Pamela and Treatise on Tolerance

Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and Voltaire’s Treatise on Tolerance both try to grab their readers in several ways. The character of Pamela is very appealing. Her personality jumps off of the page and grabs your attention. As I was reading Pamela, I felt that I was reading a letter from my own sister. Pamela was so personal; so real to me. Finding a connection with the character allowed me to experience the emotions and the feelings that Pamela experienced herself. Her independent spirit and loyalty to virtue made me want to aspire to be as strong as she. Pamela transcends all classes; her character is so versatile and her quest so common that it is no wonder why, at the time, it was so popular and ultimately impactful. In Voltaire’s Treatise on Tolerance, I was captivated by his logic and his pure heart that truly seeks justice. His outrage over what had happened is clearly visible in his writings. What captivated me was that I could feel that he was writing from the depths of his troubled heart; I could not help but lend an open mind to what he was saying. In both works, it was the purity and passion of what was said and how it was said that resonated with me and, in my belief, was able to grab the attention of its readers.

The two authors, Voltaire and Richardson, seem to have similar goals. They both aim to pull you toward the direction intended, to sympathize with Pamela for what was done to her or to sympathize with the mother whose home, children, and husband had been unjustly robbed. The authors created the emotional connection necessary for the reader to be able to alter some deep rooted prejudices or ideas in favor of what the author had in mind; perhaps, what the authors had in mind was to ultimately encourage the readership to put the prejudices aside, and to submit them to a higher standard of justice and virtue. As Lynn Hunt points out, the ability of novels or works to transcend our mental blocks towards ideas and prejudices provided an incredible tool to help move the populous towards the realization of Human Rights. Voltaire spoke directly at the idea of Human Rights, as if it was abundantly clear—and had been so for a very long time, when he speaks about treating one another as brothers and sisters. In sum, both works are closely associated with, and provide deep insights to, the development of Human Rights.