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Clarissa's Triumph

Dorice McLachlan

Department of English

McGill University, Montreal

~darch 1994

A the sis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

©DoriceMcLachlan, 1994

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Table of Contents

Abstract ........................................................................................ - III

Résumé ......................................................................................... IV

Acknowledgcments .............................. ........................................... V

Introduction: Contrastive ExeLllplars ........................... ..................... 1

Chapter One: Theories for a Disenchanted World ...... ........ ......... ........ 6

Chapter 'rwo: The Pen-knife Scene ................................................... 29

Part 1: One False Step .............. .............................................. 29

Part II: Satanic Plots ... ............ ........... ............ ........... ..... ....... 34

Part III: Trials and Triumph ............. ....... ....... ......... ............. 40

Chapter Three: The Prison Scenes .................................................... 50

Part 1: Temporary Calamities ................................................. 51

Part II: The Victory of Principle .. ............................................ 56

Chapter Four: An Exenlplary Preparation ......................... ..... .......... 64

Part 1: A Severe Penitence ...................................................... 65

Part II: Meditations: The Example of Job ................................. 68

Part III: Meditations: Clarissa's Struggle ....... ......... ...... .......... 75

Part IV: Emblenls: An Example and a Warning ....................... 84

Chapter Five: Holyand Unholy Dying ............................................... 88

Part 1: A Generous Forgiveness .............................................. 89

Part II: "Prospects and Assurances" ....................................... 93

Part III: "Let This Expiate!" .................................................. 101

Part IV: Exemplars for Today ............................................... .

Notes ...... t •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Bi bliogra phy " " .. """."""" "" " """"""""" .. " """"""""""" " """"""""" " "" """""""""" """"""""""""""""""""" ..

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Abstract

This thesis examines Richardson's representation in Clarissa orthe heroine's

triumphaHt death. It considers Clarissa's triumph in relation to the irnplicit doctrine of

freedom of the will and the constitution of the self. Clarissa and Lovelace reprcscnl the

uncontrollable freedom of the human will and exc~mplify ilS potentiality either to lhoosc

the good or to subject ïtself to the desire for power and self-gratification. Chapter one of

this thesis discusses Clarissa in relation to the theorics of several currcnt litcrary

theoreticians whose work constitutes a response to Kant's idcas on freedom and ethical

decisions. The remaining chapters seek through close rcading and intcrprctation of kcy

scenes in the novel to understand what Richardson meant to reprcscnt through Clarissa's

triumphant death. The argument reassesses Richardson's use of cxemplary figures to

embody his spiritual and moral ideas. Il addrcsscs thc prohlcm of arnhigully in Clarissa's

forgiveness of her persecutors. Richardson's represcntation of Clarissa's triumph has

both worldly' and spiritual aspects. Acting always in accordancc wilh pnncipled choicc

(second-order evaluations), Clarissa resists aIl attcmpls to subjugate her; she reconstitutes

her identity to becorne a Christian heroine. She achieves spirüual transccndcilce through

penitence for her errors, forgiveness of those who have injured her and complete

resignation to the will of God. Lovelace's misusc of free will and his refusaI to rclinquish

his libertine identity and refonn lead to his final worldly and spiritual dcfcat. Through

their lives and deaths Clarissa and Lovelace demonstratc that individuals are responsiblc

for the choices they make, for the idcntities they establish, and t~at they must acccpt the

consequences of their choices .

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Résumé

Cette thèse examine la représentation de la mort triomphante chez Richardson dans

Clarissa. Elle discute sur le triomphe de Clarissa par rapport à la doctrine implicite du

libre arbitre et de la constitution de soi. Clarlssa et Lovelace représentent la liberté

irrésistible de la volonté et exempJifient la capacité de choisir le bien ou, plI' contre, de

soumettre au désirs personels quelquonque. Le premier chapitre examine Clarissa selon

plusieurs théories littéraires contemporaines qui constituent une réponse aux idées de

Kant sur la liberté et les décisions moraux. Les chapitres qui restent cherche à rendre

sensible cc que Richard'mn tente de représenter par la mort triomphante de Clarissa par

explication de textes et par l'interprétation des scènes clés du roman. L'argument du Ûlèse

réexamine l'usage de Richardson des personnes exemplaires pour incarner ses croyances

spirituelles et moraux. En plus, la thèse s'adresse au problème concernant la manière

ambigue par laquelle Clarissa pardonne ses persécuteurs. La représentation du triomphe

de Clarissa comprend, à la fois, les aspects spirituels et séculaire~. Ses actions sont

toujours motivées par les principes moraux. Clarissa résiste à tout essaie du subgugation.

De cette manière, clic reconstitue son identité et devient une heroine chrétienne. Elle fait

pénitence de ses fautes, pardonne ceux qui lui ont fait du mal et soumet complètement à la

volonté de dieu. En le faisant, eUe atteint la transcendance- spirituelle. Lovelace abus le

libre arbitre, refus d'abandonner son identité du libertin et résiste à la réforme. Cela le

mène li sa dernière défaite séculaire et spirituelle. La vie et la mort de Clarissa et Lovelace

démontrent que l'individu est résponsable des choix qu'il fait, des identities qu'il crée et

qu'il est obligé d'accepter les consequences de ces choix .

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Aclmowledgements

j{ wish to thallk my advisor, Professor David Hensley, for his

generous assistanee and for his patience during the preparation of this

thesis. 1 want to t.hank my farnily for their encouragement while 1

obtained my degree. l am pariicl.1larly grateful to my husband, Jack, for

his support and fol' printing the thE'sis. My special thal1~LS as weIl to

Stuart for his translation of the abstracto

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Introduction: Contrastive Exemp1ars

If Warning and Example be not meant in Public Representations, as weIl as Entertainment and Diversion, what wretched Performances, what mere kill-time Amusements Must they be to thinking Minds (Samuel Richardson to Lady Bradshaigh, Selected Letters 105).

He hath set fire and water before thee: Stretch forth thine hand to whether thou wilt (Ecclesiasticus: 15.16).

Two related assumptions underlie Richardson's conception of

Clarissa. The first is the ancient precept that literature should "delight

and instruct" through the representation of exemplary model~ and

situations. 1 The second assumption, which is the unifying idea and

primary structuring principle of the novel, is that the human will is free.

Because of the divine origin and uncontrollable freedom of the will, it

possesses the power of self-movement and self-direction. But the fallen,

divided mind, implicitly posited by Richardson, involves the individual in

a dialectic of desire and will, a continuai struggle either toward virtue or

toward gratification of self-will.2 Clarissa and Lovelace are contrastive

exemplars of this conflictual potentiality. Clarissa embodies the good will

that seeks ta act in accordance with principles of good, and Lovelace

represents the will subordinated to desire for power and self-gratification.

The roman tic love story of Clarissa and Lovelace is only one aspect of a

complex relationship that is central to Richardson's exploration of the

ethical problems of his novel. Readers who have not understood this have

often been shocked and puzzled by th~ heroine's tragic death.3 The cause

of Clarissa's death is not at all clear; moreover, Richardson had an

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obvious alternative--one that would have been eminently sahsfying to most

readers. Why couldn't Clarissa and a refonned Lovelace have married?

Richardson was asked this question by many of the first readers of

Clarissa, and in a much quoted letter to Aaron Hill, he declared,

1 intend another Sort of Happmess .. for my Heroïne, than that whïch

was to depend upon the WIll and Pleasure, and uncertmn Rt'fotmatlOJl

and good Behavlour of a Vlle Libertme ... to reseue her From a Rake, and

give a Triumph to her not only over him but over ail her Oppressors, and

the World besides in a triumphant Death. (87)

As Richardson indicates, Clarissa's death is entirely consl8tent

with rus conception of her and with the basic principles of tile nove!. This

thesis will examine Richardson's figuration of Clanssa's triumphant

death in relation to the implicit doctrine of freedom of thB WIll and the

constitution of the self. The argument here will thus reasseSR his use of

exemplary figures to embody spiritual and moral ideas in hls novet.

Richardson's representation ûf the freedom of the wi1l, and of the

penitence, redemption and transcendence which constitute ~he

specifically Christian aspect of Clarissa's triumph, IS analogous to the

doctrines of William Law, who is known as "the Enghsh mystic."4 Law's

beliefin the power of desire and the will is stated in characteristically

mystical language5 in his treatise entitled An Appeal to aU that Doubt, or

Disbelieue the Truths of the Gospel (1740):

We are apt to think that our Imaginations and DeSlres may be played

with, that they rise and fall away as nothing, because they do not always

bring forth outward and visible Effects. But mdeed they are the truc

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Formers and Raiiiers of aH that is real and solid in us. AlI outward

Power that we exercise m the Things about us, is but as a Shadow in

Comparison of that inward Power, that resides in Wills, Imagination

and Desires: these communicate Wlth Etermty, and kmdle a Life which

always reaches either Heaven or HeB. This Strength of the inward Man

makes ail that is the Angel, and aIl that i8 the Devil m us, and we are

neither good nor bad, but accordmg to the Working ofthat which is

spiritual and InvIsible In us. Now our DeSire is not only thus powerful

and productive of rea] Effects, but It is always alive, always wor~.ing and

creating in us, 1 say creatmg, for it has no less Power, it perpetually

generates either Life or Death in us. (134)

Law's statement is a powerful affirmation of the potentialities of the

individu al imagination, desire and will to form the self or identity. It

opposes arguments for predestination and other detenninistic conceptions

of the individual as powerless to resist society, nature or even God.

Persons are held responsible for particular actions and are ultimately

"chargeable with the State and Condition oftheir Nat.ure[s]" (Law 105).

A beHef in free will is the basis l,f any Christian conception that

individuals have the potenbality to achieve either worldly or spiritual

desires. 6 One might say that Richardson personally, as a self-made

successful printer and a late-blooming author, typifies this idea in its

worldlyaspect. It is an idea that Pamela also exemplifies, as do the hero

and heroines in Grandison, who are appropriately rewarded with worldly

"goods." In Clarissa, though, Richardson shows that virtue is often not

rewarded--at least not in this world. He suggests that the conflict between

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worldly and spiritual values is irreconcilable. Thus Clarissa's triumph

must ultimately involve a rejection of the world and its values.

The problems raised by Richardson in relation to free will are

analogous to those which Kant later addressed. It is often remarked that

Kant was instrumental m formmg our modern ldeas of freedom. 7 One

might add that Kant's ideas of the freedom of the will and ulllversal la WH

were prefigured by Richardson in Clarissa. Clallssu'S autonomy is

entirely consistent with Kant's formulation of the categorical impcratJve.

"Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same bme WIll

that it shou1d become a universal law" (Groundmg 935) Clanssu's

convictions indeed have the force of universal ]aws to her. 'l'he diITerence

between Clarissa and the people around her lS her adherence to these

principles--her steadfast effort to act on them rather th3n to he guided by

inclination and self-interest. Her refusaI to he subjected to the intercAtA

and power plays of her family and Lovelace is an affirm.ation of hcr dcr-!Îre

to strive toward Kant's "final pUl'pose."8 Kant's second formulation, "80

act as to use humanity both in your own person and in the person of cvcry

other, always at the same time as an end, never simply as a meuns"

(Grounding 952), could weIl serve as an epigraph for CZa/ï,ssa ClanHRu's

family and Lovelace consistently treat her as a means to achieve their own

desires, but, through aIl of her trials, Clarissa maintams her mtegrity-­

her respect for herself as a pers on and her basic respect as weil for the

sacred autonomy of other persons.

Recently Kant's work has served as an overt basis for the writings of

literary theoreticians who are concerned with the problems of mdividuals

in relation to ethical decisions and the constitution of the self or ldentity .

TheBe writers have expressed renewed interest in the ancient idea that

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literature should "delight and instruct." As the old maxim is commonly

rephrased, "liter&ture is a source of knowledge about the world"--a source

which can help the modem subject ta answer the question: "How should

one live?" How, that is, should the modem subject live in a

"disenchanted" or "rationalized" world?9

The primary focus of this thesis is, as stated earlier, an

examination of Richardson's figuration of Clarissa's triumphant death.

It will be argued that one of the main influences on Richardson's ideas of

free will and self-constitution was William Law. A secondary purpose

will be to con si der Clarissa in relation to the daims of several current

literary theorists whose work, mentioned above, constitutes a response to

Kant's ideas on freedom and ethical decisions. A difficulty in this project

is that Clarissa has a Christian context while the focus of much of the

literary-theoretical work cited here is not only secular but indeed expressly

designed ta address the problems of ethical decisions and self-constitution

in a "disenchanted world" where "there are no intelligible essences,

preordained qualities, and no 'auratic' presences" (Cascardi 6). It will

nevertheless be argued that Clarissa can be viewed both as the "Religious

Novel" Richardson said he intended to write and as a model that can still

provide val uable examples for readers in a disenchanted world (Selected

Letters 92). A brief critique of the literary-theoretical models will be

attempted with some general suggestions as to how Clarissa might be

viewed in relation ta such approaches ta ethics and the novel.

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Chapter One: Theories for a Disenchanted World

Richard Eldridge opens his book On Moral Personhood with the

questions: "How should one live? And how might one come to know how

one should live?" He discusses the disagreement between rationalist

philosophers, who support Kant's position on universal laws, and

relativist philosophers, who insist that decisions must be made in relation

to particular circumstances and with regard to "given desires, projects

and attachments" (27-8). Eldridge's position is that "while any serious

phenomenology of deliberation and action must acknowledge the

rootedness in the world of our deliberating and our living, it does not

follow that deliberating and living cannot be informed by universal

principles." He asks, "Is it possible for a sense of principle that

transcends one's particular attachments and projects to emerge within

the very framework of our living that they set? If so, how?" Eldridge's

answer is bis the ory of "moral personhood," based on Kant's second

formulation of the categorieal imperative, "the principle of respect for

persons." He points out that "versions of a principle of respect for persons

have been affirmed throughout most of J udaic and Christian theological

history. [lt is a principle] around which, at least officially, considerable

numbers of persons have organized their lives" (49). He concludes,

It is possible that the principle of respect for persons could be legitlmated 8S

binding on persons if lives based on conformity to it can he judged through

interpretation to be expressive of the requirements of valuable personhood

in the world .... Ifthere are stable yet open-ended criterIa of the

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expression of respect, and if we can interpretively judge conformity to

them w he valuable for persons as such, then there win he a route to the

legitimation of a specifie formula as a fundamental principle of morality,

not purely a priori, but contrastively and interpretively, through a

perspicuous representation composed ofthese cases. (50)

In Eldridge's the ory, literary examples are important means to

establish criteria for the respect of persons beeause "narratives contain

the full est refleetive aeeounts there are of deliberation and aetion in

specifie circumstances" (33). He points out that "[we aIl] lead lives out of

ongoing narratives, make choiees out of them" (11). Thus, our choiees

should involve a consideration of various kinds of narratives. These

include the narratives that constitute our own lives and the lives of other

persons as well as literary narratives witb exemplary figures.

Eldridge's adaptation of Kant's second formulation of the

categorieal imperative and his combination of it with partieular criteria

and conerete eases make his position much like Riehardson's. This c1aim

ean be eonsidered in relation to the choice and interpretation of Conrad's

Lord Jim to test his theory. Despite the differences between Jim and

Clarissa and the ideals they strive toward, they also share remarkable

similarities. Both recognize and attempt to live according to principles of

value that they eonsider universal. Clarissa and Jim are initially full of

pride; they confidently project ideal selves even though these projections

are untried by experienee. When trials arise, they fail to live up to their

own expectations and to the expectations of society. Both sutTer as a result

of their mistakes, and they are forced to revise their idealized self-images .

Clarissa and Jim attempt through forms of penance to atone for their

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errors and to transform themselves into the persons they aspire to be. In

death they achieve the ideals toward which they have striven. But there

remains an ambiguity about their motives in regard to their deaths.

Eldridge (with Marlowe, the narrator) wonders whether Jim's insistence

on going to bis almost certain death is caused by a desire to take

responsibility for bis actions, or is "a last flicker of superb egoism" (97).

There is a similar ambiguity concerning the extent to which Clarissa May

have willed her own death, and concerning the sincerity of her forgiveness

of her persecutors, particularly as expressed in her legal will. Eldridge

remarks that "the understandings and desires and acknowledgments that

motivate particular actions are not directly open 10 our view; we cannot see

into the hearts of persons, others' or our own" (98). His observation is

especially relevant to interpretation of Clarissa, where the ambiguity of

experience is enforced and compounded by the double correspondence and

the absence of a single point ofview.

Eldridge's theory of moral personhood provides insights into

Clarissa because bis interpretation of Kant's second formulation fits so

weIl with Richardson's representation of the value of principled action

and the importance of integrity and respect of persons. Indeed, the choice

of Jim as a model to represent his theory May be said ta suggest that

Clarissa, who represents similar values, is still a viah!e model for modem

readers.

Like Eldridge, Martha Nussbaum make& the question "How should

one live?" central 10 her ethical inquiry. Nussbaum, though, rejects

Kantianism and universallaws. She takes her major premises

concerning ethical values and her method of inquiry from Ariswtle (25) .

Nussbaum (like Aristotle) replaces universal rules with "perception,"

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which she defines as "the ability to discern, acutely and responsively, the

salient features of one's particular situation" (37). She argues that one

should respond to each situation independently as it arises although she

does concede that "rules could play an important role in practical reason

without being prior to particular perceptions. For they might be used not

as normative for perception, the ultimate authorities against which the

correctness of particular choices is assessed, but more as swnmaries or

mIes of thumb, highly useful for a variety of purposes, but valid only to the

extent to which they correctly de scribe good concrete judgments, and to be

assessed, uItimately, against these" (68).

There are severa! aspects of Nussbaum's argument against the

predominance of universal laws. The first is "noncommensurahility of

the valuable things." She points out that "the choice between two

qualitatively different actions or commitments, when on account of

circumstances one cannot pursue both, is or can he tragic--in part because

the item foregone is not the same as the item attained" (37). Three related

elements that argue against "general principles flXed in advance of

particular case[s]" are "new and unanticipated features, context­

embeddedness of relevant features and ethical relevance of particular

persons and relationships" (36-40).

Paradoxically, Nussbaum's arguments against universal laws can

be related to a situation in Clarissa which illustrates all the points

mentioned. It is a situation that demonstrates Richardson's concem to

represent in particular situations the complex nature of ethical choices

and the difficulties often associated with making such choices. The

conflict in question develops between Clarissa and her parents when they

try to coerce her into marriage with Solmes. Nussbaum emphasizes the

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"ethical relevance of particular persons and relatioDlships" as

determining factors in ethical choices. Richardson, even more

specifically, shows that such conflicts of choice can involve coercion by

persons who have a particular end in mind upon which the choice

depends. This means that the person who must choose might be expected

to surrender integrity in the name of affection for self-interested

individuals. In such situations, Richardson, with Kant and Eldridge,

insists that "our duties towards ourselves constitute the supreme

condition and the principle of aIl morality; for moral worth is the worth of

the pers on as such" (44).1 Under ordinary circumstances, Clarissa

considers her dut y to her parents in terms of a universallaw, but her

parents' obviously self-interested motives and their refusai to aHow her a

choice mean that she has to make her choice (her refusaI to marry

Solm\ls) on the basis of a respect for persons. HElr decision according to

this standard has to take precedence because it Ilot only involves her need

to be treated as an end rather than a mere me ans but also involves the

concept of the kingdom of ends. Kant defines the latter as "a systematic

union of rational beings through common objec:tive laws, i.e. a kingdom

that May be called a kingdom of ends (certainly only an ideal), inasmuch

as these lawR have in view the very relation of such beings to one another

as ends and means" (Grounding 955). Individuals who refuse to sacrifice

their integrity to gain particular ends help to foster an atmosphere where

differences are respected and where persons (:annot be subjugated. But

the tragic reality is that Clarissa's dilemma is one of those situations

Nussbaum describes where "none of [the] options is good" (63-6). Either

choice must Mean unhappiness for her .

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Nussbaum makes two more important points; these concern the

ethical value of the emotions and the ethical relevance of uncontrolled

happenings. She maintains that "practical reasoning unaccompanied by

emotion is n'1t sufficient for practical wisdom ... [emotions] frequentlyare

more reliable, and less deceptively seductive. . .. [I]f one really accepts or

takes in a certain beHef, one will experience the emotion" (40, 41).

Richardson would agree with this argument. Alt.hough Clarissa always

presents a logical rationale for important decisions, the conflict between

ber determination to act from principle and ber desire to please those she

loves often causes her pain. She suiTers for refusing to marry Solmes and

when she tells Lovelace at Hampstead that she will not marry him.

Insofar as she can base her actions on love and retain her integrity, she

does so. Nussbaum and Richardson would thus agree that it is

appropriate, and probably inevitable, tbat individuals will experience

emotion when they make ethical decisions. On the other hand,

Nussbaum's emphasis on the importance of uncontrolled events is not

compatible with Richardson's premise of the potentiality of individuals to

control their own lives and destinies through free will. Nussbaum

observes that "human aspirations to live weIl can he checked hy

uncontrolled events" (43). Richardson's principal concern is not that

unforeseen troubles may disrupt or permanently affect the lives of

individuals; his emphasis is on how they respond to such trials.

"Calamity is the test ofvirtue and often the parent ofit, in minds that

prosperity would min" (Selected Letters 151). "[W]e are assured that

nothing happens by chance, Mrs. Norton observes, and ... the greatest

good may, for aught we know, he produced from the heaviest evils" (1155).2

In this view, calamity is spiritual trial, a means to prepare oneself for

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immortality (1198). Clarissa thus resigns herself to God's will and

continues under aftliction to "act up" to her principles. Before her death

her "prospects and assurances" are her understanding that she has

surmounted her trials; thus she repeats, "It is good for me that 1 was

afllicted" (Psalms 119.71, 1362). The perspectives of Nussbaum and

Richardson on uncontrollable events are irreconcilable because

Nussbaum's concern is with the quality of life in this world while

Richardson maintains that this life is only a "State of Probation," (Selected

Letters 108).

Despite their differences in viewpoint, Richardson and Nussbaum

share a genuine affection for literary figures and a conviction of their

worth as models. Evidence of their shared ideals appears in the folloWlog

statement by Nussbaum, which unquestionably applies to Clarissa:

[NJovels, as a genre, direct us to attend to t.he concrete; they display before us

8 wealth of richly realized detail, presented 8fl relevant for choice. And yet

they speak to us: they ask us to imagine possible relations bet.ween our OWIl

situations and those of the protagonists, ta idenbfy Wlth the char8cters

and/or the situation, thereby perceiving thoEle similarities and differences.

In this their structure suggests, as weH, that much of moral relevance is

universalizable. (95)

Although Charles Taylor is not c:oncemed with literary models, his

work on second-order evaluations and the constitution of the self is

relevant to this discussion. According to Taylor, "to be a person or a self,

is to exist in a space defmed by disti.nctions ofworth .... Our identity ie

defined by certain evaluations whkh are inseparable from ourselvee 8S

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agents. Shorn of these we would cease to he ourselves" (Human Agency

3, 34). He differentiates between weak evaluations, in which "for

something to he judged good it is sufficient that it he desired," and strong

evaluations, where "there is also a use of 'good' or some other evaluative

tenn for which being desired is not sufficient. . . some desires or desired

consummations can he judged as bad, base, ignoble, trivial .. ," (Human

Agency 18). Taylor points out that our evaluations sometimes conflict

with our most urgent desires. "Indeed, we might think of it as a

necessary feature of the capacity to evaluate desires that one he able to

distinguish the better one from the one that presses Most strongly"

(Human Agency 28).

The ranking of our desires is basic to our evaluations and is partly

constitutive of our experience. Evaluations, as interpretations and/or

articulations, "shape our sense ofwhat we desire or what we hold

important in a certain way" (Human Agency 36), When we choose to

suppress one desire in favour of another, we do so because we interpret

ourse Ives as a certain kind of pers on who acts in accordance with certain

principles,

We are held responsible not only for the degree to which our actions

coincide with our evaluations, hut also "in sorne sense for these

evaluations" (Human Agency 28), That is, "faihl!'e to understand a

certain insight, or see the point of sorne moral advice proffered, is often

taken as a judgment on the character of the pers on concemed" (Human

Agency 38), In this sense, our evaluations at once are Iimited by our pa st

experience and partially constitute our immediate experience .

