature which most fully reflects this individualist and
innovating reorientation. Previous literary forms had reflected the general
tendency of their cultures to make conformity to traditional practice the major
test of truth: the plots of classical and renaissance epic, for example, were
based on past history or fable, and the merits of the author’s treatment were
judged largely according to a view of literary decorum derived from the accepted
models in the genre. This literary traditionalism was first and most fully
challenged by the novel, whose primary criterion was truth to individual
experience—individual experience which is always unique and therefore new. The
novel is thus the logical literary vehicle of a culture which, in the last few
centuries, has set an unprecedented value on originality, on the novel; and it
is therefore well named. (13)
Authors used the advent of the novel as a vehicle to
challenge traditional and religious societal norms by giving voice to people in
the society thereby showing how societal norms don’t work in all contexts. The
rejection of the classical in order to institute the new is of particular
relevance to Richardson’s work since Pamela’s contemplation of suicide is both
staged and informed by the classical story of the rape of Lucretia.
Lucretia is the wife of
Tarquinius Conlatinus who, when “out
with the guys,” brags about his wife’s purity and faithfulness. In order to
prove his words of commendation are true, the men make an impromptu visit to
Conlatinus’ house to observe her character. When they arrive she is faithfully
spinning and working and all the men are impressed by her chaste honor. A short
time later, one of the men, Sextus Tarquinius, goes back to Conlatinus’ house
where he is hospitably welcomed. In the night, filled with raging desire for
Lucretia, he enters her chambers, threatens her life with his sword and rapes
her in her own bed. In the morning, she calls in her husband and her father,
informs them of what has happened, demands justice, and then kills herself. The
last lines of Lucretia’s famous death scene contain the classical ideal that
links a woman’s chastity and honor with the idea of suicide.
“What
is due to him,” Lucretia said, “is for you to decide. As for me, I am
innocent of fault, but I will take my punishment. Never shall Lucretia provide a
precedent for unchaste women to escape what they deserve.” With these words she
drew a knife from under her robe, drove it into her heart, and fell forward
dead. (Livy 102)
Unwilling to bear the shame she ends her own life in front of
them to “put a period” on her demands for justice. Lucretia’s story sets the
classical precedent that condones and may even command the death of a woman who
has been defiled, whether innocent or guilty. The story underlines the
expectation for woman to defend and guard her chastity at all costs pre and post
marriage, and that in the event that it is lost her life is forfeit regardless
of the circumstances.
The message of Lucretia’s death, however, can be interpreted
in different ways. It can be translated as a traditional gesture that purges the
assaulted body, “displacing responsibility for the violation” (Higonnet 109).
How could a pure heart reside in an assaulted body? If a woman’s worth is
defined by her body, and her body is thus violated and debased, the
contradiction leads to a breakdown of the woman’s identity and subsequently
justifies the act of suicide. Lucretia’s suicide can also be interpreted as an
escape narrative—a rebellion against the social and political tyranny she is
encompassed by. The taking of her own life can be seen as her taking control “to
reaffirm her own autonomy” (Higonnet 109). Higonnet’s analysis of the scene is
both insightful and extremely applicable to Pamela’s story.
The
physical control of Collatinus and Tarquin is reinforced by their abuse of
language. Lucretia has become a verbal boast; and if she does not submit to the
rape she will be killed with a black slave, her reputation defiled. Against
these verbal constructs of what she is as woman, Lucretia must set her own. She
calls upon family and friends to hear her story and know her in her difference.
Such use of language is revolutionary. (Higonnet 110)
The power of language wielded by a woman in her own defense
lies at the very heart and is the strength of Richardson’s novel,
Pamela.
Pamela is portrayed as the epitome of a young, chaste woman
who has been taught to value her purity above everything. Her plight is to
remain chaste while being pursued, attacked, and imprisoned by her master, Mr.
B, who is a profligate rake. Her primary weapon of defense is her pen, and with
it she wields great power. Following the initial scene of passionate aggression
(23), Pamela views her main purpose in life to resist Mr. B with every ounce of
her being in order to maintain her chastity. She comes to this resolve through
the admonitions of her parents in letters, and she makes them her own by writing
her story. “Pamela starts to conceive of writing as a means of strengthening her
resolve to remain virtuous in the present” (Blanchard 97).
