Australia and the World Past and Present

Rousseau and Saint-Pierre were contemporaries. The latter was influenced by the former. We can see many of the themes pursued by Rousseau appearing in Saint-Pierre’s Paul and Virginia

Rousseau considered nature morally superior to civilisation. He believed that humans were essentially good, but that they were corrupted by social institutions. Society corrupts and it is nature that is pure and ideal.

Paul and Virginia show no signs of ambition or vanity. What is the point of ambition if there are only 6 people in your immediate environment, as there are in the valley? What positions are there to acquire? How much of a social hierarchy can you have in a community of 6 individuals? Still, even in a group as small as this, there are some distinctions. One is by age. There are 4 adults to 2 children. You can make a cleavage based on slavery. Domingo and Mary are slaves, while the rest are not. There are gender divisions. The women usually tend to domestic matters. Paul and Domingo are more active in the gardens, tending to the crops. There does seem to be a domestic / non-domestic division of labour. But it is probably not total and shouldn’t be overstated. After all, the realms of home and work are both contained within the same valley. The gardens are not far from the house – one only needed to step outside to arrive at “work”.

Rousseau believed that education should primarily be pursued through the heart and be free from competitive ambition.

He condemned class distinctions, inherited privilege and social institutions that valued status over virtue.

In Saint-Pierre’s book, disaster strikes when Virginia is drawn back into European social norms. Her separation from Paul is caused by inheritance. She was burdened by the expectations of a “proper” female education and aristocratic ideals of modesty and decorum. In the book, society, not nature, is the cause of tragedy.

Nature is depicted as benevolent and provides the essentials of life. Still, at the end of the story, both Virginia and the ship that she is on are destroyed by the ocean’s waves. Nevertheless, Saint-Pierre can point to the genesis of Virginia’s demise as her entry into European society rather than the environment.

For Rousseau, sensibility and emotion are superior than reason. Here, sensibility refers to deep feeling. He believes that moral truth is felt before it is reasoned. Rousseau believed that it was preferable for children to learn through experience.

Rousseau described childhood as a time of innocence. This is continued in Saint-Pierre’s book. There is a clear delineation between childhood, puberty and adulthood. Childhood is presented as an age of innocence and virtue. The onset of the teenage years is a time of foreboding. One gets the sense that there are storms on the horizon. The adults in Paul and Virginia have many more problems than the children do. Madame de la Tour is alienated from her family because she married the man she loves. He dies. She is left quite alone and pregnant. Her life is difficult and insecure. Margaret it in a similar position. Domingo has been snatched from his homeland and forced into a slavery. The same is true for Mary. Adulthood is depicted as time of tremendous difficulty.

Rousseau favoured religion without institutions. He searched for a natural religion. It was thought that it was possible to revere God through nature.

Paul and Virginia appeared 10 years after Rousseau’s death. It is clear that the book was heavily influenced by his ideas. Perhaps Saint-Pierre saw himself as continuing his friend’s work.

Saint-Pierre took Enlightenment philosophy and inserted it into a colonial pastoral narrative. It might be said that Rousseau provided the philosophy and Saint-Pierre provided the story.