Possibilities for change or transformation are therefore limited by our

insight into our own evaluations. According to Taylor, the "essential

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evaluations which provide the Coundation for one's other evaluations ...

are the ones which are least clear, least articulated, most easily suhject to

illusion and distortion" (Human Agency 39-40). Thus they are the most

difficult to change. r ... 'aylor's theories as outlined here are an

interpretation of Kant's categorical imperative. Second-order evaluations

correspond to self-legislation according to univers al principles.

There is also a correspondence betwecn the basic assumptions of

Taylor's arguments and Law's exegesis of Christian doctrine. Both argue

that human beings have free will that enables them, through an active

process involving desire and will, to constitute an identity, and that the

individu a} is therefore responsible for this identity. Law's description of

self-constitution is unequivocally bound to a Christian conception of good

and evil, of salvation and damnation. In Law's view, the individual who

does not purposefully direct the will toward the good inevitably becomes

involved in evil, since evil is the absence of good. The divine origin of

desire and will is the basis of the "uncontrollable freedom of our will":

"Herein lies the true Ground and Depth of the uncontrollable Freedom of

our Will and Thoughts: They must have a Self-motion and Self-direct,;on,

because they came out of the Self-existent God" (61). The individual is

responsible for direction of the will toward good or toward evil. Law

writes,

The sarne Qualities, infinitely good and perfect in God, may become

imperfect and evil in the Creature ... they rnay he divided and separated

from one another by the Creature itself .... That sarne Strength and

Qua lit y, which in Creatures makiug a right Use of their own Will 01' Self

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Motion becomes their GooclnesB and Perfection, doth in Creatures

making a wrong Use of their Wi1l become their evil and mischievous

Nature. (68)

Law's conception of free will and self-constitution is essentially that

which Richardson represents in Clarissa. Implicit in his argument (and

Taylor's) is the beliefthat an individual has the right to imagine and

constitute an identity without coercion from other persons. Both Clarissa

and Lovelace daim thls right. Or, as Margaret Anne Doody puts it, both

Clarissa and Lovelace "acknowledge, in quite different ways, the freedom

of the will, the sovereignty of the self' (124). For Clarissa, freedom is

exercised through the assertion of autonomy and adherence to principle;

for Lovelace, freedom inheres in the assumption of multiple roles and

stratagems to gain power over other people. The conflict between Clarissa

and Lovelace represents, on either side, at once a struggle to assert and

maintain a parlicular identity, and an endeavor to transform the other

person into an acceptable partner.

Clarissa 's freedom to de termine her own identity is challenged first

by her family, who, by denying her right to choose her own husband (or to

remain single), threaten her integrity or et"'..ical self. They treat her, not

as a pers on, but as property to be exchanged in order to raise the family

(77). Lovelace even more severely challenges her right to be the person she

desires to be. In the brothel, he forces her to assume the public identity of

Mrs. Lovelace. An important part of bis aim is to persuade Clarissa to

consent to "cohabitation" and to subdue her to a psychological dependency

on him while he maintains bis libertine life style. Lovelace fantasizes:

"What a delightful manner of life ... would that be with such a lady! The

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fears, the inquietudes, the uneasy days, the restle~ls nights~ all arising

from doubts of having disobHged me!" (521).3 When his schemes of

seduction fail, Lovelace tries violently to transform and subdue her. But

Clarissa's trials strengthen her will to resist and provide a focus to her

identity. Before the rape, ohe is divided hetween hopes for worldly

happiness and a desire for spiritual fulfillment. Her affiictions cause her

to reinterpret her values, or in Taylor's language, to reevaluate her

fundamental evaluations. She rejects Lovelace, not only because of his

actions toward her, but also in response to his libertine principles, which

she originally hoped to change. Clarissa forges a new identity with sorne

afÏmity with the biblical Job but more appropriately designatcd as a

Christian heroine. Her subsequent evaluations are based upon her desire

to emulate the divine example of Christ--to transcend her situation

through penitence and forgiveness of her persecutors and to attain a

"perfect resignation" (1140).

Lovelace's identity is challenged by Clarissa's insistence that he

reform before they can marry. In any case, Lovelace considers marriage

a threat to his identity as a lihertine--to his freedom to assume multiple

roles and to pursue various forms of self-gratification. He WritèS to

Belford: "If 1 give up my contrivances, my joy in stratagem, and plot, and

invention, 1 shaH he but a common man: su ch another dull heav)' creature

as thyself' (907). Because of hiR reluctance to commit himself to one

identityand to one woman, Lovelace, like Don Juan, loses hirnself

(Cascardi, Subject 243). He loses the possibility of reforming or

transforming himself. He writes to Belford from Hampstead: "1 have been

such a foolish pIotter as to put it ... out of my own power to he honest ... 1

am a machine at last, and no free agent" (848). Clarissa's rejection of

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Lovelace after the rape forces bim to reevaluate his principles. His

dilemma is that though he must recognize her virtue as one that cannot be

subdued or perverted, and though he accepta her evaluation of his conduct

as "base, ignoble," he cannot or will not reconstruct his identity. His

determination to fight a duel with Morden indicates his continued

adherence to a code of honour that is part of bis libertine self-image, and

his death, as Richardson points out, indicates a final assertion of his own

will in opposition to God (Selected Letters 119-22). The appropriateness of

Clarissa and Lovelace to illustrate Taylor's theory of identity indicates

their continuing value as ethical models that demonstrate both the

possibilities and the difficulties for individuals to imagine, to establish and

to alter identity.

Charles AItieri proposes a model of expressivist ethics that extends

principles of Kant's theory of aesthetic judgment into the realm of ethical

actions.4 In Altieri's model the values of a particular community replace

univers al principles. The community "may be an actual social institution

or a construct based on at least some actual persons sharing a grammar

for evaluating actions derived from historical sources" (147). lndividual

identities are established when second-order evaluations result in acts

recognized by the community. Altieri stresses that "[t]he crucial

expressivist act consists in calIing attention to how one takes responsibility

for a particular deed as one's second-order daim to earn a specific

identity" (149).

One way to consider Clarissa in relation to Altieri's model is to

suggest that the uniqueness of Clarissa's acts, and paradoxically her

c1aim to the identity of a virtuous person, lie in her rejection of the actually

practical values of the Christian community to which she belongs. These

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are the standards of a dehased Christianity, where self-interest and

materialism have replaced spiritual values and where an appearance of

conventional virtue is more important than real integrity. Clarissa strives

to act in accordance with moral principles she regards as truly Christian

and universal. These principles represent the ultimate authority for her

because she believes they are based upon absolute truth--the word of God.

Consequently, she refuses to accede to the demands of other members of

the Christian community who appeal to her in the name of parental

authority, pragmatism or social conformity.

An illustration of this point is Clarissa's response to the leUer she

receives from her revered friend Dr. Lewen, who writes to support her

family's demand that she "prosecute for his life ... the most profligate and

abandoned of men" (1251). Dr. Lewen counsels revenge and the

preservation of conventional appearances. Her family's dishonour, he

insists, can be repaired only by marri age or prosecution. Clarissa must

tactfully explain why it would be unwise to prosecute Lovelace (hecause of

her particular circumstances), and that it would he unchristian to Beek

revenge: "Have not you, sir, from the best rules, and from the divincst

example, taught me to forgive injuries?" (1254). She adds that in her

present preparation for death "every sense of indignity or mjury that

concerns not the immortal soul ought to be absorhed in higher and more

important contemplations" (1254), an observation that caUs attentIOn to the

Reverend Dr. Lewen's preoccupation with worldly affairs when he too is

fatally ill.5

That Dr. Lewin's principal concem is with the appearance of

Clarissa's situation to the world rather th an with her spiritual state is

especially ironic because of bis calling (although Mr. Brand provides an

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even more extreme example of worldliness in the clergy). But the

conSE 11SUS of opinion among ClarisRa's friends and family is that she

must "repair" her situation either through prosecution or marriage. The

advice of Anna and Mrs. Norton, Clwissa's Most faithful friends, is

usually antithetical; in general, Anna urges resistance or even rebellion

while Mrs. Norton counsels compliance or submission. They agree,

however, that Clarissa should accept the reparation Lovelace offers

through marriage. Anna argues that "[t]he alliance is splendid and

honourable. Very few will know ofhis brutal baseness t.o you" (1043).

Mrs. Norton, who endured a miserable marriage with a "very unkind

husband" (980), writes, "Methinks 1 am sorry you refuse the wicked man

.... Cannot you, my dear young lady, get over your just resentments?"

(1154). Clarissa rejects the hypocrisy of a marriage to repair her situation

--a marri age that she is convinced would impair her spiritual aspirations

and reward the violator (902). She protests to Anna, "1 should not think

my penitence for the rash step 1 took anything better than a specious

delusion, if 1 had not got above the least wish to have Mr. Lovelace for my

husband!" (1116).

Evaluation of Clarissa as an exemplary figure within a Christian

community would entail her inclusion among Christian martyrs and

saints, who would afford the only acceptable standard for judging her true

virtue and establishing her identity as a Christian heroine. While this

exemplification is the appropriate one when Clarissa is read as a religious

novel, secular readings present additional possibilities.6 The qualities of

integrity, autonomy, courage and the capacity for love that Clarissa

displays as a Christian heroine would give her exemplary status in a

contemporary community where the se traits were valued. This would

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necessarily be a community which held 8S desirable and feasible the

equality of the sexes and the freedom oC all individuals to imagine and

constitute particular identities.7

Altieri's conception of the establishment of identity through

expressive aets that claim recognition Crom a community postulat.es a

shared evaluative grammar. "[W]e must extend to ethics the interpretive

grammars allowing us to treat acts as coherent and to understand how

they imply certain consequences, both Cor the agent who wants certain

attributes and Cor someone who imposes judgments on them." AItieri

Curther notes that "a history oC expressive acts" will be necessary to serve

as examples, and he suggests a way that these acts may be imaginatively

interpreted to create new expressions for contemplation (150).8 He

explains,

80 long as we must define our categories for judgment on the basis of

predicates already estabHshed as the operation al vocabulary for speclfying

the nature of actions, our assessments wi11 emphasize conformlty or

nonconformity to a norm. But suppose we can imagine acts that ask to he

read as possible labels, as aligning the person with certain possible

groupings of characters or of speClfying qualities that warrant claiming a

particular identity for oneself. If we were dealing with Hamlet, the former

alternative would force us to judge his actions in relatIOn to sorne

determinate moral code; the latter would make sense of his detme to have

Horatio tell his story. For it is wlthin the individual story that Ham Jet

finds the terms at once to make sense of his actions and to take

responsibility for them. Such stories then take on the role of labels within a

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cultural repertoire that subsequent agents can modify or elaborate as they

attempt to establish or interpret expressive implicatures." (141)

This way of considering the stories of literary figures would be

particularly appropria te for Clarissa. Focusing on Clarissa's story would

calI attention to her claim to autonomy. Clariss8. refuses to let others

decide what she can be and what she can do.9 Her determination to ~ct up

to her principles, to form the identity she imagines and desires, makes

her a compelling exemplar for individuals who strive to establish an

ethical identity. Furthermore, emphasis on her story would free her

actions from the debased Christian context of the novel. Readers skeptical

of Christian exemplars could then better appreciate that Clarissa's story

symbolizes certain ide ais of individual freedom and respect for persons

that we admire and want to maintain.

Hamlet's story, Altieri points out, May be considered together with

the stories of Telemachus and Stephen Dedalus to demonstrate how

cultural grammars establish conditions for identity that foster both

individual expressions by future writers and particular interpretation by

persons seeking to establish identities. "The character of Stephen

Dedalus posits, reveals, and tests, something that endures in the

examples of Telemachus and Hamlet, while at the same time insisting on

the necessity of defining one's own ditrerence by pursuing principles

abstract enough to make received positive values and actual social

affiliation seem mere positivities" (156).

This model suggests possible adaptations of llichardson's portrayal

of Clarissa as a Job figure who endures severe trials. but who refuses to

remain a victim and finally triumphs over adversity. Charlotte Bronte

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modifies this representation to portray Jane Eyre, a heroine of principled

actions who suffers trials and persecutions but who maintains her

integrity and emerges as a strong and determined woman. Jane Eyre

provides a model not only for such close imitations as the heroine of

Daphne nu Maurier's Rebecca, but also for innumerable strong and

independent heroines in twentieth-century Iiterature.

Altieri's conception of literary expression is that of a continuous

process in which past examples are reflected upon, reevaluated and

modified to create new expressions. Constitution of identity in the

individual parallels tbis process. Values held by particular communities

provide the basis for judgment of expressive acts for individuals who

desire an ethical identity and for writers who create literary works.

Altieri claims that "ethics and aesthetics are one ... because both depend

on a concept of expression, on the ways in which a particular subjeet's

'how' projects its purposiveness within the objective world" (142). His

insistence that expressivist views of art provide a contradt to mimetie

theories would seern to preclude any discussion of Richardson's

conception of literature. Nevertheless, Altieri's contention that "[a] work

has significance because it embodies an active authorial principle at work

composing relations among meanings afforded by social codes" (149)

recalls Richardson's repeated declarations in his letters of his

"intentions" (for example, Selected Letters 70-74, 78-84, 103-117, Preface

viii). Moreover, Richardson is engaged in expressivist aesthetics when, in

bis portrayal of Clarissa as suffering virtue and Lovelace as the satanic

tempter, he modifies the figures of Job and Satan to serve his particular

ends. This is also true of bis characterization of Lovelace as tyrannie lover

and of Clarissa as victim-heroine. Although these Iiterary and dramatic

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prototypes are fully recognizable, they represent only particular aspects of

the complex personalities of Clarissa and Lovelace. Richardson's

characters constitute a rich resource for contemplation by individuals who

seek ethical identities and for writers who aspire to create new

expressions.

In his book The Subject of Modernity Anthony Cascardi proposes a

theory of the modern subject in relation to the disenchanted world.

According to Cascardi, "the modem subject is defined by its insertion into

a series of separate value-spheres, each of which tends to exclude or

attempts to assert its priority over the rest. Subjective experience is itself

the conflictive 'totality' described by all of these" (3). Moreover, he

observes, "the modern 'world picture' is marked by the denial of any rigid

conception of the good, and by the rejection of attempts to bind the principle

of the good to any pre-existent or naturally occurring features of the

world" (6). The subject thus experiences difficulty in making the second­

order evaluations that largely constitute identity. Although "the

principles of subjectivity are aligned in a variety of ways to the values of

individual freedom and autonomy," the realization of the se ideals is

complicated by the lack of stable values and by the knowledge that there is

no reliable or authoritative point of view. As a consequence, "the

possibility of linking values to the world or for that matter of establishing a

self through the pursuit of a particular course of values . . . is placed

seriously in doubt" (9).

In contrast to this modem "world picture," the pre-modem

individual is said to have occupied a position in an ordered universe as a

member of a society structured by fixed hierarchies. There was in

existence a stable system of values that were, indeed, perceived as facts.

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This relative stability, however, was counterbalanced by minimal

opportunities for social mobility and effective resistance to modification

and change by those in power. Although modern liberal societyallows

more freedom and greater mobility, it is liable to "a continuai struggle

between the desire for freedom and the need for order." In Cascardi's

opinion, "we can at best say that there exists a series of unequal and

unreconcilable tradeoffs between traditional, pre-modern societies ... and

the liberal modern order" (6-7).

Cascardi repeatedly emphasizes that the subject can only be

understood in terms of position in "a field of eonflicting discourses"

specified as "philosophy, literature, the 'science' of politics, religion, and

psychology" (2).10 He de scribes the emergenee and historieal development

of the subject in each of these cultural spheres. In this context, he

provides representative figures and discusses the theories of

contemporary thinkers. Caseardi's book is a model for interpreting the

discourse that he suggests could he a means to link the various cultural

spheres in which the modem suhject is engaged.

Through a reinterpretation of Kant's Critique of Judgment, Cascardi

intends to "fashion a mode of discourse, a praetice of judgment, and a

model of selfhood" workable in the present (15). Kant daims that his

aesthetic theory links the empirical world of experience with the

supersensible world of reason. Similarly, Caseardi hopes to link history

and theory (in relation to the modem suhject) and to provide a means for

desiring subjeets to move from one value sphere to another. He suggests

that

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ouce we begin to think of discourse as providing possible models of

recognition, then "fictional" discourse (the "literary" specificity of which

would ... subsequently drop out, as would the need for a "theory" by which

to render it legitimate) May he seen neither as the site from which fixed

and stable identities might he invoked, existing ideologies reproduced, or

a fundamental diversity of goods and values ranked, nor as the means

simply to destabilize these pursuits, but rather as the locus of competing

judgment-claims ~ade by subjects seeking recognition, as the product of

a need that continues to exist as long as we refuse to accept any prior,

substantive limitations on the nature of the identities we may pursue.

(300-01)

As Cascardi reinterprets the Critique of Judgment, subjective

experience in a particular value sphere is the basis for judgments that

daim recognition. Through principled judgments within each sphere

and through appeals for recognition on the basis of expressive actions,

desiring subjects are able to establish aspects of identity within the several

cultural spheres in which they participate. Individual freedom and

autonomy are thus grounded as positive values as is embeddedness in

society. This model

seeks to rec1aim th~ authority of sensuous experience, of individual

desires, and of muted or subaltern voices, as we11 as the possibilities for

recognition and transformation that these may furnish, from the totalities

int.o which they are a11 too easily, or prematurely, absorb~d. (308)

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In relation to Cascardi's theory ClarÏ8so. otTera a model of

traditional vallLles in transition. Richardson specifically hopecl that bis

novel would reinforce traditionall'alues. "The Author," he writes in his

Preface,

... has lived to see Scepticism and Inficlelity openly avowed, and even

endeavored to he propagated from the Press: The great doctrines of the

Gospel brought into question: Thuse of seif-denial and mortification

blotted out of the catalogue of Christian virtues: ... In this general

depravity ... the Author thought he should he able to answer it to his own

heart ... if he threw in his mite towa ds introducing a Reformation 80

much wanted: And he imagined, that if in an age given up to diversion

and enteTtainment, he could steal in, as may be said, and investigate the

great doctrines of Christianity under the fashionabJe guise of an

amusement; he should he most likely to serve his purpose. (350)

Yet, wbile Richardson tried to reenforce some traditional values, he

simultaneously chaUenged other traditional ideas in the name of

individual freedom. In Law's and Richardson's conception of freedom of

the will and self·constitution, as represented in Clarissa, there appears

the essence of theories developed by Taylor, Altieri, and Cascardi.

Richardson, moreover, challenges the traditional idea that women can

ever under any circumstances, however implicitly, be regarded or treated

as mere property. Women are portrayed as individuals with potentialities

that should be developed as Cully as possible within the traditional roles

that Richardson saw as necessary. Lovelace is also clearly a Don Juan

figure, as described by Cascardi, whose multiple and mobile desires

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challenge society's values and stability. But ü Lovelace r-apresents a

challenge that must be contained, Clarissa represents values of freedom of

the individual that must he acknowJedged and sanctioned.

AlI of the theories discussed l'espond to Kant's ideas on freedom and

ethical decisions. They are innovative efforts to illustrate how

representations of exemplary acts can provide a basis for reflection in

relation to the ethical judgments that are constitut.ive of identity. Eldridge

and Nussbaum propose essentially mimetic ways ofthinking about

exemplary figures. This means that their views are similar in Many

respects to Richardson's. Taylor's theory of self-constitution through

second-order evaluations suggests a correspondence with Law's

argument that individuals become what they are through the workings of

imagination, desire and will. Altieri and Cascardi present detailed

models that emphasize the position of the indi.,idual in the complexities of

the modern disenchanted world. They suggest that the values of a

particular community or cultural sphere can be substituted for univers al

principles. For the individual who seeks an ethical identity, such a

community or sphere offers exemplary figures that can be contemplated

and evaIuated, and it affords opportunities for appropriate recognition of

the individual's expressive actions.

The objective of the remainder of this thesis is, through a close

reading and interpretation of severaI I(ey scenes in the novel, to come to a

better under'3tanding of what Richardson meant to represent and of what,

for us, as contemporaries of the post-Kantian ethical theorists just

canvassed, Clarissa still compellingly conveys. In the pen-knife scene

and the prison scenes Richardson dramatizes Clarissa's spiritual trials

in relation to ber persecutors' efforts to subjugate her. Clarissa's

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response to these (,l'deals exemplifies moral choice constitutive ofidentity.

Her struggle to transcend victinlization--to achieve resignation and to

forgive her persecutors--is expressed through her meditations. The

Meditations will be considered 8S they relate to events in the nove!.

Through Clarissa and Lovelace Richardson represents antithetical

responses to the question "how should one live--and die?" The intention

here is to show that the issues of exemplification raised in Clarissa can

continue to evoke ethica1 reflection .

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Chapter Two: The Pen-knife Scene

The pen-knife scene is a major turning-point in Clarissa. This la st

confrontation between Clarissa and Lovelace decisively defines the

outcome of the conflict of wills throughout their time together. Lovelace

designs the mock trial that begins the scene as a final attempt to subdue

Clarissa. His dramatic description presents the event as a travesty

synopsizing Clarissa's various "trials" and meant to conclude in a second

rape, this time with Clarissa "sensible." Inverted language and

melodramatic performances by Lovelace and his accomplices parody his

previous endeavors to cl: mge the appearance of things and events. But

through a courageous assertion of freedom--a choice of death rather than

submission--Clarissa triumphs over her persecutors. The stene derives

much of its power from literary allusions and vivid imagery that

dramatize and explicate the situation. In particular, allusions to

Paradise Lost link Clarissa's "error" with the falI. Her situation in the

brothel is represented as a spiritual trial controlIed by a satanic Lovelace.

Clarissa's victory over the malevolent intentions of Sa~an, Sin and Death

thus prefigures her triumphant death.

Pari 1: One Fa1se Step

Throughout the second installment of Clarissa, the pattern of

allusions to Paradise Lost points back to the garden-gate scene. ACter the

elopement from Harlowe Place, Clarissa accuses Lovelace of having "dealt

artfully with [her]," amd then observes, "But here, like the first pair, 1 at

least driven out of my paradise, are we recriminating" (393). This

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interpretation establishes their meeting in the garden as a temptation

scene and Lovelace as the satanic tempter. Although Clarissa resists

Lovelace's arguments, she ultimately flees with him, confused and

deceived by his art. Later she concludes that her subsequent trials result

from this one faulty step--correspondence with Lovelace that led to her

meeting with him in the garden. Clarissa attributes her error to pride

and to a "presumptuous" reliance on her own strength (565). She

declares, "1 have reason to think my punishment is but the due

consequence of my fault" (1117). Richardson thus aligns Clarissa's error

with the fall in presenting her subsequent struggles to maintain her

integrity and to achieve spiritual transcendence within the Christian

tradition of sin, repentance and salvation. The "wilderness of doubt and

error" (566) in which Clarissa finds herself ia the sarne wiJderness

traversed by the children of Israel (Exodus 16.1) and Bunyan's Pilgrirn.

William Beatty Warner makes Clarissa's association of her error

with the fall central to his deconstructive interpretation.' He uses

Richardson's representation of her situation in Christian tradition to

discredit her as an example of virtue.

[Clarissa works] witlun an interpretive system that coordmates three

books: the "book of IIfe" as a goal; the "book" of her "works" as the

substance ofher personal history; and the Bible as a set of fictions that

mediate between the second and the first. Withm thlS system Clarissa'g

essential self--the one that will come up for judgment--ls defined by the

succession of actions and events that compose her personal history.

(Reading 71)

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The assumption that Clarissa's belieCs are based on a discredited

"mythology" and the argument that her virtue is solely motivated by a

desire Cor salvation, that is part of this same fiction, establish a positiun

Crom which Warner can de scribe all oC her actions with amused contempt.

He invites the reader to joïn him in an appreciation of L07elace as he

"helps to undo the matrix of truth and value through which Clarissa

would have us see, know, andjudge" (Reading 30). Warner's

"appropriation of Christian allegory" (Hensley 135) gives bis argument an

ostensible authority that he implicitly expects will extend to his allegations

about Clarissa's motives and her virtue.