Her command of language and her reading ability make her a suitable
challenge for the master. When Mr. B. takes Pamela on his knee by force and
tries to kiss her, she—like Lucretia—cries out for defense and justice: “Angels
and Saints, and all the Host of Heaven, defend me! And may I never survive one
Moment, that fatal one in which I shall forfeit my Innocence” (31). Mr. B argues
with her: “Pretty Fool! Said he, how will you forfeit your Innocence, if you are
oblig’d to yield to a Force you cannot withstand?” He insists she will remain
innocent and he’ll take the blame. He continues by forcing his kisses upon her
and says, “Who ever blamed Lucretia,
but the Ravisher only? And I am
content to take all the Blame upon me.” Pamela, picking up on his reference to
the famed Lucretia responds, “May I …
Lucretia like, justify myself with my Death, if I am used barbarously” (32)?
The presence of this classical reference provides substantial evidence
that shows how Richardson is purposefully deviating from the more traditional
views of female identity and worth towards more innovative avenues through the
form of the novel.
The classical idea of noble feminine suicide as a statement
of purity and chastity, as in the story of Lucretia, is a subtle undercurrent
that moves along with Pamela until the actual scene where Pamela is driven to
despair and contemplates her own suicide. Imprisoned and seeing no means of
escape from being assaulted, Pamela finds herself at the edge of the pond
considering taking things into her own hands by ending her own life. If she were
to act according to the classical standard, she is supposed to take her own life
to preserve her chastity. Granted, Pamela’s position is different than
Lucretia’s in that she has not yet been defiled; however, the comparison of the
two lends great insight into the novelty of the scene.
In this contemplative suicide scene Pamela writes about the
incident in retrospect. “What to
do, but to throw myself into the Pond, and so put a Period to all my Griefs in
this World!—But, Oh! To find them infinitely aggravated in a miserable
Eternity!” (171). This particular
line speaks volumes. First we have a woman located within the customary
circumstances that lead to their suicide, that is, a relationship with a man. In
this case, like Lucretia, it is a man within a society that idealizes feminine
virtue while all the while the men who created the institutions are actively
seeking to destroy the very same virtue they prize. In the novel form, however,
the classical idea of noble female suicide in order to preserve honor is
circumvented and reinvented through the individual story and reasoning of a
young girl. Pamela’s questioning whether or not she “put a Period” to her own
life is indicative of the power she has through her writing. She questions and
thinks about which perceived ending will function to give her the most power and
control over the situation, articulating those struggles in writing meant to
memorialize them.
Pamela analyzes her options by trying to imagine the effect
the ending of her narrative at that juncture will have on others interpreting
her life. The story that she wants told is one that interprets her the way that
she views herself. She imagines that when they pull her dead body out of the
pond they will repent of their wrongdoing by her.
When
they see the dead Corpse of the unhappy
Pamela dragg’d out to these slopy Banks, and lying breathless at their Feet,
they will find that Remorse to wring their obdurate Hearts, which now has no
Place there!—And my Master, my angry Master, will then forget his Resentments,
and say, O this is the unhappy Pamela!
That I have so causelessly persecuted and destroy’d! Now I do see she preferr’d
her Honesty to her Life, will he say, and is no Hypocrite, nor Deceiver; but
really was the innocent Creature she pretended to be! (172)
This furtive, wistful thinking upon how her suicide might
affect others works right into Higonnet’s analysis of the reading of female
suicides. She writes that, “To take one’s life is to force others to read one’s
death” (103). It also plays into her analysis of it being a tool for authors to
project the feminine stereotype of the manipulative woman. “In their deaths,
many are obsessed with projecting an image, whether to permit aesthetic
contemplation or to provoke a revolution in thought. The desire to control one’s
own life may extend into manipulation of the lives of the survivors—and women
are thought to be particularly prone to this motive” (Higonnet 104). Richardson
brings to light and condemns this manipulative approach by having Pamela
attribute this line of reasoning to the “Devil’s Instigation” and by making her
ashamed of it. It is at this point where Richardson deviates from the
traditional classical ideas of honorable suicide to maintain virtue by appealing
to a traditional, theological view against suicide.
The references to “eternity” and the “Devil”
along with all her supplications to God and his angels evidence the obvious
moralistic undercurrent of a meta-narrative. However, it is at this moment in
the story that the meta-narrative takes over. This presumably Christian
narrative stops Pamela in her tracks and as she is confronted with the question
of who the author of her life really is.
