Oct 27, 2009
Epistolary and Uplift
Pamela as an epistolary novel consists of countless letters written by Pamela and her parents. Once we open the cover, we can clearly assume how long her parents couldn’t see their daughter and how they miss each other borrowing Pamela’s letters. Because direct conversation is impossible that they deliver their regards with paper and we as readers observe it. Therefore, the narration tells her story not to us but her parents that it raises an aesthetic distance between the narrator and the readers. Besides, there are more novels which accepted this narration style. Alice Walker’s novel, the Color Purple, is drawing a girl who extremely abused by her father that she writes letters to the God because what she suffered was beyond her control that she had to find someone to reveal her inner heart and share the truth. From these two examples, I found a common characteristic. They both have special reasons for writing letters to tell the story and actually this does not seem that they have intention of telling the stroy for readers.
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Another example of an epistolary piece that we have read is Abigail Adams’ letters. This isn’t a novel, but I believe that they share many of the same characteristics that Gi Hyun pointed out. Adams has “special reasons for writing letters to tell the story” and also is not directly addressing the current audience, instead she is directing the letter solely to her husband, John Adams. This form, as Gi Hyun pointed out, creates a distance between author and audience, such as in Booth’s narration theory. This distance occurs between both between the author and the intended audience and the author and the current audience. The distance between the intended audience and the author necessitated, in Adams’ letters at least, the complex appeals to time and emotion that she used, in order to create her argument for uplift. This recognizing of the distance of her audience and compensating for it is the reason that Adams’ letters continue to be moving to modern audiences. They are constructed for a distant audience, whoever that may be.
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