To prove his assertion that the struggle between Clarissa and

Lovelace is a game in which the participants are equally motivated by self­

interest, Warner challenges two of Clarissa's MOst obvious virtues: her

integrity and her capacity for love. He maintains that Lovelace's attempts

to subdue Clarissa are offset by her efforts to "make use of Lovelace,

Sinclair and the others as subordinate figures in her own baleful history"

that will present her as "outraged innocence" and in sure ber inscription

in "the book of life" (Reading 69, 73). The substance of this argument is

that Clarissa's virtue is only a me ans to an end--salvation. But Clarissa's

friends and Lovelace too attest to her love ofvirtue for itself (902,979, 1472).

Clarissa declares that she is motivated by "principles, that are in my

mind; that 1 Cound there; implanted, no doubt, by the first gracious

Planter: which therefore impel me, as 1 May say, to act up to them" (596).

Clarissa's behavior, in particular ber refusaI to marry Lovela~e and

conceal the rape through a "churcb rite," confirms that she rejects the

mere appearance of virtue, that she desires to be ~-irtuous.2

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Wamer makes the astonishing claim that "it is Lovelace, not

Clarissa, who gives us the novel's Most convincing versions of human

attachment .... Lovelace's feeling of attachment, to both Clarissa and

Belford, seems more genuine for being largely conrealed ... , By contrast,

Clarissa seems irreducibly self-centered, and her friendship with Anna

Howe chilI and uninteresting" (Reading 37~39). It is difficuJt to

understand how Wamer l'an seriously suggest that Lovelace's obsessive

feelings for Clarissa, which incite him to delude and torment her, and his

condescending affection for Belford, expressed through stinging pcrsonal

insults in letters to him, demonstrate convincing versions of human

attachment. Lovelace does not respect Clarissa and Belford as persons.

He desires love from Clarissa and friendship from Belford, but he seeks

first of aIl, not their happiness or well-being, but self-gratification in the

form of power over them. By contrast, Clarissa continues to express

affection and respect for Anna and her parents even though they rail her

when she needs them most--evidence of her sincere and unselfish love.

A difficulty in countering Warner's outrageous assertions about

Clarissa is that it is impossible to proue the sincerity of virtue. A

comment by Hensley succinctly addre:::;ses this problem and points out the

peculiar vulnerability of the good will to attacks such as Warner's.

Clarissa's self-defensive position, as analyzed by Waroer, emboches the

classlc moral problem of the beautlful soul. This paradoxlcal

configuration can be summed up as the uncomfortable assertIOn of

integrity together W1th a self-crltical recogllltion of the mner and outer

indemonstrability of the good wIll, just the unsamtary impasse that Hegel

called "virtue and the way of the world." (135)

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Warner's interpretation has provoked comment on feminist and political

grounds as weil as from Hensley's ethical perspective. Terry Castle

objects to Wamer's "anti-Clarissaism and the startlingly primitive

misogyny that seems to underlie it" (194). She argues that "[Clarissa and

Lovelace] are nowhere equal combatants in a political sense: Lovelace has

available to him a kind of 'force' Clarissa does not--all the institutionalized

advantages of patriarchal power, including the power of sexual

intimidation" (193). Terry Eagleton terms Wamer flagrantly prejudiced

[and] obtusely unhistorical (68). Eagleton perceives Clarissa as a victim of

both bourgeois patriarchy and libertine aristocracy (76). While one would

agree with these writers tOOt Clarissa is clearly a victim (ofWamer's

deconstruction as weil as of patriarchy and libertinism), it is her refusal to

be subjugated and her determination 10 surmount victimization that make

her truly admirable. Clarissa's victory in the pen-knife scene and her

final triumph over her persecutors portray, not a victim, but a

transcendent heroine. Wamer's Lovelacean insistence that there is no

higher motivation than self-interest ignores and contradicts Richardson's

premise, represented in Clarissa, of human potentiality for moral desire

and will. The attempt to reduce Clarissa to a combatant in a battle for her

body would deny both Clarissa's spiritual aspirations and her struggle to

constitute her own identity;3 it would negate the essential conflict in the

novel between good and evil. Hensley points out that "[s]piritual

interpretation in and of Clarissa characteristically includes powerful

secular counterstatements. This was Richardson's dialectical intent for

the sake of 'Debate.' . . . [But} secular readings such as Warner's

systematically exclude the religious dimension of the novel and to a great

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extent overt ethical reflection along with it" (143). The most serious

objection to Warner's interpretation, then, is that it seriously limits the

possibilities for consideration of ethical issues raised in the novel.

Part Th Satanic Plots

In the allegorization of Clarissa's error as the fall, Lovelace is

represented as Satan. This figuration occurs throughout the novel and is

inextricable from the association of Lovelace with drama. Staging scenes

is a source of power for him and lS part of his characterization as the

satanic tempter who designs Many of Clarissa's trials. In general,

Richardson scholars emphasize either Lovelace's representation as Satan

or bis association with the drama." In this thesis, emphasis will be on the

parallels between Lovelace and Satan. Lovelace is both the Adversary who

gives Job his trials and Milton's Satan. He establishes this identity early

in the novel in writing to Belford, "Satan, whom thou mayest, if thou wiIt,

in this case cali my instigator, put the good man of old upon the severest

trials. To bis behavior under these trials, that good man owed his honour

and bis future rewards. An innocent person, if doubted, must wish to be

brought to a fair and candid trial" (430). ACter the rape, Clarissa herself

identifies her loss of friends, relations, and worldly goods, "8 well as her

suffering through the rape as analogous to Job's trials and miseries.

"1 must assure thee that 1 have a prodigious high opinion of virtue,"

Lovelace writes. "It was [Clarissa's] character that drew me to her: and it

was her beauty and good sense that rivetted my chains; and now, aU

together make me think her [a] subject worthy of my attempts; worthy of

my ambition" (428-29). Lovelace is attracted by virtue primarily because it

----------------------------- -- --

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presents a challenge to bim. He refuses to believe in a virtue that cannot be

subdued or perverted. As Clarissa observes, he suppresses his own good

impulses (852), and bis refusaI to believe in a steadfast virtue provides an

excuse for bis own conduct. His spiritual condition is that of an

unrepentant sinner, one who has subordinated bis will to bis desire for

power and self-gratification.5

Lovelace's figuration as Satan signifies that bis schemes and plots,

bis acts of cruelty and violence are engendering a satanic destiny.

Richardson demonstrates through Lovelace, as Milton does through bis

portrayal of Satan, that involvement in evil becomes habituai. Paradise

Lost reveals SataIi's character gradually by showing bis increasing self­

immersion in evil. Similarly, Lovelace's letters disclose bis egoism and

self-indulgence, and the schemes he boasts of become more and more

elaborate and brutal. The double correspondence engages the reader's

participation in "comparison, contrast and judgment" of the values and

actions of Clarissa and Lovelace just as Milton encourages a continuai

contra st of Satan's tainted heroism with heroic models of his human,

angelic and divine protagonists.6

The same desire for power wbich led Satan to rebel against God is

manifest in Lovelace's schemes to control events and change the

appearance of things. Like Satan, Lovelace refuses to accept any authority

higher than his own will. 7 There is a general parallel between Satan's

plot to avenge bimself against God through the seduction of Adam and Eve

and Lovelace's scheme to seduce Clarissa into a "life of honour" so that he

can avoid the shackles of marriage and gain revenge for the Harlowes'

insults. Lovelace feels momentary remorse and pit Y for Clarissa in

Hampstead as he makes bis plans for the rape; however, he dramatically

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kiUs bis conscience, which he addresses as something alien to rumself:

"Poor impertinent opposer .... Had 1 not given thee thy death's wound,

thou wouldst have robbed me of all my joys. Thou couldst not hav,:,

mended me, 'tis plain. Thou couldst only have thrown me into despair.

Didst thou not see that 1 had gone too far to recede?" (848). This moment

has a parallel in Satan's remarks as he observes Adam and Eve before the

faU.

And should 1 at your harmless innocence

Melt, as 1 do, yet public reason just,

Honour and empire with revenge enlarged,

By conquering this new world, compels me now

To do what else though damned 1 should abhor.

So spake the fiend, and with necessity,

The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds. (4.388-94)

Satan's impersonations and changes of form are mirrored by

Lovelace's delight in multiple roles. Lovelace too leads a band of

miscreants who are seduced by bis splendid appearance and his

assurance. As he initially plots to gain possession of Clarissa, Lovelace

humourously asks Belton, "Am 1 not likely to be thy king and thy emperor,

in the great affair before us?" (148). Like Satan, who assumes a falsely

heroie position in bis rebellion against God, Lovelace as a rake, holds a

Calse code in wbich physical bravery, a determination ta deCend one's

actions until death, if necessary, and refusai to betray a brother rake are

points of honour, while the seduction and betrayal of women are

praiseworthy goals.

Lovelace ie finally unable to reform, partially because he has

enmeshed bimself in bis own schemes so that he cannat turn back, but

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also because he is reluctant to give up his roles and plots and "become but

a common man." Like Milton's Satan, Lovelace shows that a

commitment to evil habits is sel dom renounced. In a moment of retlection

(after the rape) Lovelace says, "What force have evil habits UpOd the

human mind! When we enter upon a devious course, we think we shall

have it in our power, when we will, to retum to the right path. But it is not

so, 1 plainly see: for, who can acknowledge with more justice this dear

creature's merita, and his own errors, than 11 ... Yet how transitory is

my penitence!" (915-16). Satan similarly proclaims:

But say 1 eould repent and eould obtain

By aet of graee my former state; ho~ soon

Would highth reea)) high thoughts, how soon unsay

What feigned submission swore; ease would recant

Vows made in pain, as violent and void. (4.93-97)

Richardson strengthens the parallel between Lovelace and Satan by

referring to Lovelace and his activities as "satanic" (755, 894). Clarissa

and Anna often refer to Lovelace in this manner; Belford proclaims his

behavior toward Clarissa satanic; and Lovelace, sometimes guiltilyand at

other times in jest, refers to himself as a devil. There are also specifie

seenes where Lovelace is associated with Satan. For example, Clarissa's

remark after their elopement from Harlowe Place identifies Lovelace as

the satanic tempter in the garden-gate scene (393). The allusion to Satan

is given an ironic twist in the scene at Mrs. Sinclair's where Clarissa

meets Lovelace's four libertine friends. At this time, Clarissa can still

write naively of Lovelace: "[H]ow does he show that he was born innocent,

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as 1 may say; that he was not naturally the cruel, the boisterous, the

impetuous creature which the wicked company he may have fallen into

have made him!" Ironically, it is Belford who, Clarissa says, "put me in

mind of that character in Milton: 'His tongue / Dropt manna, and could

make the worse appear / The better reason" (545). Anna's tart response to

Clarissa's description of Lovelace's cohorts is: "By your account of your

wretch's companions, 1 see not but they are a set ofinfernals, and he the

Beelzebub" (549). Lovelace himself applies the Satan analogy as he recalls

Clarissa's surprise and terror when, disguised as an old man, he

appeared in Hampstead, "threw open [his] great-coat and like the devil in

Milton. . . started up in [bis] own form divine (an odd comparison

though!)" (772). Lovelace's remark shows bis guilty consciousness that

bis pursuit of Clarissa and his intentions toward her are indeed satanic.

In the lire scene and in references to the rape, the satanic nature of

Lovelace's actions is suggested through allusions to Law's mystical

writing. The lire Lovelace causes ta be kindled in the lire scene can be

understaod metaphorically as his desire--compounded of lust and an

intention ta subdue. "[Eluery Desire is in itself, in its own Essence, the

kindling of Fire ... Strength and Fire may be separated from Love, and

then they are become an Euil, they are Wrath and Darkness, and aIl

Mischief' (68, 134). The rape d~prives C1arissa ofher will and causes that.

"dark fiery Wrath in the Soul [which] is Dot only very like, but ... is the

very self-same Tbing in the 80ul which a Wrathful Poison is in the Flesh"

(68). Her long struggle to overcome the poisonous effects of the drug

parallels her spiritual struggle to gain composure through prayer.

Satan is the archetype of abuse of the will. Law writes that "Lucifer

. .. wiU[ed] strong Might and Power, ta he greater than the Light of God

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made him" (127). AB Satan'slust for power gave birth to Sin, whose child

was Death, the libertine lüe style of Lovelace and bis cohorts produces

Mrs. Sinclair and her women. Lovelace's downfall, as Richardson points

out, accurs ultimately through "the very women whom he debauched"

(Preface 359). The representation of Lovelace as Satan in conjunction

with the pattern of biblical allusions throughout Clarissa makes the

conflict between Clarissa and Lovelace more than a struggle of innocence

against libertine schemes or of virgin victim against tyrant lover; it

becomes symbolically a struggle of good against evil--of Clarissa's struggle

against Satan, Sin and Death.

Lovelace's association with drama is an essential part of his

representation as Satan and reflects Richardson's perception of the

theatre as an immoral influence.8 Lovelace frequently quotes from

Restoration plays; like Prospero, the powerful dramatist/magician, he

designs scenes, assigns parts and enal,!ts roles. He thus changes the

appearance of things and shapes events to accomplish his schemes.

While Lovelace exercises his dramatic power wherever he can, the brothel

serves as bis private theater to stage scenes that further bis plans to

seduce Clarissa. Mrs. Sinclair and her women provide an eager

supporting cast. Until the fire scene, Clarissa is unaware that she has

been assigned the role of victim.9

Discussing the apparent effect of Restoration drama on

Richardson's novels, Doody comments that "it seems ... [Richardson]

expected his readers would see that the situations in which Clarissa is

involved do, in the centre of the novel, resemble more and more closely the

situations of the dramas." In the tire scene and in the scene before the

rape, "Clarissa sinks down on her knees, imploring Lovelace's pit Y [in]

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Richardson's version of a scene often enacted upon the stage" (119). The

role of tyrannic lover suits Lovelace, Doody observes, because "it allows the

free action of the uninhibited will" (117). Lovelace himself admits: "1 am

half sony to say that 1 find a pleasure in playing the tyrant over what 1

love" (789). But in the encounters after the rape and in the pen-Imife scene

Clarissa no longer pleads with Lovelace like the victim-heroines on the

stage. In these scenes she shows a defiance like St. Catharine in Dryden's

Tyrannick Love, who scornfully tells the tyrant Maximin: "Nor threats

nor promises my mind can move: Your furious anger, nor your impious

Love" (3.1.88-89). Clarissa's identification with these dramatic figures

mirrors her own transformation from victim to Christian heroine. An

aspect of Richardson's power as a novelist is that he is able to represent

Clarissa and Lovelace through figures from biblical stories and from the

drarna so that the two forms of allusion enhance one another. Lovelace's

characterization as dramatist and tyrannie lover merge with his

figuration as Satan, and Clarissa's role as victim-heroine anticipates her

transcendence as Christian heroine.

Part m: Trials and Triumph

ln the most literaI ser_~e, the encounters between Clarissa and

Lovelace aCter the rape culminate in the pen-knite scene. The

derangement of mind Clarissa suffered recedes, but it is reflected in the

passionate rage and hatred she expresses toward Lovelace. In their firet

post-rape encounter Clarissa confronts Lovelace with a majestic calm that

awes him. She declares, "1 have no pride in the confusion visible in thy

whole person. 1 have been all the day praying for a composure ... that

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should once more enable me ta look up ta my destroyer with the

consciousness of an innocent sufferer" (900). Clarissa struggles to

main tain an elevation of mind that will enable her to transcend her anger

and her desire for vengeance, and to hope that "effectuaI repentance [will]

take hold of [Lovelace]" (900). But her sense of outrage at the

"premeditatjon and contrivance" with which he effected her "ruin" is too

great; she cannot sustain her composure. Again and again in these

scenes, Lovelace abases himself and vows to make what amends he can,

and she mercilessly scourges him: "[A]fter what 1 have suffered by thee, it

would be criminal in me to wish ta bind my soul in covenant ta a man so

nearly allied to perdition" (902). Although Lovelace is "shocked and

confounded" by her passion, he is better able to de al with it than with her

composure; for he thinks that "these transient violences, the workings of

sudden grief and shame, and vengeance ... set [them] upon a par with

each other, and quit scores" (900). Indeed, it appears that his guilt is

relieved by her fury, and that he obtains a masocbistic satisfaction from

this punishment. Her repeated attempts to escape, which so nearly

succeed, further enrage both of them. Lovelace threatens new violence,

and she threatens her own life. When she accidentally incurs a bloody

nose, the terrified Lovelace momentarily believes that ~he has stabbed

herself. This irresolvable struggle culminates in the pen-knife scene.

When Clarissa enters the room to face her persecutors she has regained

the majestic composure that enables her to awe and subdue them. She

uses her knowledge of Lovelace--that bis feelings of guilt enable her to

shame him and to chastise him, and that he greatly fears she will take

her own life--to win her victory .

Throughout the novel, "trial" is meant ta be understood in several

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senses. The "final trial" Lovelace designs mirrors a similar trial planned

by Clarissa's family, one she escaped when she went away with Lovelace.

This was to have been a last attempt to coerce Clarissa into marriage with

Solmes. Clarissa's Aunt Hervey explains that Clarissa was to have been

summoned to a meeting before her family and accused of "preferring ber

own will to everybody's ... the consequences of [her] disobedience

deprecated in the solemnest manner ... and [herl generosity ... appealed

to." The Harlowes accuse Clarissa and judge her in accordance with

principles she respects, but they distort those principles to serve their own

ends. Thus any deviation from dut y to parents is judged disobedient, and

to prefer her own will to everybody's is selfish. Mrs. Hervey writes, "It

was indeed imagined that you would not have been able to resist your

father's entreaties and commands [to sign the settlements before the

meeting]. He was resolved to be all condescension .... [He declared,l '1

will kneel to her, ifnothing else will do, to prevail upon her to oblige me!'"

(504). The kneeling ofClarissa's father, the ultimate entreaty that he is

sure she will not be able to refuse, imitates Lovelace's favorite posture

when he attempts to convince Clarissa of his sincerity. This act, which

professes love and humility, is really a form of compulsion and indicates

again the similarity between the Harlowes and Lovelace. Clarissa's

familyand Lovelace attempt to make use of her desire to "act up" to her

principles. Their parallel trials dramatically represent the hypocrisy and

tyranny of the Harlowes and Lovelace, who attempt to subjugate Clarissa

in the name of love.

Lovelace designs the mock trial when he is unable to gain a

concession from Clarissa. She will agree neither to marry him nor to

remain willingly at Mrs. Sinclair's while he visits Lord M. He consulta

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the women, despite the disastrous results of their former advice, and is

encouraged by their assurances that Clarissa, like all women, can be

subdued. Now they argue "she was insensible during her moments of

trial. Bad she been sensible [during the first rape] she must have been

sensible" (943). Lovelace desperately wants to believe that he is still in

control of Clarissa and of the situation. To Belton he describes bis new

plot as the answer to Clarissa's defiance; her intransigence and her

attempt to bribe Dorcas make it necessary. With bravado he assumes the

rake's stance:

A rake's a rake, Jack!---And what rake is withheld by principle from the

perpetration of any evil his heart is set upon, and in which he thinks he can

succeed?--Besides, am 1 not in earnest as to marriage?--Will not the

generaIity of the world acquit me, if 1 do marry? And what is that injury

which a church rite will at any time repair? Is not the catastrophe of every

story that ends in wedlock accounted happy, he the difficulties in the

progress to it ever so great? (944)

As a rake, Lovelace respects no legal or moral restraints on bis desires.

Yet he cynically asserts that the second rape he is meditating, as weIl as

the previous one, can be repaired, if he so desires, by a church rite, after

which sentimentalists will declare a "happy ending" to the entire affair.

The erroneous assumption Lovelace makes is that Clarissa will

accommodate her views to this scenario. He cannot comprehend either

her sense of violation or the intensity of her spiritual desires. Thus, in a

relentless determination to possess her, he proceeds with a plan that can

only make her detest bim more.

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Lovelace carefully attends to the security of the house. He places a

guard on the lower floor and makes certain that "the street doors [are] also

doubly secure, and every shutter to the windows rO\md the house fastened,

tbat no noise or screaming sbould be heard" (949). The women are

maliciously prepared to enact their roles, and Lovelace is "in strange

agitations" (945). The scene begins as a travesty of inversion and irony

wbere the guilty tl"y the innocent, the intended rapist is addressed as

"your bonour," the "corruptress" is actually the victim, and the brothel is

called "a po or innocent house." This parody represents the conditions

under which Clarissa has lived. Lovelace initiates the farce by "finding"

tbe IOU Clarissa bas written for Dorcas. In fury he rings his bell, calls

for "the damned toad Dorcas," and draws his sword--a symbol of rape.

Will runs in "eyes goggling, mouth distended," as another toad. Screams,

curses and imprecations create a scene of chaos and devilish

pandemonium, and the language, full of toads, devils, and curses, echoes

Paradise Lost ; the spiritual perils that Clarissa has survived are

embodied as Satan, Sin and Death. In enacting this travesty, the actors

reveal themsel.res as they have never done before in Clarissa's hearing.

"Now," she tells them 1ater, "1 have ... full proof of your detestable

t\'ickedness, and have heard your base incitements" (949). The protesting

Dorcas is dragged in and loudly interrogated. In another intimation of

rape, Mrs. Sinclair assures Lovelace that she "value[s] not her doors on

sucb an occasion as this." In response to this threat, Clarissa emerges

from ber room. Lovelace describes her entrance with theatrical suspense:

"See her enter among us, confiding in her own innocence; and with a

majesty in her person and manner that is naturai to her; but which th en

shone out in all its giory!" Clarissa immediately challenges the farcica}

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trial: "Oh thou contemptible and abandoned Lovelace, thinkest thou that 1

see not through this poor villainous plot of thine, and of these thy wicked

accomplices?"lO Lovelace intersperses bis dramatic narration with

sonorous moral commenta sui table for the main points of a sermon:

"What a de je ct ion must ever fall to the lot of guilt, were it given to

innocence aIways thus to exert itselfl" (946-49).

Clarissa must speak the truth to dissociate herself moraIly from

Lovelace and the women. If she allowed them to accuse her and

pronOU1tce judgment on her in their own terms, it would be a kind of

complicity. When she denounces the assembled miscreants, Clarissa

articulates the abhorrence and refusaI she was unable to express at the

time of the rape. By depriving her of the power of will, Lovelace

disregarded her rights as a human being; he used her as a thing--a

means to satisfy his Iust and his desire for power. Now Clarissa

passionately asserts her identity: "1 am a person, though thus vilely

betrayed, of rank and fortune. . .. 1 am not married--ruined, as 1 am by

your helps, 1 bless God, 1 am not married to this miscreant ... 1 never will

be his" (949). Clarissa insists that she is not that fictitious person, Mrs.

Lovelace, and she stresses her social standing as a person of consequence,

who cannot be imprisoned and forgotten. Clarissa May seem to assert

what ie obvious, but it is this identity that Lovelace has attempted to

conceaI and transform. He has tried to negate both her acknowledged

virtue and her social position. Clarissa's threat, "The law shall be aIl my

resource," strikes panic into Mrs. Sinclair and her women. Lovelace

observes, "No wonder, sin ce those who will damn themselves to procure

ease and plenty in this world will tremble at everything that seems to

threaten their methods of obtaining that ease and plenty." Through her

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eloquence and moral strength, Clarissa reverses the trial scene Lovelace

had planned. She accuses and judges her persecutors and dismisses her

pretended accomplice: "Begone, wretch!. ... [T]hy guilt is thy security in

such a house as this!" When Lovelace recollects himself and advances

toward her, she draws the pen-knife and points it toward her bosom, thus

equating rape with death. "1 dare die. It is in defence of my honour. God

will be mercifuI to my poor souI." Her resolution is manifcst when

Lovelace, who has knelt to plead with her, moves forward. Clarissa

extends her hand to thrust the knife in her bosom, at the same time

uttering a prayer for forgiveness. But the terrified Lovelace throws

himself "to the further end of the room," where "prostrate on the floor

[bis] he art pierced as with an hundred daggers ... his voice ... uUerly

broken," he is the image of a defeated Satan. Clarissa, with the "awful

and piercing aspect" of an avenging angel, tells the assembled

persecutors, "God's eye i& upon us! His more immediate eye." Lovelace

reports that "the women looked up ta the ceiling, and trembled, as if afraid

of God's eye." Once more, in response to Lovelace's appeals, Clarissa

declares her freedom: "1 never, never will be yours." Then she takes one

of the lights--symbolically the light of love--turns from them and leaves. 11

Lovelace comments, "Not a souI was able to molest her." But Clarissa's

inner turmoil is suggested by Mabel's report that she saw her, tremblingly

and in a hurry, take the key of her chamber door out of her pocket and

unlock it: and as soon as she entered, heard her double-Iock, bar, and boIt

it" (946-51).