Then,
thought I, who gave thee, presumptuous as thou art, a Power over thy Life? Who
authoriz’d thee to put an End to it, when the Weakness of thy Mind suggests not
to thee a Way to preserve it with Honour? How knowest thou what Purposes God may
have to serve, by the Trials with which thou art now tempted? Art
thou to put a Bound to God’s Will,
and to say, Thus much will I bear, and no more? And, wilt thou
dare to say, that if the Trial be
augmented, and continued, thou wilt sooner die than bear it? (173)
The meta-narrative intervenes at this point and Pamela
submits to it. The act of aggression against herself would constitute defiance
against “God Almighty” by questioning his “Grace and Goodness” and his ability
to “turn all these Sufferings to thy Benefits” (174). Instead of seeing only
herself, she is drawn out to see the real effect her death would have on her
parents, and on her own hope of salvation. She’s convinced her inner despair is
the devil’s prompting and must be checked. At this point, her view of her being
the author of her own story is reprimanded, and instead she assumes the role of
scribe of the story being written by the true Author. The same moralizing is
found in Daniel Defoe’s narrative
Robinson Crusoe. Stranded upon the island, Crusoe thinks, “I had great
reason to consider it as a determination of Heaven that in this desolate place
and in this desolate manner I should end my life” (Defoe 54). Yet, like Pamela,
his thoughts are checked and he is moved to hope that all is not lost and there
is plenty to be thankful for. A future hope remains. In both cases, the
characters are compelled by the larger story being written of which they are
conscious that they are but actors on some grand stage. That this
rationalization and mental acuity is displayed in a female character is one of
the key ways Richardson’s novel resists the classical stereotype of female
suicide and pushes it farther.
Pamela’s submission to God’s will at this point turns out to
be the catalyst for change in the story. The joint authorial account of her
desperate circumstances, her rationale and subsequent humility, when read by Mr.
B in the garden, is the event that changes the direction of the novel. The
“suicide letter” reforms the rake and sends him down an honorable path. Pamela’s
suicide narrative is the fulcrum, the pivotal scene, the climax of the story
that everything is centered upon. Her letter is an essential plot device, and it
also succinctly contains the philosophy, the meta-narrative that informs the
novel. One of Higonnet’s analyses of the function of female suicide is that act
is ambivalent because it can be used to affirm identity or to erase it. Female
suicide is often seen as a “breakdown of one’s sense of identity” (Higonnet
107). This is the classical idea that the story of Lucretia evidences. Pamela’s
story functions on the reverse idea. Her suicidal incident leads to the
affirmation of her identity, thus showing how the novel form works to question
traditional assumptions and to give life to individual stories.
Bharati Mukherjee’s character, Jasmine, is also a prisoner to
traditional and societal expectations, and true to the individualist bent of the
novel form invoked by Ian Watt, Mukherjee writes a narrative that is about a
woman’s escape from these oppressive forces and her search for her own identity.
Jasmine’s route of escape also entails a brush with suicide. Like Pamela’s
culture that is informed by the classical idea about suicide to preserve
chastity, so too Jasmine’s culture binds the identity of a woman with her
husband to intricately that with his death, she too is expected to die according
to the tradition of “sati.” The idea of “sati” is that the widow would join her
dead husband on his funeral pyre and exit this world and life with him. Her life
didn’t have purpose or meaning without him. Though not an Indian story, the
classical story of Dido’s death provides a classical literary precedent. When
Aeneas left Dido to continue his journey, she built a pyre out of all the things
he left behind, and then she chose to die in flames upon it. Her identity had
become wrapped up in Aeneas, she refused to live without him. Her despair at the
thought of his betrayal was too great.
The idea of Sati is first introduced in Jasmine’s story when
she recollects Vimlas, a girl she once envied because she had had a fancy
wedding and lived in a two-story brick house. “When she was twenty-one her
husband died of typhoid, and at twenty-two she doused herself with kerosene and
flung herself on a stove, shouting to the god of death, ‘Yama, bring me to you’”
(14). Jasmine comments that the Hasnapur
society didn’t think Vimla’s story was a sad story. Rather it just reflected
that she was a broken pitcher and it was time for her to move on. “The villagers
say when a clay pitcher breaks, you see that the air inside it is the same as
outside. Vimla set herself on fire because she had broken her pitcher; she saw
there were no insides and outsides. We are just shells of the same absolute”
(15). Through this story we see both transcendent and community approval and
acceptance of this ancient idea of intertwined souls and existential existence.
The next example of this underlying idea happens when
Jasmine’s own mother attempts to perform the classical rite, and when she is
thwarted in her attempt by her family her life becomes a type of living death.
“When Pitaji died, my mother tried to throw herself on his funeral pyre. When we
wouldn’t let her, she shaved her head with a razor, wrapped her body in coarse
cloth, and sat all day in a corner. Once a day I [Jasmine] force-fed spoonfuls
of rice gruel into her” (61). The tradition of “sati” combined with the
traditional role of women as chaste and pure lie at the heart of the climax in
Jasmine’s story.
