In eighteenth-century England, a major social concern arose about one's social and economic status. There were three broad status categories, including the nobility (made up of aristocrats and nobles), the middle class (made up of civil servants and merchants), and the lower classes (made up of artisans and farmers). Samuel Richardson shows the tension and emphasis placed on the social and economic classes of eighteenth-century England in his novel Pamela: or Virtue Rewarded, in which Pamela, a teenage lower-class servant, is exposed to the aristocratic world through her employment and later marriage to an aristocratic man, Mr. B. It was theoretically impossible to climb the social ladder in eighteenth-century England, but it was not a common occurrence. While it wasn't that difficult to make your way within one social group, in reality jumping to another, higher social group was more difficult and rarely achieved except through a lucky marriage, like Pamela. This immense social contrast and tension between Pamela and Mr. B.'s environment exemplifies the transformation of Pamela's perception of herself from being humble and poor, to her new position in the aristocratic class once she marries. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Another social concern, predominantly within the female community, included the need to maintain or defend one's virtue. Samuel Richardson portrays the strong influence of social class on Pamela, which reinforces the claim that her true intention in upholding her virtue is to advance up the social ladder. Pamela extensively describes the low value of her clothes to incite pity, and to support her proud self-image of poverty. She describes the clothes her lady gave her as “too rich and too beautiful for me, of course” (Richardson 18). When Pamela plans to return to her poor parents, she buys “good sad-colored stuff” from the farmers to better fit their social and economic class. By describing the clothes as “sad,” he invites readers to associate poverty with feelings of sorrow and pain. However, once married to Mr. B., a wealthy aristocrat, she elaborately describes the beautiful clothes she began to wear again: “And so she wears fine linen, silk shoes and fine white cotton stockings, a beautiful quilted coat, a delicate gown and coat of green silk valance, a French necklace, and a headband, and a clean handkerchief and gloves... but I forgot not to thank God, that I could wear this dress with so much comfort” (Richardson 303). This event discredits everything he had once said about his poor and sad clothes, as well as his desire to return to his comfortable and familiar lifestyle with his poor parents. It is through Pamela's desire for beautiful clothes and her connection to the upper social class that calls into question Pamela's true intentions to save her virtue. The word “poor” is not only used to describe Pamela's clothing but also her life before her marriage in the aristocratic sector of society, of which she is proud, as well as her parents' low social status. The use of her poor status in life cleverly masks Pamela's reasoning to protect her virtue, in the presence of Mr. B. and his parents. Pamela writes to her parents: “I owe everything, in addition to the Goodness of God, to your Piety and your good Examples, my dear parents, my dear poor parents, I will, because your Poverty is my Pride, like your Integrity it will be mine.