Lovelace expresses a masochistic contempt for his performance:

"Innocence so triumphant: villainy so debased." This comment is a

continuation of bis moral inteIjections during the scene. But his

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strongest regrets are not moral; they are that bis plot was ill-conceived

and that it failed: "Success, success in projects is everytbing ... How

pitifully foolish does it appear to me now!" (952). He manifests the most

fervent admiration and awe for Clarissa's moral and dramatic victory.

But for so sincere a virtue to threaten lurself, and not oirer to intimidate

any otlu!r, and with so mucb presence ofmind as to distinguish, in the

very passionate intention, the necessity of the aet in defence of ber honour,

and so fairly to disavow lesser occasions showed such a deliberation,

sucb a ehoiee, such a prineiple; and then keeping me so watchfully at a

distance that 1 could not seize ber hand, so soon as she could have given the

fatal blow, how impossible not to he subdued by so true and 50 discreet a

magnanimity! (952)

Paradoxically, the humiliating defeat Lovelace has suffered only

increases his determination to possess Clarissa. He fantasizes, "She shall

yet he mine, legally mine ... My lord will die. My fortune will help my

will, and set me above everything and everybody" (952). Lovelace's pride

and his confidence in the strength of his will to obtain bis desires make it

impossible for him to believe he will not eventually succeed. His reliance

on fortune--both as fate and as wealth-- are further signs of his

insensitivity to spiritual values. He forgets or ignores Clarissa's past

refusaI to be tempted by wealth, and he displays bis impiety when he

invokes fortune rather than God to assist him.

Clarissa's description of the pen-knife scene in a letter to Anna a

month aCter the event is remarkably difTerent from Lovelace's account .

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"Oh my dear, you know not what 1 suft'ered on that oCC8sion!--Nor do 1

what 1 eSC8ped at the time, if the wick~ man had approached me to execute

the horrid purposes of his vile heart. Rich resolutioll, a courage I never

knew before: a sett1ed, not a rash courqe; and such a command of my

passions--I cao only say I know Dot how 1 came by such an uncommon

elevation of mind, if it were not given me in answer to my earnest prayers

to Heaven for such a command of myself, before 1 entered into the horrid

company." (1117)

Clarissa's account is undramatic. She describes not a triumph but an

escape--both from Lovelace and from the sin of self-murder through which

she was fully resolved to protect her honour. Rer courage and resolution

were given herJ she says, in answer to her earnest prayers. This

assertion is consistent with Law's declaration that

[w]hen the creaturely power of our will, imagmation, and desire leaves off

its working in vanity and gives itself wholly unto God ID a naked and

implicit faith in the divine operation upoo it, then it is that it does nothing

in vain, it rises out of time into eternity, is in union and communion with

God, and so all things are possible to it. ( 135)

Total resignation to the will of God is the state Clarissa strives to attain

before her death. In this sense too her victory in the pen-knife scene

prefigures her final triumph.

Important to Clarissa's victoryJ but unacknowledged in her letter to

AnnaJ are her understanding that Lovelace's feelings of guilt enable her

to awe and intimidate him and her perception that he fears she May harm

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- --- ----------------

herse If. Similarly, from her recent thwarted attempts to escape, Clarissa

recognizes Mrs. Sinclair's fear of the law, and she makes use of this fear

when she wams the women that "the LAW shall be ... [her] resource"

(950). Clarissa's psychological penetration ofher persecutors is thus as

decisive to her victory as her courage and fortitude.

In a letter to Anna written just a few days before her death, Clarissa

refers again to the pen-lmife scene in a manner that indicates her

continued resentment toward Lovelace: "How my soul despised him for

bis meanness on a certain occasion, ofwhich you will one day be

informed. And him whom one's heart despises, it is far from being

difficult to reject had one ever so partially favoured him once" (1320).12

Clarissa's virtual admission here of the love she once felt (and possibly

still must suppress) for Lovelace is uncharacteristic. She usually claims

that she "once respected [him] with a preference" (1426) or that she "could

have loved him" (1254,1341). Conceivably the positive strength ofher

ambivalent feelings toward Lovelace is a large part of the reason she

remembers the "final trial" of the pen-lmife scene with such bitterness

and that she finds it 30 difficult truly to forgive Lovelace .

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Chapter Three: The Prison Scenes

Mter her escape from Mrs. Sinclair's, Clarissa, through an

outrageous travesty of justice, is arrested on the street and imprisoned for

deht. Ironically, the law that she thought would he her "resource" (950) is

used against her. But Clarissa's imprisonment is in fact a perpetuation of

the confinement, escape and reconfinement which began at Harlowe

Place.1 Although the prison room with its broken fumiture and its

smoked, scribbled ceiling appears a grotesque contrast to her comfortable

room at Harlowe Place and to the handsome apartments at Mrs.

Sinclair's establishment, the deniai of freedom and the harassment she

experiences there are a repetition of what she has aiready suffered from

her famiIy and Lovelace. SalIy's proposaI, endorsed by the jailer, 10

introduce a gentleman who will pay Clarissa's debt is another version of

the propositions of Solmes and Lovelace. Mrs. Sinclair accomplishes

Clarissa's arrest mainly because the Harlowes and Lovelace have

contrived to make her helpless. "Your money," Arabella wrote, .... will

not be sent you. . .. It is wished you may be se en a beggar along London

streets!" (510). Having situated her in the brothel, Lovelace exulted,

"[W}hither can she fly to avoid me? ... She has not one friend in town but

me" (575). Clarissa's position in the prison, destitute of friends or money,

is the consequence of these prior efforts to de prive her of a1l resources to

resist. Determined not to retum to Mrs. Sinc1air's, Clarissa is convinced

she will die in prison (1066). The choice she makes is the sarne that she

made in the pen-knife scene .

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Pari 1: Temporary CaJamities

Every individual, Law dec1ares, possesses that spark of the divine

which is our will and desirous imagination. The reason

[mlan is naturally taken with beautiful Objects, why he admires and

rejoices at the Sight of lucid and transparent Bodies ... lis] because he was

created in the greatest Perfection of Beauty to live amongst ail the Beauties

of fi glorious Paradise : And therefore Man, though fallen, has this strong

Sensibility and reaching Desire after a11 the i!eauties , that can be picked

up ID fallen Nature. (72, 124)

Richardson represents Clarissa as a beautiful and spiritual being. Many

desire to possess her, but few individuals are capable of appreciating her

true spiritual worth. Only through suppression of the virtue they profess

to admire can those who would use Clarissa as a means to achieve

particular worldly desires accommodate her to their designs; they seek to

subdue and transfonn her. At Harlowe Place Clarissa overhears Bella

and James triumphing over her plight: "Now she must be what we'd have

her be" (340). "Terror and fear [Solmes gloats] ... look pretty in a bride, as

weIl as in a wife," and James predicts: "you'Il find her humble and

mortified enough very quickly!" (238, 319). Before the rape, Lovelace writes

exultantly that "the haughty beauty will not refuse me, when her pride of

being corporally inviolate is brought down" (879). AlI want to subdue

Clarissa'fj "noble confidence," and to transform her into a humble object

for the gratification of their own desires. Indeed, Richardson shows that

she is perceived and evaluated in relation to the predominant vice of each

of those most eager to possess her. Thus the Harlowes perceive her as

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instrumental to their greed and hopes of family aggrandizement, Solmes

as an enviable wife and the means to obtain a valuable estate. Lovelace

pronounces her beauty and virtue a challenge to bis proficiency as a

seducer: "[She is] a subject worthy of my attempts; worthy of my

ambition" (428). Mrs. Sinclair and ber women appraise her as a salable

commodity: "You owe us such a lady," they tell Lovelace when they tirst

meet her--the ultimate reduction of "the divine Clarissa" (522).

Richardson's ironic point, that those nearest to Clarissa regard her

primarily in terms of their MOst egoistic desires, is a serious indictment of

humanity's use of divinely originated free will.

Untii she rebeIs, Clarissa is considered the ornament of her family

and a pattern for other young ladies. So says Mrs. Howe, and Clarissa

herselfis proudly conscious that she is an "example" (382, 975). She is

considered exemplary particularly witb regard to her sense of duty--her

desire to please and accommodate her family. Clarissa demonstrates ber

readiness to oblige them wben sbe relinquisbes control of ber

grandfather's estate to her father. Although this dutiful action pleases

the Harlowes, it only strengthens their conviction that she is herself a

piece ofproperty that they are entitled to use for their advantage.2

Clarissa has convinced her family that her happiness is obtained through

pleasing them, and they now expect her unfailing self-sacrifice and

willing obedience. Her aversion 10 Solmes, her family insists, "may be

easily surmounted, and ought to be surmounted in dut y to [ber] father,

and for the promotion of family views"(136). Her mother provides an

example of "meekness and resignedness 10 the wills of others" that

Clarissa ie expected to follow, but she observes that "often and often [has

she] had reason on ber [motber's] account 10 reflect .... [that] "tbose who

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will bear much shall have much to bear" and consequently she has been

strengthened in her resolution to be faithful to her principles (105).

Although Clarissa has been considered the family favourite, the

crisis caused by her rebellion demonstrates that James is the most

important and the most powerful member of the family. Clarissa is to be

sacrificed to exalt him. As the male heir, he exemplifies the materialist

values of the family and its hopes "of being on a footing with the principal

in the kingdom" (101). The Harlowe family is an example ofpatriarchal

tyranny: the violent, authoritarian father is supported by his brothers; all

bow to the future male he ad of the family and are assisted by the

subjugated mother and aunt who exert their own form of tyranny over

Clarissa. James's determination to force the marri age with Solmes is

motivated by ambition, envyand revenge. The marri age will prevent

Lovelace from marrying Clarissa, eliminate the possibility of a diversion

of more of the family wealth to Clarissa and create the possibility of a

reversion of Clarissa's estate and Solmes' wealth to the Harlowes.

ln his Preface Richardson states, "[I]t is one of the principal Views

of the Publication, To caution Parents against the undue Exertion of their

natural Authority over their Children, in the great Article of Marriage"

(viii). Yet Richardson writes to Frances Grainger, "In Clarissa 1 have

shewn, that she thought it her Dut Y to comply with every thing short of

Marrying a man of odious Qualities, and who was the Object of her

Detestation" (Selected Letters 140). Another letter in their on-going

correspondence makes bis views concerning the preeminence of dut y

explicit:

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Be pleased, Madam, always to remember tMs Great Rule, inculcated

thro'out the History of Clarissa, That in aIl reciprocal Duties, the Non­

Performance of the Dut y of one Part is not an excuse for the Failure of the

other. Why, think you are future Rewards promised and future

Punishments threatened? But the one to induce us to Persevere in our

Duties here, the other to Punish our Deviation from them. (Selected Letters

144)

In exemplary compliance with Richardson's ideal of dut y, Clarissa

continues to love her family in spite of their persecution and

vindictiveness. She tells Anna, n[W]ere we perfect, which no one can he,

we could not be happy in this life, unless those with whom we have to de al

(those, more especially, who have any control upon us) were governed by

the sarne principles. What have we then to do but ... to choose right, and

pursue it steadily, and leave the issue to Providence?" (106)

Clarissa leaves the overt hostility of Harlowe Place, where her

family is united in a pact against her, for the secret, alien world of Mrs.

Sinclair's establishment, where Lovdace and the women furtively

conspire to hring about her downfall. The harassments of her family-­

appeals and commands, admonitions to ba generous and violent

proclamations that she will be married, willing or unwilling--are replaced

by Lovelace's peremptory proposaIs of marriage, his ever-encroaching

attempts to seduce her, and bis repeated vows of honourable intention.

Ultimately the methods used to restrict Clarissa's freedom are

remarkably similar in both contexts. Clarissa is imprisoned within

hostile environments where her jailers try to prevent any communication

with the outside world. The family prohibit visits and outings; they forbid

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her to write or receive lett.ers and confiscate her writing materials. In the

brothel, Lovelace con troIs the behavior of the women and the appearance

of events. He intercepts Clarissa's correspondence and forges lettera.

The reatraints on Clarissa's freedom are gradually made more severe;

her rights as a person are increasingly violated.

In ail of her imprisonments, one after another, 3 Clarissa preserves

an independence of thought and action which frustrates the attempts of

her jailers to break her will. Within the brothel, she separates herself

from the women, toward whom she feels an instinctive dislike and

distrust. She seeks refuge in her rooms from Lovelace, and he is forced to

request her presence or to demand it. Lovelace's discomfort at Clarissa's

unstinting assertion of autonomy is shown by bis fantasies that once

subdued she will be emotionally dependent upon him (521, 706). He

devises elaborate schemes to penetrate her defenses; the tire scene is

planned to obtain admittance to her room and to surprise her into

compliance. But Lovelace not only is disappointed in bis attempt, he

incites her escape. When he traces her to Hampstead, Clarissa insists

that she be left "free to pursue [her] own destiny" (843). "1 will do what 1

please,and go whlther 1 please .... God, who knows my innocence, and

my upright intentions, will not wholly abandon me when 1 am out of your

power--But while in it, 1 cannot expect a gleam of the divine grace or

favour to reach me" (795-96). Mter her abduction and rape, this

perception of Lovelace as a threat to her spiritual hopes increases her

determination to escape from him and never to see him again. For, she

reasons, "Who can touch pitch and not be detiled."4 At Mrs. Sinclair's,

Clarissa has reason to verify the truth of this Maxim. Her resolution to

"choose right and pursue it steadily, and leave the issue to Providence"

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(106) deprives her of any possibility of asserting her own will. Like

Clarissa's family, Lovelace exploits her integrity. ACter an attempted

escape, he complains, "Is a fancied distress sufficient to justify this lady

for dispensing with her principles?" (905) It islittle wonder that Clarissa

cries, "1 am too sincere for the company 1 am in" (937). When she finally

Iiberates herself, Clariss8 must resort to Lovelace's methods--subterfuge

and disguise.

Part Th The Victory 9fPrincipJe

ln order to impress upon Lovelace the sordid reality of Clarissa's

prison, Belford de scribes the room in considerable detail--the broken

furniture, the patched waHs, and the smoked, scribbled ceiling. A

twinkling candie recalls the light Clarissa carried in the pen-knife scene;

despite her despair and anguish, her divine love still illuminates the

prison. The mirror that can no longer reflect her face or the frightful

reality of the prison room is cracked in two like the torn sheets oC her Mad

papers. It suggests the radical fracture which divides her past liCe and

expectations of worldly happiness from the desolation of the present. The

incongruousness nf the bouquet of flowers in the sordid room is Iike

Clarissa's presence in it. Doody observes that the flowers are aIl

emblematic: "the yew signifies death; southemwood (or wormwood),

bittemess; dead sweet-briar, dead love; rue, remorse and regret ....

Clarissa's is a Cuneral bouquet, in UDspoken contrast to the bridai flowers

she once might have had" (218).5 Clarissa's imprisonment in Rowland's,

like her confinement in the brothel, suggests a similar incongruity in her

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existence in a world where the values of most people are so different from

her own.

The humiliation of Clarissa's public arrest is followed by the

unaccustomed exposure she endures in her prison room. She has no key

to this room, and she cannot retreat or choose her visitors. Sally and

Polly, the jailer and bis wife, enter her room at will.6 Mrs. Sinclair's

women are now in a position to barass Clarissa as they dared not do when

Lovelace was present. Sally owns to Belford that she has now "the

triumph of her heart over this haughty beauty, who kept them all at such

a distance in their own house!" (1054). Sally repeatedly offers to bail her

and take her to Mrs. Sinclair's but is indignantly refused; she slyly rafers

to a man who would he happy to pay Clarissa's bail in retum for one visit.

Rowland and bis wife assure her that the se are good offers, "not to he met

with every day." Only Clarissa's desperate warning, "Don't push me upon

extremities, man!--Don't make me desperate, wornant" deter them (1059).

The kinship of these people to Mrs. Sinclair is indicated by their

encouragement that Clarissa prostitute herself for bail rnoney, and in

their fear that if Clarissa hanns herself, it will he the "ruin of their

house." The momentary sympathy which hrings tears to their eyes also

echoes the maudlin tears of the women in the pen-knife scene (951, 1071).

The imprisonment is a temporary expedient that will retum

Clarissa ultimately to Sinclair's. It is rneant to assist Lovelace's designs

for cohabitation, and Mrs. Sinclair no doubt hopes that when Lovelace has

tired of her, Clarissa will remain in the hrothel as a highly salahle

commodity. Belford makes it clear that the treatment Clarissa endures is

not unusual for young defenseless women, and that it is by no means the

worst she could receive. This is confirmed by Sally's threat: "You will

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have harder usage than any you have ever yet known, 1 can tell you, if you

come not into some humour to make matters up" (1060). Ta Belford, she

mentions the spirit-breakers and bumbling drones used to force young

women to comply. It appears that only the uncertainty of Lovelace's

consent restrains the women from proceeding with these more stringent

methods. Richardson thus implicitly admits that circumstances are

possible that no virtue can withstand--where the will to resist is violently

curbed and broken.

Sally is the Most obtrusive presence in the prison room; shc is both

an agent for Lovelace's designs and a foil for Clarissa's virtue. Sally is the

MOst fully portrayed of the seduced women who stand in contrast to

Clarissa. Polly is a more restrained copy of Sally; Miss Betterton, who

died in childbirth, is more clearly a deceived victim of Lovelace's seduction

(494). Intelligent, weIl educated, and genteel, Sally is a fit accomplice for

Lovelace, and she reflects his rakish ideals. Her reduction to a whore

obviously still rankles despite her pretence of satisfaction with her

situation at Mrs. Sinclair's. The mention of Lovelace's deception still

evokes painful memories, but her resentment is mostly injured pride; she

is not concemed with the moral implications of her faIl. When Sally

endeavors to represent her debasement and Clarissa's rape as equivalent,

she only emphasizes the great difference between Clarissa's attitude

toward her situation--her conviction that she is ruined and her future

hopes for worldly happiness irrevocably spoiled--and the accommodation

of Sally and Polly to their circumstances. "Perhaps, said Sally, we were

once as squeamish and narrow-minded as you." Clarissa asks, "How

came it over with you?" "Because we saw the ridiculousnesB of prudery,"

Sally answers sharply (1056). Sally and Polly have adopted the rake's point

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of view toward women--that under the right conditions all women will

respond to seduction, and "once subdued, al ways subdued" (634). They

condone their seduction by Lovelace and adopt his evaluation of

themselves. Sally asserts, '''Bating that he will take his advantage where

he can of us si!ly credulous girls, he is a man of honour" (1062). Sally and

Polly now take a malicious pleasure in helping to reduce other young

women to their circumstances. They have a particular interest in

subduing Clarissa because they are jealous of Lovelace's passion for her.

Clarissa, on the other hand, expresses the fervent hope that she will be

"the last poor creature who shall he ruined by [Lovelace]" (1071). These

women are frightening to Clarissa not only because of their cruelty but

because they represent what Lovelace would make her.

Kinkead-Weekes writes: "The deepest significance of the prison

scenes lies in [Clarissa's] acceptance of humiliation, her achievement of

patience and resignation. There is a marked change here from Bella's

adversary and from the girl who used to flay Lovelace at the slightest

provocation" (257). This point seems questionable, although it reflects

Richardson's daims in the preface to Meditation VIII. Clarissa

transcrihed this meditation, composed of verses from Job, in prison after a

visit from Sally and Polly. Richardson asserts, "She receives all their

contumelies with exemplary meekness, returns not evil for evil, nor

passion for insult" (16). But while Clarissa strives to achieve resignation

to her situation and at times achieves it (1054), as she declares ta Rowland,

she has great difficulty in sustaining her composure (1059).7 Particularly

in her conversations with Sally and Polly, her old combative spirit revives,

and often her retorts to the women are as cutting as those to her former

adversaries. She matches their repeated insinuating address to her as

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Miss Harlowe with "Your servant, ladies." When they express a

hypocritical wish that she will be happy, Clarissa retorts, "1 never shaH be

of your opinion, 1 believe, as to what happiness is." Happiness for them,

she assumes provocatively, is "To live at Mrs. Sinclair's." She answers

their triumphant "Pride will have a fall" with "Better falI with what you

calI pride, than stand with meanness" (1057). But in Clarissa's weakened

condition they reduce her to tears and finally to hysterics. She cannot

escape them and they are not moved to compassion by her grief. Sally says

vengefully, "Nothing, as Mr. Lovelace once told me, dries sooner than

tears. For once 1 too wept mightily" (1061). Clarissa is neither patient nor

resigned to her harassment by the two women. She is, though, resigncd to

die in prison rather than to submit to the terms offered her (071).

Sally notes derisively that Clarissa has turned down the pages of

her Bible at the Book of Job. Clarissa perceives analogies between her

story and Job's. She has 10st her family and friends, and her worldly

possessions; her body has been affiicted through the rape. But the

strongest point of similarity between Clarissa and Job is that they are both

examples of suffering virtue. In the Preface to her Meditatwns, Clarissa

writes, "[Alt the first of my calamity, 1 had great grief, and, at times, had

great impatience in my grief. .. This kind of spirit 1 indulged, as 1 fear,

too Iûuch ... having, as 1 thought, so good an example in the impatience

which the Holy Man 1 have mentioned gave way to in the early stages of

his Aft1iction" (vi-vii).

Clarissa's imprisonment marks the advent of Belford as chronicler

of her experiences, and this creates a change in the representation of

Clarissa. Lovelace pcrceives Clarissa through the eyes of a lover and a

seducer. She is the object ofhis obsessive love and a challenge to his

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ingenuityas a rake. His account emphasizes her impregnable virtue, her

dramatic ability, and her _.Jmbativeness--qualities which bis treatment of

her brings out. Lovelace embellishes bis account with witticisms, literary

allusions and dramatic effects. Belford is serious, moralistic, and

sympathetic; at times bis account verges on the sentimental. Belford

perceives Clarissa as an icon of virtue and as a victim: "The divine

Clarissa, Lovelace--reduced to rejoice for a cup of cold water!--By whom

J'educed!" (1054). By frequently reproacbing Lovelace for bis ~.Jjuries of

Clarissa (1073, 1123, 1310), Belford keeps Lovelace's guilt clearly before the

reader.

Belford enters Clarissa's life as Lovelace's representative, sent by

him to release her from prison. Nevertheless, once he has come, he vows

to prote ct her from Lovelace and her other persecutors. He becomes her

guardian, a kind of knight, perhaps a distant relation to Spenser's Red­

Cross Knight.8 When he arrives at the prison, Belford is so shocked at the

sight of Clarissa kneeling at the table in the sordid room that he raIls to bis

knees and declares: "1 ever was a worshipper of your virtues, and an

advocate for you; and 1 come to release you from the hands you are in"

(1066). In Belford's role as Mediator there is an element of triumph over

Lovelace. He is allowed to visit Clarissa, and Lovelace must wait for his

letters and to some extent court bis approval. Belford declares, "Methinks

1 have a kind of holy love for this angel of a woman" (1080). He is the ooly

person Clarissa truly reforms. Her failure to evoke a reformation in

Lovelace is to sorne extent compensated through Belford. He is sometimes

the spokesman for Richardson's own view of Clarissa, as Richardson

suggests when he quotes Belford in a letter to Lady Bradshaigh: "Hear

Madam, the Testimony which Mr. Belford bears 10 the Example she sets,

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and to her Magnanimity, in a Letter written to rus wicked Friend, on a

Distress which he had been employed to extricate her from":

What has not this charming creature suft'ered; what has she not come

through in these last three months, that 1 know of! ... [Hlere is a fine­

principled lady who, by dint of this noble consideration, 8S 1 imagine (what

else can support her?--that she has not deserved the evils she con tends with;

and that this world is designed but as a transitory state of probation; and

that she is travelling to another, and better; puts up with ail the hardships of

the journey; and is not to he dJverted from her course by the attacks of

thieves and robbers, or any other terrors and ddliculties; being assured of

an ample reward at the end of it! (1058; Selected Letters 90>

Belford represents, in a sense, Richardson's hope that fallen

humanity can appreciate a Clarissa, that she can awaken a desire for

repentance in an individual who has been attracted by the decadent

brilliance of a Lovelace. He is proof that a rake can reform if he desires

and wills it. Notably, though, Richardson do es not make Clarissa the sole

instrument of Belford's reformation. His presence at his uncle's death

and at the death of the rake Belton provoke reflection, and Mrs. Sinclair's

death profoundly shocks him. In the example of Clarissa's serene death

Belford finds the inspiration for his continued reformation.