Jasmine is brought to the brink of despair by the death of
her husband Prakash. Jasmine and Prakash are targeted because they are straying
from the fundamental Sikh traditions of their Hindu society. Prakash “was a
modern man, a city man. He did trash some traditions, right from the beginning”
(76). Independence and self-reliance were Prakash’s creed, and he fought to
break Jasmine’s mind free from the confines of their traditionalistic society
that was based on the past. Prakash argued that Jasmine’s “kind of feudal
compliance was what still kept India an unhealthy and backward nation. It was up
to the women to resist, because men were generally too stupid to recognize their
own best interests” (77). Under the
tutelage and admonitions of Prakash, Jasmine begins to part with the
traditional. He challenges her to think for herself and to use her talents and
gifts to advance herself and Prakash. As a result they are targeted by the
terrorist Sukkhi for being “impure” on a multitude of levels. After the bomb
goes off and Prakash dies in her arms Jasmine thinks: “I failed you. I didn’t
get there soon enough. The bomb was meant for me, prostitute, whore” (93). Under
Prakash’s influence and now in his absence Jasmine is alienated within a world
she can no longer be a part of, and she decides, in a weird amalgamation of
ideas, that her purpose must be to go to Prakash’s dream world, America, in
order to erect the old world’s cultural mandate for “sati” there—to die in the
fire kindled by Prakash’s suit. In the midst of Prakash’s attempts to set her
free, her own identity had become intertwined with his, and with his death she
temporarily loses herself. Jasmine’s travels to America, and her immediate
experiences there compound her problem even more. The dishonor of her body is
completed, or rather made true, with her rape. Anything left that was honorable,
pure, and chaste is taken from her. What Sukkhi had accused her of and targeted
her for was now true. Her body was a defiled vessel, and her suicide is the
obvious conclusion.
While being raped, Jasmine focuses on her god in order to
survive long enough to fulfill her purpose for coming to America. “I tried to
keep my eyes on Ganpati and prayed for the strength to survive, long enough to
kill myself” (116). Her thinking is fueled by a Lucretia-like drive of
self-immolation. After the rape, she showers and cleans herself as much as she
can. “I determined to clean my body as it had never been cleaned, with the small
wrapped bar of soap, and to purify my soul with all the prayers I could remember
from my fathers and my husbands cremations. This would be a fitting place to
die. I had left my earthly body and would soon be joining their souls” (117).
Like Lucretia she sees that there is nothing left of value in her person. Like
Lucretia she takes out her knife to kill herself. “Until the moment that I held
its short, sharp blade to my throat I had not thought of any conclusion but the
obvious one: to balance my defilement with my death” (117). The traditions are
the only thing up this point that have driven her, but then something happens.
Another part of the tradition, a part above the idea of defilement and sati that
both require her death, arises. The idea of a mission, a purpose, in the form of
a question comes to the forefront of her mind. “What if my mission was not yet
over? I could not let my personal dishonor disrupt my mission. There would be
plenty of time to die; I had not yet burned by husband’s suit” (117).
Jasmine then in an act of newfound
defiance and assertion kills the man who raped her, purifies herself again by
water and prayers, picks up Prakash’s suit, and leaves to fulfill her
mission—whatever that may be. When she walks away, she starts a new journey. “I
walked out the front drive of the motel to the highway and began my journey,
traveling light” (120). She had intended to die in America the first day she
arrived, but because of what happened, “death was being denied,” and instead she
begins her own story about shedding the past and becoming her own person.
I am very interested how Jasmine’s suicide scene aligns with
Higonnet’s analysis of female suicides. Jasmine’s story fits the stereotype of a
woman committing suicide due to her relationships with men. In every way
Jasmine’s identity and her very life at this point and throughout the novel are
informed by her relations with various men. She was determined to die due to her
loss of Prakash. She was determined to die due to her idea of purity and her
defilement by rape. Like Pamela and to a more extreme extent, she is driven by a
need to escape by her death. Religious ideas and societal traditions require it.
However, like Pamela, somehow a meta-narrative, though from an entirely
different paradigm, intervenes and infuses her with a purpose to continue living
at least another day.
In many ways Jasmine’s suicide narrative exhibits the same
literary functions as the female suicide narratives of the English novel.
