Characters in the novel repeatedly refer to Clarissa as an exemplar or model for other women, as does Richardson in his prefaces and footnotes. Disregarding what Richardson may have intended, what exactly is she an exemplar of, in your reading of the novel? Do the qualities or virtues she exemplifies and the image she projects remain the same throughout the novel? Is she a convincing human being or merely an exemplar? To carry scepticism a step further, ask yourself whether she is even a convincing or effective exemplar. Joseph Wood Krutch, for one, objects that Richardson gave Clarissa

no positive or active virtues, not even, indeed, any personalty. She is no more than a slightly idealized portrait of the conventional "nice" girl of the period and the whole course of her life is determined by negative principles. Her dominant desire is the desire to achieve, despite the difficulties which surround her, a completely conventional existence and the Virtue which her contemporaries so much admired is not something which leads to any action but something which shines forth only when it resists the forces permitted to "test" it.

Are the nature of society and/or her situation factors in any misrepresentations? Does the male code which Lovelace represents force women to misrepresent and to lie in self defense? Or think of Clarissa's family; if Clarissa is to fulfill the child's duty to honor, love, and obey her parents and uncles (her pseudo-parents), would she have to repress some of the harsh truth about them?

Johnson's statement can be given a larger significance by applying it to other characters. Alan Dugald McKillop succinctly summarizes the discrepancies in the characters' interpretations and reality:

there are the unavowed or incompletely avowed feelings of Lovelace and Clarissa; there are the intentions and policies which they proclaim and explain in their letters; there are the comments of other characters upon the protagonists, which sometimes clear and sometimes obscure the situation; and beyond all this there is the question how far the novelist himself controls these impulses and motives for his own ends, and how far he should do so.

My final question on this issue: is Clarissa, as well as the other characters, simply being human? Don't we all misrepresent or misinterpret ourselves and our behavior at some time or other, some of us more than others?

But is it possible to explain the pattern of Clarissa's being subjected to violence and her submitting to abuse in other ways? For Richardson and his readers, might this pattern express a world view in which human beings are seen as constantly struggling with evil, which exists within them and in the world outside themselves?

Or is she not a victim at all? Her will cannot be violated, not by her family, by Lovelace, or by public pressure; thus, her integrity as an individual is not violated either physically or spiritually. Also, Richardson clearly intends the ending to be her triumph; must she suffer agonies to triumph in the way that she does at end of this novel? Of course, one possible answer to this question is that Richardson's view of the agony necessary for her triumph (and the pleasure he takes in it?) is itself sado-masochistsic.