Clarissa's spiritual triumph over the appalling conditions in the

prison and the treatment she receives there is as great as her dramatic

victory in the brothel. When she is free, Clarissa declares, "Those who

arrested and confined me, no doubt thought they had fallen upon the ready

method to distress me so as to bring me into aIl their measures. But 1

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presume to hope that 1 have a mind that cannot be debased, in essential

instances , by temporary calamities : little do those poor wretches know of

the force of innate principles ... who imagine that a prison, or penury, or

want, can bring a right turned mind to he guilty of a wilful baseness, in

order to avoid such short-lived euils "(1103). In this final great trial

Clarissa manifests absolute resistance to the temptations of her captors

and a complete reliance on Providence. Significantly, her departure from

the prison is a release rather than an escape--a foreshadowing of her final

release from a world that she has had "so much reason not io love" (1306) .

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Chapter Four: An Exemplary Preparation

111 a letter to Anna, written aCter ber release from Rowland's

prison, Clarissa avows that ber affiictions bave "seized upon [ber] heart":

"1 am sure that God will soon 'dissolve my substance; and bring me to

death."'l Rer death will be the inevitable consequence of the cruel

treatment she has endured from her persecu1ors. Rejection by her fam il y ,

the trauma of the rape and the effects of the drug, her arrest and the

conditions in the prison have all contributed to break her heart and ruin

her health. In her circumstances--her reputation ruined and her worldly

hopes shattered--she asks: "What. .. can [she] wish for but death?--And

what, after aIl, is death ... [but] the end of a life of cares and troubles; and,

if happy, the beginning of a life of immortal happiness" (1117-18).

Clarissa's own desire, indeed, appears 10 be the determining element in

her death. In the early stages of her trials, tormented and coerced by her

family, she wishes "it would please God to take [her] to his mercy" (224).

This wish only becomes stronger, although she endeavors to resign

herself to God's will. Richardson, in a letter to Lady Bradshaigh, argues:

"if Clarissa think not an early Death an Evil, but on the contrary, after an

exemplary Preparation, looks upon it as her consummating Perfection,

who shall grudge it her?--Who shall punish her with Life?" (Selected

Letters 96). From the perspective of Clarissa and Richardson, this life is a

"State of Probation" (Selected Letters 108). Most persons are concemed

with self-gratification; principle is often regarded as an obstacle to be

overcome, whether in oneself or ir. others. Individuals hke Clarissa strive

to perfect their virtue but are beset by temptations and trials that they must

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continually strive to surmount. "Who," Clarissa exclaims, "would not

rejoice that ail ber dangers [were] over!" (1356). Richardson insista that

Clarissa "could not he rewarded in this World." He adds, "What greater

moral Proof can be given of a World after this, for the rewarding of

suffering Virtue, and for the punishing of oppressive Vice, than the

inequalities in tbe Distribution of Rewards and Punishments bere below?"

(Selected Letters 108). This assurance is fervently echoed hy Clarissa and

Mrs. Norton (991, 1198). The nearest Richardson cornes to an expression

of skepticism toward the traditional Christian answer to the prohlem of

suffering virtue is in Belford's hopeful exclamation that Clarissa will have

ber reward hereafter: "It must he so, ifthere be really such a thing as

future remuneration; as now 1 am more and more convinced there must-­

else, what a bard fate is hers, whose punishment, to aIl appearance, has

80 much exceeded her fault?" (1073).

Part 1: A Se~ Penitence

The exemplary preparation for death upon which Clarissa enters is

known as "holy dying"; it involves sincere penitence, resignation and

forgiveness of those who have injured her.2 A model for this procedure is

Jeremy Taylor's Roly Living and Dying. 3 Taylor dec1ares,

ft is a great art to die weil, and to he ]eamed by men whose understanding

and aets of reason are not abated with fear or pains: and as the greatest

part of death is passed by the preceding years of our life, so a]so in those

years are the greatest preparations for it; and he that prepares not for death

before his ]ast sickness, is like him that hegins to study philosophy when

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. .. going to dispute publicly io the faculty. Ail that a sick and dyiog man

can do is but to exercise those virtues which he before acquired, and to

perfect that repentance which was hegun more early. (292)

ln her first encounter with Lovelace aCter the rape, Clarissa exhorts him:

"Hinder me not from entering upon a life of severe penitence, for

corresponding, after prohibition, with a wretch who has too well justified

all their warnings and inveteracy; and for throwing myself into the power

ofyour vile artifices--Let me try to secure the only hope 1 have 1eR" (901-02).

Clarissa, as a true penitent, takes responsibility for her errors. She says,"

1 have reason to think my punishment is but the due consequence of my

fault, and 1 will not run away from it; but beg of Heaven to sanetify it to

me" (989, 1117). Taylor stresses the importance of a sincere repentance:

"He that repents truly is greatly sorrowful for his past sins: not with a

superficial sigh or tear, but a pungent amictive sorrow; such a sorrow as

hates the sin so much, that the man would choose to die rather than aet i t

any more" (235). Law states forcefully that repentance is the initiator of

regeneration:

This must he your Process, [al Desire brought ioto an anguishing Slate; or

the bitter Sorrows and {tery Agitations of Repentance, must he the

Beginning of a Divine Life in your Soul; 'tis by this awakened Flre, or

inward Agitation, that it becomes capable of being regenerated, or tumed

into an heavenly Life, by the Light and Holy Spirit of God. Nothing is, or

can possibly he Salvation, but this regenerated Life of the Soul .... INlo

Man can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, till the Heauenly Lire, or that

which is the Life in Heaven, be barn in him (95).

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Repentance must be accompanied by observing other religious duties and

a detennination to achieve resignation (1140). Clarissa's references to her

"duties" (1140, 1272) can he considered in relation to Taylor's observations

on the "necessary preparatives to a holy death. "4 Daily examination of

one's actions and past life are essential (335). Patience must be exercised.

"Despair," Taylor notes, "sins against the reputation of God's goodness

and the efficacy of aIl our old experience. . .. No affiiction is greater than

despair" (354). In the Preface to her Meditations Clarissa confesses that

"at the first of[her] calamity, [she] had great grief, and, at times, had

great impatience ... and despair" (vi, viii). As one who begs forgiveness

from God, a penitent must forgive aIl personal injuries. Clarissa's

struggle to forgive her persecutors is both the most significant and the

most ambiguous aspect of her penitence. Taylor avers:

Charity is the great channel through which God passes ail his mercy upon

mankind. For we receive absolution of our sins in proportion to our

forgiving our brother. This is the rule of our hopes, and the measure of our

desires in this world; and in the day of death and judgment the great

sentence upon mankind shan he transacted according to our alms, which

is the other part of charity. . .. God himself is love, and every degree of

charity that dwel1s in us is the participation of the Divine nature. (343)

Taylor's admonitions to the dying to "set [their] house in order" are

remarkably apposite to Clarissa's situation: He recommends that the

dying "reconcile the fractures of ... family, reunite brethren, [and] cause

right understandings." Because of her family's intractableness, this is

impossible for Clarissa to accomplish. Her efforts toward reconciliation

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and ber request for forgiveness and a last blessing are refused until too

late. In ber appeals to Belford and Morden, she tries to follow :raylor's

dictum to "cbarm tbem into religion by tbe authority and advantages of a

dying person." Clarissa's intentions, stated in the preamhle to her will

(1412), adhere closely to Taylor's advice that the dying person "make [a]

will with great justice and piety." "Let tbe will or testament," writes

Taylor, "be made with ingenuity, openness, and plain expression, that lit]

May not entail a lawsuit upon ... posterity and relatives .... Let the

dispensation of our alms he as little intrusted to our executors as may he"

(452-53). Clarissa's conscientious efforts to fulfill aIl the duties of "holy

dying" give ber great satisfaction (1304, 1338). She endeavors, through an

exemplary preparation for death, to manifest her devotion to God.

Pari U: Meditations: The Example of Job

Although Clarissa's spiritual struggle is most important to her

preparation for death, there are only occasional references in the nov el to

the difficulties she experiences. Kinkead-Weekes comments:

We are deliberately removed for the Most part from immediate experience

of Clarissa's mind. Where we occasionally get more than a glimpse, in

her Meditations for example, her consciousness is expressed in the words

of the BIble .... She becomes an increasingly distanced samt-hke

figure. We seem occupied almost whol1y with the impedimenta that delay

her joumey, whi1e the experience that is really meaningful to her is closed

to us .... [U]nquestionably, there is a great experientialloss. (259-60)

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Kinkead-Weekes refers to the five Meditations in the novel; however, these

are part of a larger collection--arguably the missing account of Clarissa's

struggle and transcendence before her death. Tom Keymer indicates that

after Richardson omitted all but five of the meditations from the novel, he

hesitated even ta print them separately, though he was urged ta do so

(101).5 He finally printed the volume ofthirty-six meditations for a limited

distribution among bis friends. It is entitled Meditations Collected (rom

the Sacred Books; and Adapted to the Different Stages of a Deep Distress;

Gloriously Surmounted by Patience, Piety, and Resignation. Being those

mentioned in the History ofClarissa as drawn up by her for her own Use.

Each meditation is a collage of verses adapted from one or more of Job,

Psalms, Ecclesiasticus, and the Wisdom of Solomon. There is a general

introduction by Richardson and a preface ascribed to Clarissa. The short

introduction to each Meditation connects it with the story and attempts to

guide the reader's interpretation of characters and events. Collection of

the meditations, Clarissa observes in her preface, was "an employment

that divinely comforted [her] .... Ifthis little Piece may be of use to anyof

my dear friends, ... my end will he doubly answered, having myself, ...

reaped great consolation from it, in finding, that the gradations from

impatience and despair, to resignation and hope, and from thence to

praise and thanksgiving, are not only more natural, but, to a truly contrite

heart, more easy, than 1, in my darker state, had apprehended it to be"

(viii). When, shortly before her death, Clarissa locks the drawer that

contains ber will and other papers, she takes out her book of meditations

with the observation tbat "she should perhaps have use for that" (1329). In

her will, Clarissa hequeaths the Meditations to Mrs. Norton and permits

Mrs. Lovick to take a ropy. But Clarissa's mother asks for the original

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copy. "It might," she says, "when she could bear to look at it, administer

consolation to herselt' (1425).

Richardson indicated that he intended the few copies of the

Meditations finally printed to serve a similar purpose--that is, as

consolation for the distressed and bereaved. In a covering letter for the

volumes sent to Edward Young and bis housekeeper, Richardson

describes the work as "Clarissa's Meditations; a little piece, hitherto (July

30, 1758) unpublished." He explains, "It is strictly true that 1 had no

intention of printing it. But reading it to a little assembly of female friends

one Sunday night, one of whom was labouring un der sorne distresses of

mind, they were all so earnest with me to print it ... that 1 could not resist

their entreaties. . .. 1 have printed but a smaU number" (Eaves and

KimpeI311-12). Richardson designates the collection, not in keeping with

bis apparent original intention, as an extension of the reader's

understanding of Clarissa's struggle, but as an addition to the devotional

literature popular in the eighteenth century.6

Keymer argues that Clarissa, tbrough the Meditations, "redefines

herself as [Job]" (100). This claim should be questioned. His suggested

explanation of her reasons for composing a record of her spiritual

struggle as a collage of scriptural verses should also be examined.

Keymer asserts that Clarissa's madness--the psychological condition

induced by drugs and the rape--not only causes a temporary inability to

express herself, revealed in the Mad papers, but is responsible for a "crisis

of self' that makes her unwilling to write a first-person account of her

story. The rape is "an experience too devastating to admit of explanation

in the conventional, ordered syntax in which Clarissa has previously

made sense of the world. . . . Clarissa's complaint 8t wrongs beyond the

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power of words ta express is entirely without hyperbole" (92). Clarissa

makes the assertion quoted by Keymer during her first encounter with

Lovelace after the rape (900); however, moments later (and in their

subsequent meetings) she has no lifficulty expressing her feelings toward

him clearly and forcefully. Lovelace writes, "[Slhe had had time to collect

ail the powers of her eloquence. . . . [S]he ... [left] me absolutely shocked

and confounded at her part of a conversation, which she began with such

uncommon, however severe composure, and concluded with so much

sincere and unaffected indignation" (900-01).7 Keymer argues that "the

crisis is also one of self. Rer failure to reduce her experience to the linear

arrangements of narrative occurs simultaneously with a radical

questioning of subjectivity as an organizing principle, and a new

acknowledgement of its tendency to reduce the most scrupulously

undertaken explanations to the level of special pleading. . .. By

advocating ... the composition of an epistolary history, she provides the

next best thing to the objectivity to which she now scrupulously aspires"

(92-3).8 But in explaining her decision, Clarissa does not express doubt

that she can objectively recount her wrongs; she gives mixed motives.

[l]t i5 50 pain fuI a ta5k, and 1 have 50 many more important thing5 to do and

as 1 apprehend 50 ]jttle time to do them in. . .. Then ... 1 know not by what

means several of bis machinations to ruin me were brought about; 50 that

some material parts of my sad story must he defective if 1 were to sit down to

write it .... [T]he particulars ofmy story, and the base arts ofthis vile man

will, 1 think, he best collected from [bis own] letters .... (1163)

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Clarissa perceives that an account of her story from various points of view

at once will have more validi.ty; it will he a tribute to her innocence and

pro of of Lovelace's villainy. By this means, however, she will not so

obviously appear to justify herself, which, as Keymer notes, was one of

Richardson's concerns (107). Clarissa's decision to compile an epistolary

history and her composition of the Meditations should not, therefore, be

attributed either to inability to express ber feelings or to douot that she

could wriite an objective account of ber experiences. These two works are

different expressiohs of h~r story, and she offers some explanation of her

need for each of them (1163, 1176; Preface to Meditations vi-viii).

"Like the rape itself," Keymer observes, "the fragmentation of

dis course which accompanies it prepares Clarissa for the redefinition of

self and experience in a new literary form, marking the point of a shift

from realism to abstraction, and from epistolary narrative to Meditation.

In the final third of the novel, meditation takes over as the dominant form

of Clarissa's spiritual and literary activity" (94). The latter c1aim is

surprising and seems untenable. The Meditations , an expression of

Clarissa's spiritual struggle, is only one of several forms of her literary

activity; others are the numerous letters she writes before she dies

(including letters to be read posthumously), her legal will and even the

texts and emblems on ber coffin. AlI of these are important forms or

components of Clarissa's story.

Arguing that the trauma of tbe rape impels Clarissa to

"reconstitute herself in the image of her exemplar," Keymer writes that

Meditations is a kind of spiritual autobiography, rendering experience

coherent by reading it in terms of a divinely engineered masterplot; but it

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goes mueh further . . .. Clarissa effectively reconstitutes herself in the

image of her exemplar, so that her own experienee appears slmp]y as a

reeapitu]ation of his, radiant with the same meanings. The narrative of

Meditations is in this respect not just spirituaJized and sanetified, but

typologieal: pared of the contingencies of time and place with which the

nove] is so preoecupied, it diseovers a core of meaning in her Jife's

conformity to that of the great archetype ofsuffering virtue, Job. (100-01)

Indeed, the anal ogy with Job is unmistakable. In the novel as weIl as in

the Meditations, references to Job develop and sustain similarities

between his story and Clarissa's. Clarissa's innocence with regard to

Lovelace's intentions parallels Job's ignorance of the wager between God

and the Adversary. The Harlowes, who intensif y Clarissa's suffering by

their recriminations, are like the comforters. They concoct their own

slanderous version cf Clarissa's story and refuse to believe that her

intentions were innocent. Her süffering, they maintain, is just retribution

for her sins against them. The àiffi:.ulty with Keymer's argument is that

he ignores the significant differences that result from Richardson's

characterization of Clarissa, first of aIl, as a Christian heroine

(Postscript, 350, 352, Meditations 4). Her endurance of spiritual trials, in

which she most resembles Job, is only part of the story told in the

Meditations and throughout her history.

Clarissa's most urgent need is to understand her suffering in a

Christian context of sin, repentance and redemption. Job provides a

model of suffering innocence analogous to her own experience. Both

Clarissa and Job "fear God and eschew evil," yet they are subjected to

terrible adversities. Clarissa notes, however, that "[Job's] affiictions were

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from God, and mine in a great measure from myself. .. 1 could not

accuse myself of a faulty or headstrong Will. .. But having from the very

first been sensible that however clear my Will might be, 1 had nevertheless

taken some inexcusable steps, the more inexcusable, as the y were taken

against the light of knowledge, 1 was the sooner convinced, that 1 ought

patiently to bear the chastisement wbich 1 had incurred" (Meditations vi).

Severe penitence and regeneration, she is convinced, are her only hope for

redemption.

Job's comforters insist that he must somehow fit into the

conventional pattern of sin and retribution; if he will admit bis guilt, God

will forgive bim and restore him to favour. But no one is more aware of

Job's innocence thanfod, who wagers with the Adversary on Job'. virtue:

"Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the

earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth

evil?" (Jobl1.8). Job's innocence is established at the beginning, and it is

maintained thrc;)Ughout bis trials; bis only fauIt is that he sceks to justify

bimself rather than God. While continujng to insist on his innocence, Job

maintains bis integrity and refuses to curse God. He receives no

explanation from God for his sufTering,9 but God rewards Job for his pi et y

with children equal to the number he lost, double his worldly goods and a

long life.

The most significant difTerence between the stories of Clarissa and

Job concerns the doctrine of immortality. There is no hope of an afterlife

in the Book of Job;10 the rewards Job receives from God are aIl in this

world. However, the concept of immortality, central to Christian belief, is

essential to Richardson's novel and the Meditations. Clarissa's hopes

after the rape are aIl for "a life ofimmortal happiness" (1117-18,1361), and

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Richardson writes that "[he] could not think of leaving [bis] Heroine short

of Heaven" (Selected Letters 104). In the later meditations, through verses

from the Wisdom of Solomon, Il Richardson pointedly underscores the

expectation of an afterlife where individuals are either rewarded or

punished. Implicit throughout the Meditations is the problem of the will

that rejects guod and does not repent ( XII, XVIII, XXVI-XXIX and

XXXVI); Lovelace is specifically mentioned in the Introduction to

Meditation XXVIII. The portrayals of the blessed and the damned in

Meditations XXVII, XXIX and XXXVI parallel the deaths of Clarissa and

Lovelace and exemplify their destinies. As a commentary on Clarissa's

story, the Meditations go beyond spiritual trial to proclaim her final

transcendence and salvation. In this sense, Keymer's reading of Clarissa

as a "female Job" (101) appears inadequate. By limiting Clarissa's

reconstitution of herselfto a figuration of Job and the "stages" ofher story

to spiritual trial, Keymer does not address her final transcendence as a

Christian heroine. In effect, he discounts Richardson's express intention

to represent through Clarissa the Christian pattern of sin, regeneration

and redemption (Postscript 350, Selected Letters 108).

Pari ID: Meditations: Clarissa's Struggle

The Book of Job provides a model of suffering virtue for the

Meditations, but each of Richardson's other sources also has a particular

function. Verses from Psalms are used throughout the Meditations, first

to express Clarissa's grief and to appeal to God" and later to praise God

and to proclaim her happiness. Ecclesiasticus emphasizes the freedom of

the human will; the Wisdom of Solomon confirms the immortality of the

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souI. The readings that follow will attempt to show how each of these

sources contributes to the representaticn of Clarissa's spiritual struggle.

ln the early meditations, transcribed during Clarissa's

imprisonment at Mrs. Sinc1air's, verses from Job predominate--images of

unrelenting affiiction and isolation, comlption and death. Meditation 1,

based on Job's curse on bis birth, expresses Clarissa's hopelessness and

near despair after her tirst unsuccessful attempt to escape from the

brothel (3: 1-18). She begins Meditation II with verses from Job: "My

breath is corrupt, my daya are extinct, the grave is ready for me. / Mine

eye also is dim, by reason of sorrow" (17.1, 7); she ends the meditation with

verses from PsaIms: "Take thy plague away from me!--I am even

consumed by the means of thy heavy hand! / Let integrity and uprightness

preserve me; for 1 wait on thee" (39.10; 25.21).12 Meditation III is a

passionate appeal to God: "0 Lord God of my salvation, 1 have cried day

and night before thee! / Let my prayer come before thee! Incline thine car

unto my cry .... Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkncss, in the

deeps .... How long, Lord, wilt thou hi de thyself?" (88.1-2, 6; 89.46).

Notably, the day after Clarissa transcribes Meditation III, she achieves

ber victory over Lovelace and the women in the pen-knife scene. Her

triumph, Clarissa tells Anna, is accomplished through a command of

[her] passions--an uncommon elevation of IDind that she ascribcs ta her

"earnest prayers to Heaven" (1117). But she is unable ta sustain this

frame of mind. Although she finally manages to escape from the brothel a

few days later, ber grief and terror at ber situation--her ruin by Lovelace

and her fear that he will pursue her--find expression agam in verses from

Job: "0 that 1 might bave my request / And that God would grant me the

thing that 1 long for / Even, that it would please Gad 10 destroy me! That

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He would let loose his hand, and eut me off . . .. God hath delivered me to

the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked" ( 6.8-9;

16.11) (IV). 13

Clarissa has a short respite after her escape, and she return.s to

Psalms to declare her renewed hope: "1 will say unto the Lord, Thou art

my hope and my strong hold: My God; In Him will 1 trust / For he shall

deliver me from the snare of the hunter / Thou art my biding-place: Thou

shalt preserve me from trouble" (91.2-3; 119.114) (VII). But Mrs. Sinclair

discovers where Clarissa lodges; she contrives to have her arrested and

imprisoned at Rowland's. In transcribing Job's exclamations, Clarissa

implicitly confirms the analogy between them. "Wherefore is light given

to one that is in misery; and life unto the bitter in soul? / Who longeth for

death, but it cometh not; and diggeth for it more than for hid treasures ...

1 was not in safety; neither had 1 rest; neither was 1 quiet: Yet trouble

came" (3.20-1, 26) (VIII). She concludes Meditation VIII with Hnes from

Job that are strangely appropriate for her: "0 that my words were now

written! / That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for

ever!" Clarissa and Job experience the same intense desires to justify

their conduct and to receive recognition of their innocence.

Mter Clarissa's release from prison she achieves, at least

temporarily, a resignation to her situation. She begins more and more to

consider her affiictions as both trials of her virtue and punishment for her

errors (1117, 1272). Psalms provides Clarissa with the words to express

her hopes that God will heed her prayers and her beHef that he chastises

her in order to redeem her: "But thou wilt regard the prayer of the

destitute / For thou hast looked down from the height ofthy sanctuary .

From he aven dost thou behold the earth: / Blessed are they whom thou

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chasteneth, 0 Lord, and teachest out of thy Law; 1 That thou mayest give

rest from the days ofadversity" (102.17, 19; 94.12-13) (IX).

Richardson notes that Clariss8 now "demonstrates a Spirit quieted

and resigned to the will of the Almighty" (X 21). Sources for this

meditation are Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon. Here the

prudential wisdom of Ecclesiasticus14 echoes Taylor: "Humble thyself

before thou be sick; and in the time of sins shew repentance /Let nothing

hinder thee to pay thy vows in due time, and defer not until death to he

justified" (18.21-2). As noted earlier, the importance of the Wisdom of

Solomon for Meditations is its emphasis on immortality: 15 "Thou, 0 God,

art gracious and true, 10ng-sufTering, and in mercy ordering all thmgs

.... For to know Thee is perfect righteousness: Yea, to know thy power is

the root ofimmortality" (15.1-4).

