husband who wants to follow Clarissa's example: "My wife read to me that
moving scene of the funeral of Miss Clarissa Harlow [sic]. Oh, may the
Supreme Being give me grace to lead my life in such a manner as my exit
may in some measure be like that divine creature's." ²³ This double agenda
of the universal and the particular can be fulfilled in the transparency of the
textual event, as the text becomes both the unique expression of a subject's
experience and a shared narrative through circulation and publication. The
particular, therefore, must be translatable into the universal in order for
transformation to take place. However, if we return to Pamela, we can begin
to question the nature of the transformations effected by the sentimental
narrative. If Mr. B. is transformed into a virtuous subject by Pamela's virtue,
Pamela's narrative of resistance ironically transforms her into an acquies-
cent wife. The question of who influences whose narrative becomes debat-
able, as does the sentimental novel's apparent support of the dispossessed
subject. What does take place is a narrative process that establishes a new
kind of relationship between self and text, expanding the ways in which
subjectivity can be imagined during this period of social and cultural tran-
sition.

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