Samuel shows little feelings for his wife Elizabeth throughout his diary. As both extracts show his attitude and treatment towards Elizabeth could be common of the attitudes of other men in the 17th century. The stereotypical role for most women was to marry young, also, women were not as well educated as their husbands and were therefore thought of as second class citizens. Other women were not so fortunate and became housemaids rather than marry. As there were arranged marriages in the 17th century Samuel had married Elizabeth, who was fortunate as she was the daughter of a Huguenot (a French protestant). Traditionally marriages were made on social class in relation to status and education, or alternatively it was as a goodwill gesture between families or a business associate. It was very rare that marriages were made for reasons of love and compassion. Elizabeth however was chosen for political reasons, as from looking into Samuels work history and the history up to the 1660’s he could have married Elizabeth to help keep peace and promote integration between the English and French in England. As Samuel was a figure of authority and often associated with the King and Duke he would feel that this was an important role. Throughout Samuels diary it is apparent how little feelings he has for Elizabeth although he hides his perjury from her. Samuel also participated in arranging suitable marriages which he included details of arranging the marriage of Jemima and Philip in his diary. The object of this marriage was partly financial but otherwise made as a cement of a politico-administrative alliance since both fathers were now very high officials in the admiralty.
Samuel had been well educated to become a qualified solicitor but due to events in his early career and his family, he worked with his relative Edward Mountagu. Edward was a famous Admiral, friend of Cromwell, friend of King Charles II and was responsible for doing business in assessing the fortune of the great fire of Wolsey. Although Samuel remained quite poor during his life he did love his career and the self-importance that it brought him.
Conclusion and Explanation
From studying for my GCSE English I have found one of my favourite literary pieces is Samuel Pepys diary as for almost ten years he recorded his daily life in breathtaking honesty revealing his jealousies, insecurities, trivial concerns, and sad mistreatment of his wife. The truthfulness throughout his diary is ultimately seductive showing his personal philosophies and feelings as well as being an account of London in the 1660’s. From reading his diary Samuel spent a great deal of time evaluating his fortune and status, even though this meant that he would periodically have to resolve by decreasing time on drinking and womanising. He would devote his time to those endeavours where he thought his time was needed to be spent. My interpretation of the diary is unique as this unusual diary can be read in many ways. I think an ambitious way of analysing Pepys diary is to read several years worth of the same date thereby making a comparison of where Pepys stood from year to year or a simpler way would be read his diary like a book whilst comparing what the majority of Pepys writing is about at the time. One thing I can say about the use of language by Samuel Pepys is that as you read the diary, his pattern of life and certain recurring phrases imprint themselves on you. This creates a pleasurable sense of familiar as you can anticipate what he will say at the end of an entry which is the repetition commonly used through out “and so to bed.” For the parts that I have re-written from Pepys diary I have changed many words such as vexed to annoyed, mirth to merrymaking, folks to parents, sacrament to self-punishment.
At first my interpretation for the sentence “I was with my main in her cunny”, was that a main in modern English was manhood or penis, as my reasoning for this is that I thought that the word main might have been a word used to describe manhood or a male’s feature, although my ideas could deferent to others. I know that cunny is an older term for the modern word fanny. The detailed interpretation in my own understanding for this was “I was with my penis in her fanny.” But since looking into this in more detail, I have discovered that this single word in the middle of an old English sentence was the French word for hand. Samuel would have wrote this to stop prying eyes from his wife Elizabeth. As I have previously mentioned he tried to hide his perjury from her and often doing so by the use of other languages. Elizabeth was not as well educated as Samuel was, so may not of been able to translate this part in his diary.
Tina Fountain