The meditation entitled "Poor Mortals the Cause of their own

Misery," taken from Ecclesiasticus, was written hy Clarissa after she

received a letter from her sister refusing the last hlessing she had

implored from her family (XII 25). This meditation is of particular

interest because it expounds the doctrine of free will so important in

Clarissa: "Say not thou, 'It is thro' the Lord that 1 fell away;' for thon

oughtest not ta do the thiog that he hateth. 1 Say not thou, 'He hath caused

me to err;' for he hath no need of the sioful man. / He himself made man

from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his counsel. , " He hath

set fire and water before thee: Stretch forth thine hand to whether thou

wiIt" (15.11-16), Law quotes the last Hne in his Appeal and warns "Till the

End of Time, God is compassionate and long.suffering and contmues to

every Creature a Power of choosing LiCe or Death, Water or f'ire; but wh en

the End of Time is come, there is an End of Choice, and the last JudgI1.lt!nt

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is only a putting everyonc into the full and sole Possession of That wbich

he has chosen" (98, 99). Significantly, Belford transcribes the meditation

for Lovelace, who makes use of it to convince bis relations that he has

indeed reformed. Lovelace shows bis cynicism and confirms that bis

inability to refonn is based on an established choice when he adds: "Thus

when a boy, have 1 joined with a crowd coming out of church, and have

been thought to have been there myself' (1202-03).

Richardson observes that "Clarissa was to be an example of

suffering virtue, according to the Christian System. She was to be tried as

gold in the fire of affiiction" (XIV 30). The particular reason for his

comment is to explain that she had again been "wounded by the cruelty of

her relations," this time by a letter from her Uncle Antony. These letters

from her family, Clarissa notes, revive "the complaining Spirit, it [is her]

constant struggle to subdue" (Preface to Meditations vii). She adapts

verses from Ecclesiasticus to conform to her own situation: "Why, 0 my

friends! / will ye add more trouble to an heart that is vexed? Why will ye

provoke one in distress? / Why will ye reject the supplication of the

affiicted" (4.3-4; 7.10). Clarissa finishes Meditation IV with an appeal

from Psalms: "Bow down thine ear, 0 Lord, and hear me: for 1 am poor-­

and in misery! / Preserve thou my soul, for 1 am penitent!" (86.1-2).

Mrs. Norton, whose unfailing affection and sympathy comfort

Clarissa during this time, informs her of Mr. Brand's role in the latest

cruelty her family has shown toward her. She consoles Clarissa that

"worldly joy claims no kindred with the joys we are bid to aspire aCter.

These latter we must be fitted for by affiiction and disappointment. You

are therefore in the direct road to glory, however thorny the path you are

in. .. . [I]t depends upon yourself, by your patience and by your

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resignedness to the dispensation, ... to he an heir of a blessed

immortality" (1198). In Meditation XVI Clarissa transcrihes verses from

Psalms that echo Mrs. Norton's reassurances: "Deliver me not over unto

the will of mine enemies; for false witnesses are risen up against me, and

such as breathe out cruelty .. " The Lord delivereth the souls ofhis

servants. They that put their trust in Him shaH not he destitute" (27.12;

34.22).

Lovelace's surprise visit to the Smiths' is a new source of distress to

Clarissa, who cannot bear to see him. She tells Mrs. Smith, "This cruel

man has discomposed me . . .. He has made a bad spirit take possession

of me, 1 think--broken in upon aIl my duties. But this is one of my trials, 1

helieve" (1272). Now Clarissa's will is directed toward the attainment of

perfect resignation, and she fears the effect Lovelace has on her. He

reminds her of the wrongs she has suffered, and causes her to feel

resentment and distre.J~. She entitles Meditation XVIII "Upon being

hunted after by the enemy of my souI." The impassioned verses are

entirely from Psalms: "Deliver me, 0 Lord, from the evil man. Preserve

me from the violent man . . .. The enemy hath persecuted my soul. / He

hath smitten my life down to the ground./ He hath made me dwell in

darkness, as those that have been long dead .... Grant not, 0 Lord, the

desires of the wicked: further not rus devices, lest he exalt himself' (140.1,

8; 143.3). Lovelace, presented with this meditation on bis second visit to

Smiths', refuses to take either the meditation or the expostulations of the

women seriously, although he admits, "1 would fain have diverted the

chagrin given me by ... this collection of Scripture-texts drawn up in

array against me" (1222) .

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Despite Clarissa's longing for death, Richardson indicates that she

has some "naturaI repugnance [towardl that la st solemn scene" (XXI 46).

There is a tension between Clarissa's "naturaI repugnance" toward death

and the graduaI resignation she strives to achieve. 16 ACter hearing from

Belford some of the detaiis of Belton's death, she transcribes this ad vice

from Ecclesiasticus: "Fear not the sentence of death: Remember them that

have been before thee, and that come after; for this is the sentence of the

Lord over aIl flesh" (41.3-4). Clarissa finishes the meditation with a verse

from Psalms that reflects her extreme penitence for her error: "Wash me

thoroughly from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin. / For 1

acknowledge my fauIt, and my sin is ever before me" (51.2-3).

Meditation XXII is the first of severaI (XXII-XXV) that Clarissa

composes from Psalms, where praise of the Lord is a principal themc.

She writes, "The Lord is my strength and my shield; My heart trusted in

Him, and 1 am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth, and with my

song will 1 praise Him. / Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace,

good-will towards men!" (28.7). Richardson observes that "aIl her pious

doubts and fears [are] now dispelled by the sun-shine of Divine Grace"

(XXIII 50). Clarissa exults, "And now thou hast turned my heaviness into

joy. Thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness. /

Therefore will 1 sing of thy praise without ceasing. 0 my God! 1 will give

thanks unto Thee for ever!" (30.11-12) (XXV).

Clarissa has attained the frame of mind to which she aspired, but

Richardson does not end here. The next four meditations compare the

states of the righteous and of the wicked alter death. In the introduction to

Meditation XXVI, Richardson comments that Clarissa has now

"calmness of mind enough to allow her to look out of herself, and to

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contemplate the vain hope of the Wicked." This Meditation, from the Book

ofWisdom, sets forth "arguments by which the Ungodly may be supposed

to encourage themselvtls and others in their sensual pursuits." The point

of view, whether ancient or modem, reflects a heathen and probably

libertine materialism. "Our life is short--and in the death of a man there

is no remedy: Neither was there any man known to have returned from

the grave. / For we are born at all adventure; and we shall be hereafter, as

tho' we had never been .... / Let none of us go without his part of our

voluptuousness: Let us leave tokens of our joyfulness in every place; for

this is our portion, and our lot is this" (2.1-2; 9). The finallines present the

rejection of this philosophy: "Such things the wicked did imagine, and

were deceived; for their own wickedness hath blinded them. . .. For God

created man to be immortal, and made him to he an image of his own

eternity. Nevertheless, thro' envy of the devil, came death into the world:

And they that hold ofhis side do find it" (2.21-24).

These meditations polarize the righteous and the wicked,

unmistakably identified as Clarissa and Lovelace, and they give scriptural

examples of eternal bliss and torment toward whlch the good will and the

will to self-gratification respectively lead. Unfortunately, they represent

Clarissa contemplating with equal satisfaction her own salvation and the

damnation of Lovelace. Richardson observes, "LIll. is very natural to

suppose her contemplating, what the thoughts of Oppressors, and the

Great ones of the earth, might he in the great day of account, when they

should see those whom they had persecuted and despised, rewarded with

a crown of glory: while they themselves, in expectation of a terrible

sentence, stood shuddering on the hrink of a dreadful Eternity." He adds,

"She could not more beau tif ully set forth her thoughts on so great an

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occasion, than in the following Meditation" (XXVII 59). These words are

likely to reinforce our doubts about Clarissa's "forgiveness" of her

persecutors. Richardson notes that "it is worthy of Clarissa's Charity, if

we suppose that she collected the following Meditation ... with an eye to

Mr. Lovelace: 'Make no tarrying to turn to the Lord, and put not off from

day ta day: for suddenly shall the wrath of the Lord come forth, and in thy

security shalt thou be destroyed, and perish in the day of vengeance'"

(Ecclesiasticus 5.7) (XXVIII 62). These sentiments echo Clarissa's letter

to Lovelace and the reference to him in her will.

The final seven meditatioIls, not connected with the events of the

novel, are in praise ofGod and are "supposed to be written on different

occasions as th~ Lady's heart was elevated ... [by thoughtsl of the

Almighty" (XXX 65). Two of these are particularly noteworthy.

Meditation XXXII is a long poem from Ecclesiasticus that exalts God's

creativity in nature. By placing this poem toward the end of the collection,

Richardson simulates an ending like that of the Book of Job. The final

meditation, transcribecl from Wisdom and entitled "An Early Death not ta

be lamented," is undeniably appropriate for Clarissa: "He being made

perfect in a short time, fulfilled a long time. / For bis souI pleased the

Lord; therefore hasted He to take him away from among the wicked" (4.13-

15). Richardson apparently did not consider that Clarissa's choice of these

verses for herse If might seem spiritually proud. Nevertheless the final

lines could provoke this interpretation. "Then shaH the righteous!L.ID

stand in great boldness before the face of such as have affiicted him, and

made no account of his labours. / Turn again unto thy rest, 0 my Soult for

the Lord hath rewarded thee!" (5.1-2; Psalms116.7). It is not surprising

that Richardson, upon reflection, decided Dot ta include the entire

------------------------------

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collection of Meditations in the novel. Clarissa's forgiveness of her

pel'Secutors, so strongly insis ted upon by Richardson, appears even more

ambiguous here than in th" novel.

Clarissa's Meditations provide valuable insights into ber state of

mind; they illuminate the difficulty of her struggle--episodes of impending

des pair and moments of elation--as weIl as the frequent interruption of

her progress by communications from her family and Lovelace. Her

struggle reflects the ambivalence that results from a necessary

involvement in worldly affaira while she strives to attain spiritual

transcendence. The Meditations tend to emphasize the disc'Ccpancy, also

evident in the history, between Clarissa's conviction of her graduaI

transcendence and the reader's inevitable suspicion that resentment and

a desire for revenge still persist in her.

Pari IV: Emblems: An Example and a Waming

The coffin scene dramatizes an event that Doody declares "stands

out as one of the MOst bizarre and surprising things in the novel" (174).

Clarissa orders ber own coffin and has it placed in her bedroom, where

she uses it as a desk to read and write upon--a "shocking and solemn

whimsy," the apothecaryexclaims. Belford writes, "1 think 1 was never

more shocked in my life" (1303, 1316). Even the devout Mrs. Lovick

"wished the removal of such an object--from her bed-chamber at least"

(1306). Clarissa explains to her startled friends:

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To persons in health ... this sight may he shocking; and the preparation,

and my unconcemedness in it, may appear affected: but to me, who have

had so graduaI a weaning-time from the world, and so much reason not to

love it, 1 must say 1 dwell on, 1 indulge (and, strictly speaking, 1 enjoy) the

thoughts of death. .. There is such a vast superiority of weight and

importance in the thought of death, and its hoped-for happy consequences,

that it in a manner annihilates ail other considerations and concerns.

(1306)

Her reflections reveal serious and devout contemplation. The

fervent longing for death resulting from her anguished struggle with

despair after the rape is succeeded hy serene anticipation. Clarissa has a

clear conception of what she wants her death to be, and insofar as possible

she arranges aIl its circumstances. When advised by her doctor that the

country air might allow her to breathe better, she replies: "1 had rather

the scene were to he shut up here. For here have 1 meditated the spot, and

the manner and everything, as weIl as of the minutest, as of the bighest

consequence, that can attend the solemn moments" (1276). Two days

hefore her death, she happily writes to Mrs. Norton: "1 have not left

undone anything that ought to he done, either respecting mind or person;

no, not to the minute st preparation .... Oh my dearest Mrs. Norton, aIl is

provided!--AlI is ready! And aIl will be as decent as it should be!" (1338).

Clarissa's meticulous preparations for death are acts of devotion to God

meant to demonstrate her "supreme love" (1338).17

The coffin scene is part of Richardson's design to familiarize bis

readers with death. In a letter to Lady Bradshaigh, Richardson asks,

"[W]hy ... is Death painted in such shocking Lights, when it is the

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common Lot? If it is become so terrible to human Nature, it is Time to

familiarize it to us--Hence another of my great Ends" (Selected Letters 95).

Similarly, Clarissa tells the ladies they will be less shocked by her coffin

when it has become "more familiar to their eye .... Don't you lead back

. . . a starting steed to the object he is apt to start at, in order to familiarize

him to it and cure his starting? . " Come, my good friends, 1 will lead you

in" (1305).

When Clarissa displays her coffin with the emblems she has

designed, she excuses herself to Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith "for having

shown more fancy than would perhaps be thought suitable on so solemn

an occasion." Clearly, though, the emblems and texts have more

significance than she admits; they are an expression of her story, and are

closely related to the Meditations. Lines at the top of the casket beneath the

winged hour-glass, "Here tbe wicked cease from troubling: and here the

weary be at rest," are from Job's curse on the day ofhis birth (3.17). On

the lower part of the casket lid, above the um, are words from Psalms that

also conclude the Meditations: "Tum again unto thy rest, Oh rny soul! For

the Lord bath rewarded thee" (116.7).18 These texts define Clarissa's

spiritual progress and confirm her triumph. "Time within eternity" is

the subject of the emblems.19 The principal design 18 a cruwned serpent

with its tail in its mouth; within this circle, Clarissa's name, the date of

leaving her father's house and the year are inscribed. The winged hour­

glass and the um symbolize the br~Vlty of human hfe--a sentiment

repeated in the text from Psalms: "The days of man are but as grass. For

he flourisheth as a flower of the field: for, as soon as the wind goeth over it,

it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more" 003.15,16).20 A lily

snapped off from its stem exemplifies Clarissa's destiny and reiterates the

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frequent reference to her as a blossom or flower (1306, 1349).21 Clarissa's

story, strikingly expressed through biblical verses and emblems, presents

an ex ample of error, penitence and spiritual transcendence meant to

inspire reflection in beholders and to move them to reformation .

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Chapter Five: Holy and Unholy Dying

In two rooms at the Smiths', with the devout, motherly Mrs. Lovick

as a companion, the Smiths as friends and the faithful Belford as a

frequent visitor, Clarissa leads a radically reduced and austere version of

the single life she would have chosen to follow on her estate with Mrs.

Norton. Now, however, her activities are principaily a preparation for

death. Clarissa's anticipation of death iovolves a graduai withdrawal

from the world. 1 In her last days she has attained a stute of mind in

which human affairs have diminishing importance for her. She is able to

accept her family'a refusaI to grant her a laat blessing; even her st.rong

affection for Anna, she admits, is abated (1342). "God WIll have no rivais

in the hearts of those he sanctifies. By various methods he deadens ail

other sensations, or rather absorbs themaIl in the love of Him" (13:J8)

Solicitude to sustain her composure is part of a fervent desire t.o

demonstrate her aspirations to perfection through an exemplary death. 2

She hopes to inspire others to follow her example; she confides 111 her

grieving friends the "prospects and assurances" of future happiness Hhe

has had and endeavors to influence them to reformation Throughout the

novel, Clarissa's struggle toward holy living is contrastcd with Love)ucc'A

libertine self-indulgence. Similarly, their deaths exemplify holy and

unholy dying and manifest Law's doctrine that through free will

individuals make choices that determine their destinies .

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Part 1: A Generous Forgiveness

Clarissa is continually importuned by her fricnds either to marry

Lovelace or to prosecute bim. With carefully reasoned arguments, she

rejects her friends' advice and acts in accordance Wlth her own principled

decisions. Rer response to Dr. Lewen's insistence that she prosecute

Lovelace suggests she has reached her perspective after serious reflection.

Lovelace, Clarissa confirms, has otTered her marriage. "He has avowed

bis penitence: a sincere penitence 1 have reason to think it, though

perhaps not a Christian one." Clarissa observes,

The injury 1 received from him is indeed of the highest nature, and it was

attended with circumstances of unmanly baseness and premeditation; yet

1 bless God it has not tainted my mind; it has not hurt my morals No

thanks, indeed, to the wicked man, that it has not. No vIle courses have

followed it. My wIll is unviolated .... No credulity, no weakness, no

want of vigllance, have 1 to reproach myself with. 1 have, through grace,

triumphed over the deepest ma<.hinations. 1 have escaped from him. 1

have renounced him. The man whom once 1 could have loved, 1 have been

enabled to despise: and shaH Dot charity complete my tnumph? And shall

1 Dot enjoy it?--And where would he my triumph if he deserued my

forgiveness? (1254)

ln reproving Dr. Lewen for his unchristian advice to avenge hersclf

on Lovelace, Clarissa prompts discussion of her own ambiguous

forgiveness of her persecutors. This problem is sel dom dealt with by

commenta tors, although Warner addresses it in his deconstructive

interpretation. Warner's argument is effectively voiced by Lovelace's

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complaint: "And what is it but a mere verbal forgiveness, as

ostentatiously as cruelly given with a view ta magnify herself, and wound

me deeper?" (1346). Nevertheless, it is evident that Clarissa wants to

follow Christ's "divin[e] example" (1306). At times she does appear truly

forgiving, but her resentments are very strong, and her forgiveness is

often phrased as a condemnation (1176, 1254, 1301, 1342). Belford insists,

"[Rlevenge has very little sway in her mind; though she can retain so

much proper resentment" (1073). But who can read Clarissa's

posthumous letters and her will and not be convinced that her resentment

sometimes sparks into revenge? Her comment pertaining to hopes of

forgiveness from her family also evokes such reflection in the reader:

"[Slometimes 1 think that, were they cheerfully to pronounce me forgiven,

1 know not whether my concern for having offended them would not be

augmented: since 1 imagine that nothing can be more wounding to a

spirit not ungenerous, than a generous forgiveness" (1119). Richardson

insists that Clarissa's forgiveness is in accordance with the divine

example: "No one that disapproves of the Conduct of Clarissa and of her

Principles but must find fault with the Doctrines laid down in the Bible, or

know not what theyare ... The turning the unsrnitten Cheek--The

forgiveness of those that hate us and despitefully use us --The Praying for

our Enemies --The Christian Meekness ... " (Selected Letters 144). But just

four days before her death Clarissa writes to Anna: "Mr. Belford

acquaints me how much concerned Mr. Lovelace is for his baseness." ln

a surprisingly unrestrained manner, she continues:

How low, how sordid, are the submissions which elaborate baseness compels!

That that wretch could treat me as he did, and then could so poorly creep to me to he

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forgiven, and to be allowed to endeavor to repair crimes so wilful, so black, and so

premeditated ... Yet am 1 glad this violent spirit can thus creep; that, like a

poisonous serpent, he can thus coil himself and bide his bead in his own narrow

circlets; because this stooping, this abasement, glves me hope that no further

mischief wiH ensue. (1320)

Following this declaration, Clarissa expresses anxiety that any of her

family "should endeavor to avenge [her] and risk their own more precious

lives on that account" (1320). Despite this repeatedly articulated fear and

her appeals to Morden, and posthumously to her brother, not to avenge

her, the proclamation Clarissa makes in her will concerning Lovelace

could hardly he more inflammatory (1413).3 Similarly, how can her

avowed intentions be reconciled with her bequests and the implicit

condemnations of her family in her will?4 An important consideration is

Clarissa's strong desire for vindication. Arguably, her resentments and

her desire for vindication lead her to condemn and chasten those who

have injured her and to promote the revellge toward Lovelace that she

seeks to prevent. Here a comment by Hensley is relevant: "Throughout

the 'story' of Clarissa, no less for readers than for the characters, the

double function of sentiment as feeling and judgment is inseparable from

the duplicities of conflicting desire and will in the almost inevitable self­

deception of the fallen, divided mind" (134). Clarissa's will to forgive her

persecutors and to forego revenge seems indisputahle; this dcsire is part of

her striving to emulate the divine example--to obey Christ's injunction,

"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfectIf

(Matthew 5.48). But the discrepancy between her assertions of forgiveness

and her behavior toward those who have injured her poses a problem of

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credibility for the reader.5 Richardson implicitly addresses the possibility

of self-deception both through Lovelace's challenges to Clarissa's sincerity

(1107, 1346) and through her own comments about self-inspection (333,

596).6 "The heart is very deceitful," Clarissa adroits to Anna. "1 thought

proper to make [this observation] to convince you that to the best ofmy

judgement my errors in matters as weIl of the least moment, as the

greater, shaH rather he the fault of my understanding than of my will"

(596). According to Mike W. Martin, self-deception is "the purposeful or

intentional evasion of fully acknowledging something to one self' (6). Since

Clarissa intends to forgive, and she appears certain that her forgiveness is

unequivocal (1341), she cannot in fairness be accused of "intentional

. " evaSlOn.

Martin's discussion of "faith" offers a way to explain Clarissa's

beHef in her assertions of forgiveness and still to recognize the

inconsistency between these avowals and her behavior toward her

persecutors. "Faith," as Martin defines it, "is an active belief that goes

beyond the evidence and is directed towacd something perceived as good

.... [Although] faith can be formed and held in self-deception ... faith

need not involve self-deception at aIl, even where it leads to false beliefs.

For although it entails going heyond the evidence in fonning heliefs, it does

not necessarily involve evasion of evidence, truth, or self-acknowledgment

of how things appear to be . . . . [S]elf-confirming or self-verifying faiths-­

beliefs that if acted upon make it more likely that they will become true [-­

are important because] .... acting on faith helps bring about the good we

seek" (127-28). Clarissa's will to forgive (1141) and her belief that it is her

dut y as a Christian to forgive (1191) strengthen her faith that she will

attain true forgiveness. The gradual progress of her endeavor to forgive

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(see note 6) and her unequivocal expressions of forgiveness before her

death lend credence to this explanation. Still, the problem of Clarissa's

forgiveness, like that of her true feelings toward Lovelace, cannot with

certainty be resolved, and ultimately must remain subjecL to interpretation

by the reader.

Part ll: Prospects and Assurances

The graduaI circumscription of Clarissa's movements results

eventually in confinement to her rooms. The approach of death is

presented in a number of short scenes. When Clarissa, her eyes dimmed,

almost too weak to stand, locks aVlay her posthumous letters and her will

and gives Belford the key, she believes her death is imminent. Doody

points out that Richardson places Clarissa's death between the death

scenes of Belton and Mrs. Sinclair, "just as in traditional religious

literature the end of the wicked and that of the righteous are set side by

side" (157). Clarissa's serene anticipation of death provides an exemplary

contrast to the terror and reluctance to die shown by Belton and Mrs.

Sinclair.

In bis Postscript Richardson observes that

the Tragic poets have. .. seldom made thelr heroes true objects of pit Y ...

[and] still more rarely have made them in their deaths look forward to a

future Hope. And thus, when they die, they seem totally to pensh Death, in

such instances, must appear terrible ... "[W Ihy is Death set in shocking

lights, when it is the universal ]ot? [The authorJ has indeed thought fit to

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paint the death of the wicked as terrible as he could paint it. But he has

endeavoured to draw that of the good ïn such an amiable manner, that the

very Balaams of the world should not forbear to wish that their latter end

might he like that of the Heroïne. (350)

By giving death scenes prominence in the novel, Richardson

intends ta familiarize the reader with death. By contrasting holy and

unholy dying, he aims to induce reflection and fear that may effect

reformation. As a result of witnessing the terror of bis uncl~ and of Belton

on their deathbeds Belford firgt seriously contemplates reformation, and

this fear in conjunction with bis admiration of Clarissa leads to his

resolution to reform (715, 1243).7 In a sermon entitled "The Wisdom of

Being Religious," John Tillotson points out that "[f]ear ... works upon aIl

who love themselves and desire their own preservation. Therefore in this

degenerate state of mankind, fear is that passion which hath the greatest

power over us, and by w hich God and bis Laws take the surest hold of us

... , Religion usually makes its first entrance into us by this passion ....

Solomon more than once caUs the fear of the Lord the beginning of

wisdom" (366). T~e stern and vehement toue of Clarissa's posthumous

letter to Lovelace and her exhortation to "tremble and refonn" (1427) can

be unàerstood in this context--as meant to inspire fear in order ta save a

souI.