Jasmine’s almost death scene is pivotal in the development of the plot. It
functions as a decisive moment where the character’s life is changed and begins
to head in a new direction. The scene is also indicative of the religion and
philosophy of the novel. When Jasmine’s thoughts are turned from her own death
to the death of the man who raped her, she does something interesting. “I
extended my tongue, and sliced it. Hot blood dripped immediately in the sink”
(118). This action links her with the goddess Kali who also has a slashed
tongue. Depictions of this Hindu divinity have her standing on a prostrate male
figure, the demon Raktajava, which symbolizes her triumph over his evil and
represents her own empowerment. Within the context of Jasmine’s story this deity
provides her with the empowerment to cast off societal expectations and move on.
This scene does shed light on the deep religious bearings that motivate her. As
she walks away, “traveling light” she is in a new place where she is eventually
“able to find a new morality that enables her to leave behind those things that
limit her personal freedom” (Faymonville 54). She is a mysterious figure
throughout the rest of the novel, and this also correlates with the other part
of Higonnet’s analysis: the act defies meaning and creates multiplies
narratives. There does not seem to be a way to nail down a definitive
interpretation of what exactly the scene means or who Jasmine really is for that
matter.
I am intrigued how both Pamela and Jasmine navigate around
cultural forms and expectations that both condone and expect their deaths and
end up preserving their lives and forming their own identities. Pamela is able
to resist the male who dominates her. She writes. She finds a voice, and she
grows in spite of how she is pursued, imprisoned and subjected. Though different
in every way, Jasmine also breaks away from patriarchal and traditional forms
that dominated her. She lives. She travels. She searches for her place in the
new land. As Jasmine is getting ready to leave with Taylor, she reasons, “I am
not choosing between men. I am caught between the promise of America and
old-world dutifulness” (240). If she would have chosen to stay with Bud, she
would be choosing her other world again, and to be true to herself, she couldn’t
do that. In this way, both authors use the modernizing form of the novel to
resist and challenge dominant ideologies and give voice to the marginalized.
However, these almost-suicide scenes both come at about the midpoint of the
novels they are in, and even though they are powerful in the preservation of the
life and the affirmation of their identities, the remainders of both novels are
both disappointing. Both Pamela and Jasmine continue to live; however, they
continue to live lives that are subsumed back into the male-dominated and
repressive cultural roles from which they were breaking free. Both end up in the
traditional feminine roles of wives, caretakers, and dependent women.
A colonial narrative also comes up at the end of the novel
Pamela which proves to be interesting
within the context of our class. At the end of the novel, Mr. B reveals he had a
former mistress named Sally Godfrey, who is the mother of his illegitimate
child. After their affair played itself out, Sally migrated to Jamaica to break
away from her past and start over. Sally’s indiscretion marked her as a whore
and an impure woman for life. The only way for her to have a life was to
completely remove herself from the country and start over completely. Sally had
to find a new home away from and out of under the society that judged, stifled,
and limited her. Jasmine’s
post-colonial narrative also reads the same way. Both of the broken and defiled
women necessarily head west to escape their pasts. What this says about the
transnational migration of women to find better lives, free from societal
oppression, in both colonial and post-colonial literatures in spite of disparity
of the paradigms within which their societies operate, is very interesting. The
patriarchic suppression within both cultures seems to transcend the colonial and
post-colonial divide. The gender binary is more ancient and widespread than the
reaches of colonialism, and that oppression has yet to become the past. Yet the
novel, as seen in this discussion of both
Pamela and Jasmine has shown, is
a dynamic place where the voices of women are being heard through the moving
stories of individual women. The modernization of the world moves on, and the
popularity and dialogical effectiveness of the novel continues.
Works Cited
Blanchard, Jane. “Composing Purpose in Richardson’s
Pamela.” South Atlantic Review.
76.2 (2011): 93-107. From Literature
Resource Center.
Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. 1719. Barnes and
Noble: New York, 2003.
Higonnet, Margaret. “Suicide: Representations of the Feminine in the Nineteenth
Century.”
Poetics Today.
Vol. 6, No. 1/2, The Female Body in
Western Culture: Semiotic Perspectives (1985), pp. 103-118.
---. “Frames Of Female Suicide.”
Studies in the Novel. Vol. 32, No. 2,
Death in the Novel
(summer 2000), pp. 229-242
Faymonville, Carmen. “Mukherjee’s Jasmine.”
The Explicator. 56:1, 1997. pp. 53-54.
Livy. The Early History of Rome: Books I-V of the History
of Rome and Its Foundations. Trans. Aubrey De Sélincourt. London: Penguin
Books, 1960.
Mukherjee, Bharati. Jasmine. New York: Grove Press,
1989.
Richardson, Samuel. Pamela. Oxford University Press:
Oxford, 2001.
Watt, Ian P. The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe,
Richardson, and Fielding. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964.