In Clarissa's last days, the hesitations and personal problems

which have prevented her friends from coming to her are resolved;

realizing that she may soon die, they hurriedly make preparations to visit

her. Morden's return, long anticipated, is confinned. By frequent

references to Morden earlier in the noveI, Richardson }.;repares the reader

--------------------------------------. ----

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for the signific&Ilt role he has in the final scenes. Morden remains,

though, a somewhat mysterious figure. His past is implied but not

revealed, and the reader comprehends him only in relation to the events

surrounding Clarissa's death. As a man of action, Morden immediately

arranges meetings with Lovelace and with the Harlowes in attempts at

reconciliation. Letters to Clarissa from Mrs. Norton and Morden describe

the meeting where young James quarrels with Morden and once again

rallies the family againsi Clarissa. "What a deep error is mine!--What

evils have 1 been the occasion ofl" Clarissa observes. But sh€: indicates

that she has resigned herself to die without the forgiveness and blessing

she asked from her family, for soon afterwards she says, "[H]ow merci fuI

is the Almighty to give his poor creature such a sweet serenity!-- 'Tis what

1 have prayed for!" (1328-29). An emotionalletter from Anna dcclares that

she only awaits permission from Clarissa to come to her (1348), but

Clarissa writes to Mrs. Norton and Anna that it is too late for them 10

come: "[WJere you now, even by consent and with conciliatory tidings 10

come," she tells Mrs. Norton, "the sight of one 1 so dearly love, so happily

fraught with good news, might but draw me back to wishes 1 have had

great struggles to get above." Mer the delays of her family and friends,

Clarissa has managed to get beyond a need for them. Now their anxious

assurances of affection and their wishes to keep her in the world oppose

her fervent desire for the "beginning of a life of immortal happiness"

(1117-18). She admits to Mrs. Norton, "There was a time, that your

presence and comfortings would have been balm to my wounded mind ...

[but] once more 1 say, that 1 do not wish to see objects so dear to me, which

might bring' me back again in10 sense and rival my supreme love" (1338) .

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The total resignation (!larissa haB striven to achieve entails

relinquishment of all hopes of worldly happiness and the suppression of

her pain and disappointment at her family's hard-heartedness. It is with

great difficulty that she attains this state and places all of her reliance in

God and in h~r "prospects and assurancefl." Through an exertion of will

and with the assistance of Providence (1328), she is able 10 sustain the

perfect serenity she has achieved. Ironically, this tranquillity is possible

bec au se her friends delay co.rning to her, the letters from her family do not

arrive before her death, and Lovelace withstands his desire to come to her.

It is significant that Richardson represents Clarissa's transcendence of

the world as a continuing struggle. The anticipation and hope with which

she looks forward to a peaceful end to this struggle are expressed as a

prayer in the end of her letter to Mrs. Norton: "Oh hasten, good God, if it

be thy blessed will, the happy moment that 1 am to be decked out in this

all-quieting [funeral] garb" (1339).

Frantic letters from Lovelace interrupt Belford's account of

Clarissa's last clays. Lovelace dispatches constant messengers for news,

and like a madman, he rides back and forth on the road in anticipation of

their retum, tormented by guilt, full of terror to hear that Clarissa is dead

(1334, 1340, 1359). Lovelace swears his repentance, promises rewards to

the doct.or if he will only prolong her life, and threatens harm to those he

accounts responsible for her death. He writen, "Nothing but the

excruciating pangs the condemned soul feels nt its entrance into the

eternity of the tonnents we are taught to fear, can exceed what 1 now feel,

and have felt for almost this week pasto Il LovEllace restrains himself from

going to Clarissa only from fear that the sight of hlm, as Belford warns,

will shorten the ho urs she has ta live. Lovelace's compulsion to ride back

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and forth alIudes to his representation as the Adversary, who, qucstioned

by God, "Whence come st thou?" answers, "From going to and fro in the

earth, and from walking up and down in it" (Job 1.7). Lovelace's grief

takes a satanic fOlm; bis impatience, despair, and terror are manifest

through incessant activity--the opposite of pious resignation and prayer.

For the rake who loves power and glories in his ability to control events

and people, the knowledge of his impotence either to change his past

behavior or to prevent or delay Clarissa's death is nearly unbearable, and

he acknowledges the tormenting fixity of these limiting conditions. "Oh

the triumphant subduer!" he exclaims. "Ever above me!--And now to

leave me so infinitely below her!" (1344).

Belford reports that two days before her death, "of her own accord"

and "with great serenity," Clarissa asks him where Lovelace is. Belford

thereupon urges her to see Lovelace, for he reasons that "nothing now

~eem[s] capable of discomposing her." But Clarissa asserts "with sorne

emotion," "My composure is owing, next to the divine goodness blessing

my earnest supplications for it, to the not seeing him." She insists she has

"no lurking resentment." Yet Clarissa's forgiveness, which implies a

conscious comparison of herself to the divine example, is also a

condemnation of Lovelace: "[T]ell the poor man that 1 not only forgive

him, but have such eamest wishes for the good of his soul, and that from

considerations of its immortality, that could my penitence avail for more

sins than my own, my last tear should falI for him by whom 1 die!" (1342).

As noted earlier, the persistent ambiguity of Clarissa's feelings t"'lr

Lovelace, like her forgiveness, is subject to interpretation. She condemns

Lovelace, but she also admits again, "1 once could have loved him" (1341) .

While Richardson points out Clarissa's impressive control of her passions

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and her principled refusai to marry Lovelace (Selected Letters 108, 123),

he still allows the possibility of interpreting Clarissa's true feelings for

Lovelace as a mixture of resentment, even aversion, and suppressed love.

Now Clarissa tells Belford, "W ould he have permitted me to have been a

humHe instrument to have made him good, 1 think 1 could have made

him happy!" (1341). The thought is unspoken that she could have been

happy too. Such revealing hints of Clarissa's mixed feelings for Lovelace

suggest to the reader intriguing alternatives to the novel's tragic ending,

which, even aside from Richardson's didactic intent, seems, as Kinkead­

Weekes observes (220), artistically correct.8

During her last hours Clarissa tries through exhOl"tation and

example to move those around her to repentance and reformation--a

process that she continues in her posthumous letters. She speaks of the

"vanity and brevity of life" (1336-37), and she reminds Belford and Morden

of the urgent need for repentance and preparation for death (1337, 1356).

Observing their concern for her, she tries to comfort them: "Believe me,

sirs, that 1 would not, if 1 might, choose to live .... To be so much exposed

to temptation, and to be so liable to fail in the trial, who would not rejoice

that aU her dangers are over!" (1356). In the final emblematic scene of her

death, Clarissa is surrounded by the devoted few who have been her

companions during her illness. Morden, the cousin she scarcely knows,

is the one person ev en remotely connected with her earlier life. But her

joyful anticipation of the approaching change overwhelms any sorrow for

absent friends and relations. Clarissa's spiritual state before her death

transcends human love (1338). Belford observes and reverently records

her ecstatic death. Although bis spirituaIity is as yet undeveloped, he is

entirely enthralled by the happiness and assurance with which she leaves

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the world in the expectation of a blessed immoru...iity. In an effort to

comfort Morden, Clarissa repeats again, "What is dying but the common

lot?--The mortal frame may seem to labor--but that is aH!." She declares,

"1 am a11 blessed hope ... hûpe itselfl" (1361). Through Morden Clarisba

extends to her family the last bles.sing they refused her: "[T]ell thern 1

bless t' .em with my parting breath" (1361). Once more through Belford,

she aIso forgives Lovelace: "Do you, sir, tell your friend that 1 forgive him!

And 1 pray to God to forgive him!" She adds, "Let him know how happily 1

die--And that such as my own, 1 wish to he his last hour" (1362). In these

final moments, Clarissa's desire to forgive her persecutors may weIl he

fulfilled. In total resignation, she repeats, "It is good for me that 1 was

affiicted!" AB she pronounces her last blessing and calls upon her

redeemer, "a charming serenity overspread her sweet face at the instant

as seemed to manifest her eternal happiness already hegun" (1362).

Belford's mediation thus confirms the apparent realization of Clarissa's

expectations of immortality.9

The scenes that lead up to Clarissa's death and her final death scene

are noticeably undramatic. But her retum to Harlowe Place, recounted by

Morden, is as dramatically powerful as any scene in the novel. From

within the Harlowe mansion, among the weepmg famIly, who have

recently received Clarissa's posthumou8 letters, Morden descrihes the

sound of the lumbering hearse as it approaches Harlowe Place. Tt is

followed by a crowd of Clarissa's poor; the funeral bell solernnly tolls 10 the

distance. The coffin, carried inside by six maidens, causes renewed grief

to the family. Mrs. Hervey reads aloud the inscription, "Here the wicked

cease from troubling," but "[she can] read no further." AlI agree that the

smile on the lips of the beautiful corpse confirms her happinesB 0398-

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1400). In her letters, Clarissa çxtends to all of her family that "generous

forgiveness" that she noted is so hard to receive (1371-77). Morden also

observes: "How wounding a thing ... is a generous and well-distinguished

forgiveness! What revenge can be more effectuai and more noble, were

revenge intended, and were it wished to strike remorse into a guilty or

ungrateful heart! But my dear cousin's motives were aIl dut y C:ll.d love"

(1422). AB their vindictiveness knew no bounds, now the grief of the

Harlowes iB inconsolable, each one expressing a particular guilt for

actions inflicted on the dead Clarissa. The parents never can bear to look

upon the corpse of the daughter they persecuted and then rejected.

Neither can they attend her funeraI. Morden is the only family member

who descends into the tomb to see Clarissa placed at the feet of her

grandfather; the Harlowes thus betray their impious fear of death. In the

Conclusion, written by Belford, Richardson indicates that the family never

forget their grief and guilt over Clarissa's death, but they remain

essentially unchanged (1489-90). Guilt and suffering do not diminish their

desire for material wealth; Arabella and James marry for money and

social position. For sufTering to be spiritually beneficial, Law stresses, it

must be accompanied not only by penitence, but by an "anguishing desire"

for regeneration (95).

Clarissa's wiIlIS exemplary in its justice and in the clearness of its

bequests; it is the result "of cool deliberation" (1412). The will is also an

instrument of revenge that stabs the conscience of those who have

persecuted her. The estate, so much disputed, is ccnferred with

scrupulous faimess upon her father to dispose of when he dies. Her

uncles receive the portraits and the nId family plate that they coveted. But

Clarissa bequeaths none of her personal effects to members of her

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immediate farnily, although her mother is allowed to retain one piece of

handwork and a portrait if she wishes. Clarissa's most valued

possessions are bestowed on friends who stood by her in adversity.

Bequests are a1so made to those who sympathized with her or tried to help

her. But the principal recipient of the substantial amount of money that

belongs to her is the Poor's Fund which is to be administered under

specified conditions by Mrs. Norton. When she assists the poor, Clari~sa

follows her early inclination and performs her dut y as a Christian. Hor

generosity is in direct contrast to the greed displayed by her famlly.

Clarissa's will is permeated with reminders to her persccutors of their

cruelty toward her. The most stnking of these is the request that Lovelace

not he allowed to see her body. Her inflammatory exhortation to hml

draws "execration and either vows or wishes of revenge [from] every

mouth" when the will is read (1420). Other passages refer either ohliquely

or directly to her family's rejection ofher 0413, 1414, 1416), to her

confinement in her chamber (1415), and to the "truly noble offer ... [hy

Lovelace's relatives] of a very considerable annual provisIOn, when they

apprehended [her] to be entirely destitute of any" (1416). Clarissa'fl

persona! will, wmch her persecutors strov~ to subdue, is exerted from

beyond the grave to assert her freedom to act autonomously and her moral

authority implicitly to judge those who injured her.

Part Ill: ''Let This Expiater'

Lovelace's death is inevitable and dramatically appropriate to the

conclusion of the novel. In order to illustrate the consequences of free will

wrongly used and to complete Richardson's "great End ... of Example and

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Waming," Lovelace must he understood to will the circumstances that

lead to his death. His death must he perceived as the consequence of bis

libertine life style and a punishment of bis "premeditated violation" of

Clarissa (Selected Letters 104). It is an indication of Lovelace's impiety

that he first ascribes his defeat by Morden to "fate ... a cursed fate!--or tbis

could not have been!" Then he adds, "But he ye all witnesses, that 1 have

provoked my destiny, and acknowledge, that 1 fall by a man of honour"

(1487). Taken in the eontext of Law's doctrine of free will, Lovelace's death

was the "natural Consequence of bis Principles" (Selected Letters 115), of

the libertine code that requires affairs of honour to be settled through

duels. Lovelace's failure to respond to exhortations from Clarissa and

Belford or to be moved to reformation by bis suffering over Clarissa's death

shows that he is determined to pursue bis own will in opposition to God's.

Law writes that

[TJhe Soul of Man being not born of the Light and Spirit ofthis transitory

World ... is inwardly and outwardly called, warned, directed, and

assisted how to regain that Light and Spirit of Heaven which it lost, when

it fell under the temporary Light and Spirit of this World .... [T]he whole

Ground and End of revealed Religion lis] to kindle such a Beginning or

Birth of the Divine Light and Spirit in the Soul, that when Man must take

an Eternal Leave of the Light and Spirit ofthis World, he may not be in a

State of Eternal Death and Darkness. (104)

There is some ambiguity in the circumstances surrounding

Lovelace's death. It is suitably ironie that the deceitful Joseph Leman

writes to inform Lovelace of Morden's remarks. Lovelace's predictable

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- - ----- -----------------------

response to the reported threats appears to precipitate the duel, and

Morden asserts that [Lovelace] called upon [him] for this work, while [he]

was balancing whether to obey, or disobey, the dear angel" (1487). But

Morden, who has lived by the same code of honour that Lovelace holds, is

virtually compelled to avenge Clarissa--aggravated too by the inconsolable

grief of the Harlowes and the threats of James, who could readily have

been killed by Lovelace in a duel.

Morden is an enigmatic figure with a shadowy pasto Like Lovelace,

he May evoke ambiguous feelings in the reader. Because he is the avenger

of Clarissa's honour, Morden is treated very leniently by Richardson. He

appears to be a libertine; like Lovelace and Belford, he "has had his girls"

(1209), and he is known to be an accompli shed swordsman (1478,1487).

Morden does not reform, yet Belford writes approvingly in his epilogue:

"Colonel Morden. . . ,with so many virtues and accomplishments, cannot

be unhappy .... " He remarks that Morden, "coolly reflecting upon his

beloved cousin's reasonings against dueling and upon the price it had too

probably cost the unhappy man. . . , wishes he had more fully considered

[them)" (1494). But this pragmatic regret is surely not adequate remorse

for a premeditated revenge.

Before the duel Lovelace writes a long letter to Belford in which he

penitently recalls the circumstances that led to the tragedy of Clarissa's

death. Lovelace condemns himself as "a wanton, a conceited, a proud

fool, as weil as a villain." Notably, though, Lovelace's penitence is not

directed to God; rather, he indicates that he feels "remorse [for] having

deprived [himself] and the world of such a blessing" (1483). He still seeks

to lay much of the blame on Mrs. Sinclair and her "wretched daughters

who," he observes, "have now amply revenged upon me their own ruin,

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which they lay at my door" (1484). Both Lovelace and Belford comment

that "something strangely retributive seems to he working" (1428, 1434).

The women from the brothel, whom Lovelace debauched and then used as

means to ruin Clarissa, have in turn been instrumental in the ruin of his

hopes, and Leman, whom Lovelace used against the Harlowes, provides

information that leads to the the duel and thus enables the Harlowes to

rejoice over Lovelace's death. Richardson implies that persons who use

others to efTect bad ends bring about their own destruction. Lovelace

speaks of a future course of "penitence and mortification," but until then

he will try to forget Clarissa through "diversions and amusements ... gay

and splendid company" (1483). The same inability to improve morally

through sufTering is observable in Lovelace and the Harlowes. They aIl

regret the actions that led to Clarissa's death and to their own sufTering,

but this does not evoke a true and lasting desire to change--to live

according to Christian principles.

In a letter to Edward Moore, Richardson discusses in detail the duel

and Lovelace's and Morden's behavior in it. More than in the account in

the novel, one is aware of Richardson's efforts to portray Morden as

heroic, while he admits to Moore that he "was solicitous to prevent ... pit y

... for the unhappy [Lovelace]" (119). In his letter, Richardson refers to

Morden as a "hero" and as the "heroic Col." Lovelace's valet de La Tour

comments, "Colonel Morden, 1 found, was too weIl used to the bloody

work; for he was as cool as if nothing so extraordinary had happened"

(1487). Only the last half of de la Tour's remark is repeated in

Richardson's letter. Commenting on Morden's actions lifter he has fatally

wounded Lovelace, Richardson exclaims, "What Circumstances of noble

& generous triumph all there!--And over whom?--over the proud and

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doubly mortified Lovelace." Richardson calls attention to Morden's

admonition that Lovelace should "[s]natch these few fleeting Moments

and commend [him]self to GOO," and he adds, "What further generosity in

these Words!" (120-21). Lovelace does not heed this exhortation. His final

hours are spent in delirium, apparently conversing with a spectre of

Clarissa. "What a Goddess does he make of the exalted Clarissa,"

Richardson observes, "Y et how deplorably impious, hardly tbinks of

invoking the highest assistance and mercy!" (121). Although to sorne

readers Lovelace's death may appear romantic, it is clear from

Richardson's letter that he condemns all romantic representations of

death. Lovelace's obsession with Clarissa during his last ho urs and his

apparent insensitivity toward bis imminent fate show that he has already

undergone a kind of spiritual death. Lovelace, de la Tour reports,

"suffer[s] much, as weil from bis impatience and disappointment as from

his wounds." Like Belton and Mrs. Sinclair, "he seemed very unwilling to

die." Lovelace's last words, "LET THIS EXPIATE" (1488), Richardson

declares, reflect "his wonted haughtiness of spirit--all his apparent

Invocation and address to the SUPREME" (122). With his last breath,

Lovelace refuses to humble himself before God. He asserts his self-will to

pronounce that his death is expiation for his crimes. Richardson asks

Moore, "Have 1 not then given rather a dreadful than a hopeful Exit, with

respect to Futurity, to the unhappy Lovelace" (122). Lovelace's death, like

ail the deaths in the novel, exemplifies the doctrine that individuals are

responsible for their actions. Readers who hope that Clarissa may have

successfully intervened for Lovelace do not take this into account.10 Law

warns, "Be assured, that stand thou must, in that state in Nature, which

the Working of thy own Will has brought forth in Thee, whether it bE:

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happy or miserable. Expect no Arbitrary Goodness, of God towards Thee,

when thou leavest this World; for that must grow for ever which hath

grown here" (l06). Richardson concludes his revealing letter to Moore

with the observation: "1 have been unable ta reperuse the account of his

Death with this great Circumstance in my Head, and to think of the

triumphant one of my divine Clarissa, without pity--and 1 did hope that

the contra st if attentively considered would be very striking" (Selected

Letters 122). The deaths of Clarissa and Lovelace should be clearly seen ta

result from the exercise of their own wills, and, evoking "Pit y on her

Account and Terror on bis, [ta] join ta complete [bis] great End, for the

sake of Example and Warning" (Selectcd Letters 104).

Part IV: ExempJars for Today

Richardson presents bath spiritual and worldly aspects of

Lovelace's defeat and Clarissa's triumph. Lovelace's failure to subdue

Clarissa or ta possess her under any conditions ultimately represents the

end not only of his elaborate schemes but of all bis hopes for happiness as

weIl. Mter Clarissa's death he is free to resume bis former habits, and he

apparently does so, but he admits he no longer enjoys bis life as a libertine

(1483). The identity he was sa determined to maintain no longer gretifies

him, yet he is unwilling or unable to change. Lovelace is forced to

recognize limitations to his power to control people and events, and the

outcome of the duel is a final refutation of the power he has claimed. His

unwillingness to reform in response to bis sufl'ering any more than to

exhortations from Clarissa and Belford is a spiritual defeat. His final

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obdurate assertion of will in defiance of God confirms his future state.

"Clarissa," Richardson proclaims, "has the greatest of Triumphs

even in this World. The greatest 1 will venture ta say, even in, and after

the Outrage, and because of the Outrage that ever Woman had" (Selected

Letters 108). Her triumph, then, is not a single accomplishment; it is

composed of severaI victories. Most evidently, Clarissa resists all the

designs of her persecutors ta subjugate her. She retains her integrity and

her unshaken belief in the principles by which she acts. But Clarissa not

only triumphs over aIl temptations and trials, she also forges a new

identity from her suffering. The proper young lady, paragon of untried

virtue, who hecomes the victim of despotic parents and a cruel lover, is

transformed into a Christian heroine. Clarissa's spiritual struggle,

penitence for her errors, forgiveness of those who have injured her and

complete resignation to the will of God, are central to the Christian context

of the novel. It has been suggested in this thesis that there is sorne

ambiguity concerning her attainment of the state of mind to which she

aspires. Clarissa strives to emulate the divine example of Christ--to

forgive absolutely all the injuries she has suffered. But she has a strong,

understandable desire for vindication, and she finds it difficult to

overcome her resentwents toward her persecutors. Her expressions of

forgiveness seem ambivalent and cannot easily he reconciled with her

behavior. Only when she is dying is her forgiveness of Lovelace phrased

without condemnation. In her posthumous letters and in her legal will

Clarissa reinforces the sense of guilt already experienced hy Lovelace and

her family. Moreover, through her will, she rewards her friends and, by

exclusion, punishes those who have injured her. This worldly triumph

over her persecutors makes attamment of the ideal spiritual state she

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de ~ire8 ai. !~dBt somewhat equivocal until just before she dies, when she

appears finally to transcend her resentments, to forgive her injuries, and

to 'resign herself absolutely to the will of God. Clarissa's death,

Richardson declares, is a tnumph, "ber consummating Perfection"

(Selected Letters 95-6). AB nearly as possible, Clarissa plans and con troIs

its circUDlstances in order to make her way of dying exemplary in the

minutest details. Spiritual preparation is her principal activity from the

time of ber release from prison until sbe dies. Clarissa's anticipation of

death, intensified by the "foretastes and assurances" she has had, infuses

her with happiness and hope. Indeed, she avers, "1 am all blessed hope-­

hope itselr' (1361). In response to this hope, one must agree with Mrs.

Norton's assertion that "[Clal'issa is] as near perfection ... as any

creature in this world can be" (1328). Clarissa's final and continuing

triumph appears in Richardson's many versions of her story--the history,

the Meditations and the emblems and texts on her coffin--all of which

represent her struggle and transcendence as a Christian heroine and

portray her as an example of principled action, integrity and indomitable

will.

Clarissa and Lovelace represent the uncontrollable freedom of the

will. In Christian terms this ie freedom to choose spiritual values or to

subject oneself to worldly desires. In secular terms it is freedom, through

choice (second-order evaluations), to imagine and constitute a particular

identity. Clarissa's principled choices reflect her love ofvirtue. Lovelace

acts to gratify bis desires for power and pleasure. Their lives and deaths

explore Law's doctrine that individuals are responsible for their choices

and identities, and that they must accept the consequences of their

decisions. It was suggested earlier that Richardson anticipated Kant's

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work on freedom of the will and universallaws. Clarissa's principles are

analogous ta Kant's categorical imperative, and Kant's second

formulation has special significance in relation to Richardson's novel,

where a virtuous individual struggles against persons who would

subjugate and use her to achieve their own desires. This correspondence

between ideas represented in Richardson's novel and concepts in Kant's

work--which are also the basis of writings by contemporary literary

theorists--suggests that Richardson's characters May still serve

compellingly as exemplars for some readers in our western cultures and

societies today. Clarissa and Lovelace are complex figures that continue

to provoke moral reflection and debate for readers preoccupied with

problems of moral decision and the constitution of particular identi ties.

Even if Most informed discussion of Clarissa now is mainly confined to

the academy, such strong though specialized interest in Richardson's

novel marks it as a genuine ongoing philosophical resource .

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Notes

Introduction

1 Horace wrote, "Poets seek either to profit the reader or else entertain him, 1 Or to combine both componenta, the charming and useful together" (367).

2 David C. Hensley points out that William Law, who, this thesis argues, influenced Richardson, "insists that ... two positions be grasped as inseparable or held together in dialectical tension. On the one hand, the principle of God's inclusivity structures Law's beHef in the fundamental unit y and goodness of ail that exists. . .. On the other hand, Law teaches that life in the world is an unremitting conflict between good and evil. In An Appeal To aU that Doubt, or Disbelieve The Truths of the Gospel (1740), he insista that 'the Whole ofthis World, in ail its working Powers, is nothing else but a Mixture of Heaven and Hell' (Works, 6:116). The conflictual 'mixture' or tom and contradictory doubleness of ail things in nature, and in the dialectic of will and desire in the soul, is the condition of fallen experience" (137).

3 See Richardson'sletters to Lady Bradshaigh (89-93,103-17). AIl references to Richardson's correspondence, unIess otherwise specified, will be to Selected Letters.

4 The possible influence of Law's theology on Clarissa has been recognized by various Richardson scholars, although not always directly. In their very difTerent interpretations of Clarissa , Margaret Anne Doody and William Beatty Warner use language that strikingly echoes Law's Appeal (for example, Doody 106 and Warner, Reading 74). John Dussinger discusses the similarities of Richardson's ideas in Clarissa to Law's early work A Serious Call (242). Rosemary Bechler associates Law directly with Richardson (Trial 94-95, Reading 142-43). It is clear that Richardson knew Law. In 1733 he printed Law's The Oxford Methodists (Eaves and Kimpel 553), and in 1752 he printed Law's Way to Divine Knowledge (Dussinger 241, qtd. in Sale 126-27). In addition, Richardson oversaw the collection and printing of all of Law's works for George Cheyne (Mullett 93, 99).

5 Gender bias permeates the writings considered in this the sis. Those of Richardson himself, as weil as of Law and Jeremy Taylor, are no exception. This cultural reality will not be disguised or understated in the quotations; however, the argument and findings of the thesis will be presented in gender-neutral terms.

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6 Elaine Pagels writes: "[F]or nearly the first four hundred years of our era, Christians regarded freedom as the primary message of Genesis 1-3 ... and self-mastery as the source of such freedom. . . . Most orthodox Christians agreed witb many of their Jewish contemporaries that Adam's fatal DlÏsuse of [free will] ... was so momentous that bis transgression brcught pain, labor, and death into an originally perfect world. . .. Yet Adam's transgression did not encroach upon our own individual freedom ... every pers on is free to choose good or evil, just as Adam was .... For Clement of Alexandria [co 180 C.E.], moral freedom is our glory; that we are made in the image of God really means that we have what he caUs autexousia, a term often translated as 'free wlll,' but more accurately 'the power to constitute one's own being.' ... [W]ith Augustine, in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, this message changed .... Instead of the freedom of the will and humanity's original royal dignity, Augustine emphasizes humanity's enslavement to sin. Humanity is sick, suffering, and helpless, irreparably damaged by the faIl, for that 'original sin,' Augustine insists, involved nothing else than Adam's prideful attempt to establish bis own autonomous self­government. Astonishingly, Augustine's radical view prevailed, eclipsing for future generations of western Christians the consensus of more than three centuries of Christian tradition" (Adam xxv, 73-4, 99).

7 See, for example, Charles Taylor, Philosophy and the Human Sciences 318-37.

8 Werner S. Pluhar explains, "The final purpose at which, as the moral law commands, all our acts are to aim is the highest good in the worH: our own virtue (which lies in the will's obedience to the morallaw), and happiness for everyone to the extent that he or she is virtuous and thus worthy of such happiness" (Translator's Introduction to Critique of Judgment xlv).

9 Anthony J. Cascardi daims that "the process of rationalization de scribes a change in social organization that in turn has consequences for the relationship between reason and value in the worJd" (Subject 9).

ChapterOne

1 Eldridge refers to Kant: "Far from ranking lowest in the scale of precedence, our duties towards ourselves are of primary importance and should have pride of place ... ". (Lectures on Ethics , 121; cf. also 117-18).

2 AlI references to Clarissa will be to the Penguin edition .

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3 ln his fantasies of transforming Clarissa, Lovelace, like Richardson, appears 10 identify with Pygmalion. In a letter to Lady Bradshaigh, Richardson asks, "Did 1 not say, that 1 was another Pygmalion?" (Selected Letters 90).

4 Charles Altieri, "From Expressivist Aesthetics to Expressivist Ethics."

5 Despite Clarissa's recognition that Dr. Lewen's advice is unchristian and unworthy of a spiritual advisor, Clarissa has to struggle against ber own resentments and desire for revenge (1101-02, 1116).

6 Most modem readings of Clarissa are secular. For example, Doody and Kinkead-Weekes frequently refer to the Christian content of the novel (Doody 121-25, Kinkead-Weekes 256-71), but their readings are essentially secular. The feminist-oriented readings of Terry Castle and Terry Eagleton are avowedly secular (Castle 195, Eagleton 93-4). AlI of these writers either implicitly or explicitly acknowledge qualities in Clarissa which would make her an exemplar for individuals who seek to establish an ethical identity.

7 It would be possible to consider an identity for Clarissa as an exemplar within a feminist community where she would be recognized as a victim of patriarchy and a martyr for the values of integrity and autonomy; however this identity is too limited for Clarissa.

8 Altieri observes "We may never reach any single essential self, but we can come to recognize the cumulative effect of having achieved a series of partial identities within overlapping communities" (151).

9 At Hampstead Clarissa asks Lovelace, "[D]o you suppose that 1 had not thought oflaying down a plan to govern myselfby, when 1 found myself so unhappily over-reached, and cheated, as 1 may say, out of myself?--When 1 found that 1 could not be, and do, what 1 wished to be, and to do, do you imagine that 1 had not caRt about, what was the next proper course to take?" (852).

10 One wonders how this field can be complete without inclusion of the naturaI sciences. Every part of our physical environment and our lives has been influenced to sorne extent by science. Scientific data are treated as equivaIent to "truth," and the ordinary citizen is daily informed of the latest "discoveries" of science through the media. It seems a serious omission, therefore, when Cascardi ignores the sciences in his discussion of the discourses which he claims form the "detotalized" totality of modem culture (2) .

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CbapterTwo

1 William Beatty Warner, Reading "Clarissa": The Struggles of Interpretation.

2 Clarissa seeks Kant's "final purpose." See Introduction, note 8.

3 Warner daims that Clarissa "invent[s] a 'self [that] ... is a fiction, not something simply faIse but rather an arbitrary construct like the hypothesis in an experiment which, by winning a provisional acceptance, can go out and do work in the world" (Reading 17).

4 See Rosemary Bechler (Triall 100-03) and Gillian Beer 261-70) for discussions of Milton's influence on Richardson. Doody illustrates in detail Lovelace's affinities with the drarna (99-127), and Mark Kinkead­Weekes argues that Richardson's art is essentially dramatic (395-461).

5 According to Law's doctrine, "the Will of Angels and Men being an Offspring, or Ray, derived from the Will of God ... stands chargeable with the State and Condition of their Nature; and th€:refore it is, the Nature of the Devil, and the Nature offallen Man is imputed to both of them, .8 their Sin, which could not be, but because their wIn was uncontrollable, and gave Birth and Being to that State and Condition of Nature, which is called, and is t.~eir Sin. Therefore, 0 Man! look weil to thyself, and see ... what Nature is growing up in Thee .... Expect no arbitrary Goodness, of God towards Thee, when thou leavest this World; for that must grow for ever which hath grown here" (105-106).

6 Barbara Kiefer Lewalski points out that "we are to recognize--by degrees, and through a process of comparison, contrast and judgmcnt-­just what the Satanic heroism is, as we find that it involves the perversion of aIl the heroic values that we have admired in literature and throughout history. At length ... we are asked to measure that concept against a divine standard of action and speech which incorporates but transforms and transcends the highest human heroism" (56).

7 Doody comments that "[o]ne of the reasons why Lovelace is so grand and so terrible is that he cannot really recognize the limi tation of any social law" (116).

8 Richardson writes, "[A] strong Reason against Plays, not only to the Tradesman, but to aIl Ranks, is, their deplorable Depravity at this Time, which is greater than ever was known." He observes, however, that "we would not ... argue against the Use of any thing, because of the Abuse of it ... under proper Regulations, the Stage may be made subservient to excellent Purposes, and be an useful Second to the Pulpit itself' (Apprentice's Vade-Mecum 9,12). Richardson thus maintains a critical stance toward Restoration theatre in his portrayal of Lovelace but uses the

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drama in his design to"steal in ... and investigate the great doctrines of Christianity under the fashionable guise of an amusement" (Postscript 350).

9 Doody argues that [Clarissa] is not 'play-acting' with life, and does not choose a role artifi ci ally. The role of the victim is thrust upon her wh en Lovelace, without her knowledge, chooses the part of tyrant-Iover" (118). This observation concurs with Richardson's criticism of Restoration drama (see note 4 above). Lovelace uses drama as a source of power. Clarissa's considerable dramatic ability is exercised defensively in response to Lovelace's planned performances.

10 Clarissa contemptuously addresses Lovelace with the familiar second-person singular pronoun.

Il Lovelace has, "by [his] own Self-motion, separated [himself] from ... Light and Love"; he is left with Wrath and Darkness (Law 68-9). Clarissa's love of God has enabled her to triumph over Satan, Sin, and Death. This love will guide and illuminate the remainder of her life.

12 Richardson's footnote confirms that Clarissa refers ta the pen­knife scene (1320). In the next sentence she refers to Lovelace as a poisonous serpent, an allusion ta the scene in Paradise Lost where ~atan and his legions are transformed into hissing serpents (10: 533-38).

Chapter 1bree

1 Doody makes this point (206-07), and so does Kinkead-Weekes (256).

2 Mr. Harlowe asserts, "we will not ... be bullied out of our child .... And so she had better make a merit of her obedience: for comply she shall, if 1 live" (177).

3 ln Chapter VIII of A Natural Passion, Doody develops the idea that "[t]hroughout the novel, [Clarissa's] life has heen a series of joumeys frcJù one prison ta another" (211).

4 Ecclesiasticus 13:1 (1116,1272). Clarissa expresses concern when she first considers marri age to Lovelace "that such an husband might unsettle me in aIl my own principles, and hazard my future hopes" (183). She asserts this fear much more vehemently as one of the reasons why she will not marry him after the rape: "[W]ho knows but that my own sinful compliances with a man who would think himself entitled to my obedience might taint my own morals and make me, in ste ad of a reformer, an imitator of him?--for who can touch pitch, and not be defiled?" (1116).

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5 The flowers in the prison room refer metaphorically to Clarissa's feelings, but, particularly in the latter part of the novel, "flower" and "blossom" are metaphors for Clarissa (1306,1349). Morden places flowers in her coffin, and young girls strew flowers over the coffin when Clarissa is returned to Harlowe Place; the funeral bouquet thus prefigures her death.

6 There wa~ a similar denial of privacy at Harlowe Place. Members of Clarissa's family and Betty, Arabella's maid, entered her room ut will to torment her and to harass her into compliance.

7 The meditation Clarissa transcribes from Job, which is supposed to represent her frame of mind, expresses not resignation, but rather a fervent desire for death: "Wherefore is light given to one that is in mi sery; and life Wlto the bitter in souI? / Who longeth for death, but it cometh not; and diggeth for it more than for hid treasures?" (Job 3.233-26).

8 Richardson expressed admiration for Spenser as weIl as for Milton (Selected Letters 161-62, 176).

Chapter Four

1 A quotation from Job, with whom Clarissa identifies (30.23).

2 Hensley writes that "Richardson defines [Clarissa's] death, not in fact as a scene, or even in several scenes, but rather as a complicatcd, graduaI, painful process that molds the last fourth of the novel around the heroine's developing attitude of repentance, resignation, and forgiveness" (146).

3 Taylor's book is mentioned in a grim prefigurement of Clarissa's death. In Hampstead, just before Lovelace and his pretended relations trick Clarissa back to Sinc1air's, Lovelace takes up the book and comments: "A smart book, this, my dear!--This old divine affects, 1 sce, a mighty flowery style upon a very solemn subject. But it puts me III mmd of an ordinary country funeral. ... " (1002).

4 Taylor says that his book "contains in it so many precepts and meditations, so many propositions and various duties, such forms of exercise, and the degrees and difficulties of so many graces, which are necessary preparatives to a holy death, that the very learning the duties requires study and skill, time and ur~d~rstanding, in the ways of godliness; and it were very vain to say so much is necessary, and not to suppose more time to learn them, more skill to practise them, more opportunities to desire them, more abilities both of body and mind, than can be supposed in a sick, amazed, timorouB, and weak pers on (292).

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Richardson too implicitly questions the effectiveness oC deatbbed repentance through Belford's description of the terrors and uncertainty of bis uncle and Belton, dying sinners, who postpone repentance until they are on their deathbeds (715, 1223-31, 1239-43).

5 Keymer writes that "Meditations almost certainly preserves a large amount of material deleted from the pre-publication manuscripts that circulated among Richardson's quorum of sample readers between 1744 and 1747." But "[d]espite sustained pressure from bis closest friends and literary advisers, Richardson neither put the work on sale, nor included it in any subsequent edition ofClarissa." Keymer dismisses Richardson's excuse to Lady Bradsbaigh that "Clarissa'slength . .. required the initial omission." "More revealing," he thinks, was Richardson's "Cear that their religious emphases might threaten 'one of bis principal Ends; which waSt to engage the attention of the Light~ the Careless, and the Gay. ", Another possibility is that Richardson Ceared the strong emphasis on the Job-theme in the Meditations might "upset [the] balance" of Clarissa so that it seemed "like little more than allegory." Keymer points out, though, that if Meditations had been published separately, this would not have been a concern. The most cogent reason that Richardson excluded ail but five meditations Crom the novel was bis overriding concem that Clarissa should not appear to plead Cor her own innocence. Keymer declares, "In the very act of expressing her own Job­Iike condition of sufTering integrity . . . Clarissa can hardly avoid repeating what the Book of Job ultimately identifies as its protagonist's great fault: 'that he justified himself rather than God' (Job 32.2). Thus Keymer concludes that "by allowing the collection only this most marginal and Iimited of existences within the devotional practices of his own circle . . . [he] effectively sarrific[ed] it to the debilitating insistence on Clarissa's unimpeachability which, by 1751, had become his first priority" (101-08).

6 Doody tlescribes tbis literature at length in her discussion of the death scenes in Clarissa (151-87).

7 It is worth noting also that in letters to her friends and Lovelace's aunt, Clarissa describes clearly the circumstances of the rape and her feelings toward Lovelace (984-86, 986-89, 998-1011).

8 The quotation from Job that Keymer uses, "If 1 justify myselC, mine own heart shaH condemn me: If 1 say, 1 am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse," is not presented in relation to Clarissa's concern with subjectivity in narration, but in reference to ber guilt towards her family. The discussion ofher history comes afterwards on the same page (1163).

9 "Job gets no apology and no explanation from God Cor having wrongfully affiicted him, but the absence oC any charges of guilt is tantamount to vindication. The assurance that bis suffering is not punishmant Cor sin is a part, at least, ofwhat Job has demanded. The

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further question--if not for sin, why then?--is rejected as presumptuous" (Interpreter's Dictionary 924).

10 "Job ... grasps at the hope of an afterlife, especially in chapter 14; but the idea is broached only to he rejected, and Job lapses into the standard attitude of resignation ta the finality of death. . . . (14.7-12, 13-15, 18-22)" ('nterpreter's Dictionary 918,923).

11 See note 15.

12 Robert Alter points out that "one of the most common themes ... [in Psalmsl is death and rebirth. It is equally prominent in the supplication and in the thanksgiving psalm .... The prehistory of the theme might justifiably he viewed as a monotheistic--and metaphoric-­reworking of a pagan mythological plot, the death and miraculous rebirth of a god. . . . Illness and other kinds of dangers, perhaps even spiritual distress, are represented as a descent into the underworld from which the Lord is entreated to bring the person back or, in the thanksgiving poem, is praised for having brought him back. The efTectiveness of Hus vestigially mythological plot is that it can speak powerfuUy ta so many diffcrent predicaments in the psalmist's time and ever since--for those who believe in resurrection, for those who feel the chill threat of literai extinction here and now, for those who have suffered one sort or another ofinward dying" (Psalms 259).

13 (IV) indicates the number of the meditation. Where reference ie made to Richardson's introduction to a Meditation, the page number is also given.

14 "[Ben Sirach's] philosophy of life was practical and empirical, and he was skeptical of metaphysical speculations, holding that the ultimate mysteries of the world are beyond human comprehension .... Holding neita'ler the Platonic doctrine of the immortality of the soul nor anything corresponding ta the Pharisaic notion of the resurrection of the body, Ben Sirach teaches thatjust retribution operates whoUy on this side of the grave, and he thinks it easy for the Lord ta reward a man, even on the day of his death, according to bis conduct . . .. Ben Sirach is not unaware of the sort of objections that are raised against a the ory of this kind, e.g., in the book of Job. He ... makes a deliberate attempt to overcome the antinomy by resorting to a distinction between appearance and reality. Things are not what they seem to be, and are not therefore ta be taken at their face value" (lnterpreter's Dictionary 15-20).

15 "[An] innovation [of the Wisdom of Solomon] attributable to Greek influence which exerted a major influence on subsequent religious development is the explicit doctrines ofimmortality .... God is ubiquitaus and aware of the good and evil in the world; each will receive due requital, but rewards need not be temporal. Death came into the world through the

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envy oC the devil. . .. Our author would appear to he the earliest Jewish writer to make individual immortality so specific and to make righteousness a condition oC ete mal salvation" (lnterpreter's Dictionary 861,863).

16 This tension is evident on an occasion two days beCore Clarissa's death. She observes to BelCord, "[W]hat a graduai and happy death God Almighty ... affords me!" But her appeal to Belford to reCorm reveals surprisinglyambivalent feelings toward death. "Oh Mr. BelCord! This is a poor transitory life in its best enjoyments. We flutter about here and there, with all our vanities about us, like painted butterflies, for a gay but a very short season, till at last we lay ourselves down in a quiescent state, and turn in\.:l vile worms: and who knows in what fonn, or to what condition, we shaH rise again?" (1336-37).

17 Richardson writes to Lady Bradshaigh that "in the minutae lie oCten the unfoldings of the Story, as weil as of the heart" (289). Clarissa's careCul attendance to the minute details oC her death demonstrates her complete devotion to God.

18 The complete text on the casket lid is "Turn again unto thy rest, Oh my soul! For the Lord hath rewarded thee. And why? Thou hast delivered my soul Crom death; mine eyes from tears; and my Ceet Crom Calling" (Psalmsl16.7, 8).

19 "Eternity encompasses the child oftime .... " (Doody 186). "For the theme of themall is the comment of eternity on time .... " (Kinkead­Weekes 269).

20 Law refers to this psalm: "If thou desirest, inclinest, and turnest to God, as the Flowers of the Field desire, and turn towards the Sun, all the Blessings oC the Deity will spring up in Thee; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, will make their Abode with Thee" (62).

21 Rosemary Freeman notes, "[In The Devout Hart by Henry Hawkins] a symbolical garden is described ... and various flowers are introduced as emblems of the heart which is fit to receive its lord. The lily ... is one oCthem" (179).

Chapter Five

1 Hensley writes, "As both Doody and Kinkead-Weekes suggfiSt, [Clarissa's] death is above all an inner process in which [she] rej01\,:es that she can at last withdraw from 'beholders eyes' [1339] (Doody 172 ·77, 183-85, Kinkead-Weekes 260-73)" (146) .

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2 When Clarissa is forced to Oee from Lovelace's visit ta the Smith's, she observes on her return, "He will not let me die decently. . . . He will not let me enter into my Maker's presence with the composure that is required in entering the drawing room of an earthly prinee!"( 1343).

3 A parallel eould be suggested between Clarissa's vindictive remarks about Lovelace and Richardson's attacks on Fielding, whom he apparently never forgave for parodying Pamela in Shamela and Joseph ' Andrews. In addition, Richardson both censured Fielding's Tom Jones on moral grounds and en,ied its popularity. See Eaves and Kimpel (292-306) and Selected Letters 127-29.

4 Clarissa writes to Anna: "In the disposition of what belongs to me, 1 have endeavoured ta do everything in the justest and best manner 1 could think of; putting myself in my relations' places, and in the greater points ordering my matters as if no misunderstanding had happened. . .. 1 hope 1 have pleased every one of them. 1 would not, on any aecount, have it thought that, in my last disposition, anything undaughterly, unsisterly, or unlike a kinswoman, should have had place in a mind that is so truly free (as 1 will presume to say) from all resentment that it now overflows with gratitude and blessings for the good 1 have received, although it be not aIl that my heart wished to reeeive" (1318). There is a discussion of Clarissa's will on page 97 of this thesis.

5 Clarissa's struggle to Corgive Lovelace can he Collowed through her assertions: ln an encounter with Lovelace aCter the rape, she exclaims, "1 never, never will, never, never con forgive you!" (929). Four days after her release from Rowland's prison, Clarissa tells Belford, "1 am trying to bring my mind into such a frame as to be able to pUy him ... and ... 1 shall not think myself qualified for the state 1 am aspiring to if, aCter a few struggles more, 1 cannot {orgive him too" (1102). In a letter to Anna (six days after the previous quotation) Clarissa refuses to entertain the hopes of Anna and Lovelace's relations that she will marry him: "Nor can 1 give a stronger prooC of the truth of tbis assurance, than by declaring that 1 can and will {orgive mm on tms one easy condition, that he will never molest me more" (1141). Two days before she dies, Clarissa de cl ares (to Belford) her forgiveness of Lovelace hut accounts him responsible for her death: "[T]ell bim that if 1 could not [forgive him] with my whole heart, 1 should be very uneasy, and think that my hopes ofmercy to myselfwere but weakly founded; and that 1 had still, in any harboured resentments, some hankerings after a liCe whieh he has been the cause of shortening" (1341). Just before her death, joyful that "a very few moments--will end this strife­-and 1 shall be happy," Clarissa is able to express her forgiveness unequivocally. "Do you, sir, tell your friend that 1 forgive him! And 1 pray to God to forgive him!. . . Let him know how happily 1 die--And that such as my own, 1 wish to be bis last hour" (1362) .

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6 Clarissa's comments about self-inspection coincide with Kant's later remarks about self-judgment and the possibilities that arise for self­deception. Mike W. Martin writes that "Kant tries to make sense of self­deception as a 'lack of conscientiousness, i.e., of sincerity in our avowals before our inner judge, whom we conceive as another person when we think of sincerity in its utmost strictness.' More generally, anytime we make self-assessments, we think" oC ourselves as 'a twofold personage, a doubled self: a flawed, finite, person ... appearing before an 'inner judge' who is the ideal moral self we aspire to be" (Immanuel Kant. The Doctrine of Virtue, trans, Mary J. Gregors. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1964, 94) (27). But Martin observes, "Self-deception ... only sometimes involves duplicitous inner talk within the mental tribunal described by Kant. Yet it often does involve inner division: ambivalent emotions or attitudes, conflicting desires, self-contradictory belieCs or inclinations to believe, self-defeating actions that undermine one's own best interests or one's commitments" (27).

7 Doody notes, "Each of the three [death] scenes is united with the others in being seen Crom the same point ofview, that of Belford" (183).

8 Lady Bradshaigh urged Richardson to adopt an alternate ending in which Lovelace, "thrown into a dangerous Cever, is visited by Clarissa," who, "to anable him to die with greater resignation," promises to marry him. Lovelace then recovers, and "aCter Many tender scenes marital bliss ... reward[s] sinner and saint" (Eaves and Kimpel 222-23).

9 Hensley points out that the text seems to authorize additional ways of interpreting Clarissa's death: "At least two patterns of dialectical response to the novel are built into its structure, and they have supported two alternative ways oC reading Clarissa .... Just as there are arguably two figuraI systems oC integrity in Clarissa corresponding to the aesthetics of the beautiCui and of the sublime, the two, ultimately mystical, dialectics copresent in Clarissa--the Neoplatonic and the Romantic--interact in the novel as respectively totalizing and nontotalistic in emphasis" (142-43).

10 Doody speculates about Lovelace's fate: "[I]t is Clarissa upon whom he calls, and Clarissa is a saint .... Rer prayer has been ... and still would be that he should be saved. If he is damned, her prayer is unanswered. It is a riddle without an end" (182) .

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