 Site under
construction. Because I have so little time in which to discuss Clarissa,
I have prepared several brief study guides which identify major issues
or raise pertinent questions. They take the form of lists and notes,
rather than unified essays.
THE END: CLARISSA'S DEATH
As readers realized or even suspected that Clarissa might die rather
than marry Lovelace, Richardson was beset with letters from readers
urging a happy ending for Clarissa, and even Fielding wrote urging that
Clarissa be spared. This response might have deterred a writer or
publisher with an eye only or mainly on profits, but Richardson was
determined that his purpose–and Clarissa's
nature–required her to die. Her death proved deeply moving to many
readers. I count myself among their number and cry every time I read
the dying/death
scenes. After finishing the novel, Diderot felt as if hewere suddenly
"left
alone"; he was so harrowed by reading the novel that friends asked
whether
someone close to him had died.
Is Clarissa escaping into death? If so, what motivates
her? Consider these possibilities (not the only ones, but reasonable
suggestions to start your thinking):
- Clarissa has always had a death wish, as shown by her
references to preferring to die when presented with difficult
situations like the prospect of marrying Solmes; the rape justifies
this death wish and strengthens its hold over her.
- She cannot face the fact that she bears some
responsibility (blame?) for the rape.
- Her self-image and sense of identity require her to
be the "flower of the world" (as she is called several times), and
dying will re-establish her credentials as the virtuous, admirable,
impeccable Clarissa.
- Dying will prove that she is right, that her family
is wrong, and that she still is and was a dutiful daughter.
- She revenges herself on Lovelace and/or her family by
dying.
- Death is her only escape from Lovelace, whom she is
determined not to see again, let alone marry.
- By choosing to die and planning every detail of her
death and funeral, she assumes total control over her life–however
paradoxical this
may sound. She has always preferred, she says, to do everything for
herself.
- Clarissa would rather die than acknowledge the power
of sex and the fact of her own sexuality. Could she be pregant?
 Clarissa dies
alone, surrounded by strangers whom she has made into a
family, a family she can control since they have no no authority over
her and are her social inferiors. Is she alone because of the force of
circumstances, because she chooses
to be alone in order to control her life and orchestrate her death, or
has
Richardson manipulated the novel to keep her alone (he sends Anna Howe
to
the Isle of Wright to visit a sick relatives, prevents Mrs. Norton from
visiting,
first because of her son's illness and then the Harlowes' prohibition,
and
makes Hannah still too ill to join her)?
Is Clarissa's death an implicit criticism of society?
Is there a place for the raped-yet-still-single Clarissa in society? Is
Clarissa's only possible reward, as Anna Howe says, in heaven?
What does Clarissa die of? Does she starve herself to
death or become anorexic (the two are not necessarily the same)? Does
she just will
herself to die? Or does she die because of her father's curse, of being
arrested,
of complications of pregnancy, or of just plain pique? Does her rage at
being violated and generally abused turn inward into depression and
self-destructiveness? Or is her death imposed by Richardson, to make
her a Protestant saint?
In dying, is her major concern still punctilio? Or has
her need for decorum been replaced by some other motive(s) or combined
with
some other motive(s), like living and dying with dignity, a yearning to
be
reunited with God, or the revengeful desire to make Lovelace and her
family
wrong by behaving nobly? Colonel Morden rejects the idea of revenge
after
bringing it up, "How wounding a thing, Mr. Belford, is a generous and
well-distinguished forgiveness! What regenge can be more effectual...
But my dear cousin's motives
were all duty and love" (p. 495). But were they?
Richardson's minute description of Clarissa's funeral
might not seem strange to an age which held elaborate funerals.
Also, the detailed description of Clarissa's
edifying death can be fit into
the genre of funeral literature, to which Edward Young's Night
Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742-45) and James
Hervey's Meditations among the Tombs (1746-7) belonged, both of
which Richardson printed.
Theological works about death were also
popular, and
it has been suggested that Richardson intended Clarissa's death to
serve as a
model of a holy death. (Terry Eagleton cites the case of a dying reader
who
found comfort and peace in Clarissa's example.) She prepares for
death–selling her clothes and buying the coffin, for instance–by
renouncing her body and the world, a spiritual process called "dressing
the soul." Her concern with her coffin, which strikes many modern
readers as morbid or worse, might have seemed natural in an age when
family members died at home and condemned prisoners were forced to
kneel around a coffin while a "condemnation" sermon was preached. On
the other hand, Belford, Mrs. Lovick, the doctor, and Colonel Morden
are
all upset at her keeping the coffin in her room.
Rita Goldberg explains Clarissa's dying and death as
the story "of a passion in the Christian sense, which must be strongly
distinguished from mere passivity. Like all moral passions of this
kind, her suffering is purposeful, and offers a direct challenge to
society.... the source of her spiritual triumph has all along been her
insistence on the integrity of
the person, body, and spirit." (By passion, Goldberg means "the
suffering
of pain, specifically the sufferings of Jesus Christ on the Cross or,
often,
Christ's Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane").
Does Clarissa exhibit arrogance, spiritual pride, or
both in her dying? Morris Golden implies that she does: "The stronger
will, Clarissa's, defeats everything which it meets or can conceive
of–Lovelace, the Harlowes, all of society, and, in the assurance of
forgiveness for suicide and of salvation, even her God." Is her death
merely a continuation of her behavior in the beginning? that is, do her
professions of dutifulness and her stance of meek
submission to her parents cover an iron will and unbending
determination to
have her way? In other words, can her end be foreseen in her beginning?
Is her death, in a sense, inevitable after her flight? or, if not
inevitable, is it predictable? If so, then the symbols on her coffin
may take on additional meanings; the snake with its head in its mouth
may not only have the traditional meaning of eternity but may also
stand for the continuity of Clarissa's life; the urn, a common symbol
for the Virgin Mary (along with the lily) may also mean containment, as
her end was contained or implicit in her beginning.
Does Lovelace's desire to dismember Clarissa's body
express his continuing desire to possess her, his madness, the violence
toward and the hatred of women that characterize his treatment of
Clarissa and, perhaps, all women?
RICHARDSON SYLLABUS
| Day 15 (M, Oct. 28) |
Richardson, Clarissa, pp.
xix-86
Overview of Richardson and Clarissa
Political Readings of Clarissa
Parent-Child Relationship |
| Day 16 (W, Oct. 30) |
Richardson, Clarissa, pp.
86-172
Clarissa |
| Day 17 (M, Nov. 4) |
Richardson, Clarissa, pp.
172-288
Writing |
| Day 18 (W, Nov. 6) |
Richardson, Clarissa, pp.
288-360
Flight and Rape |
| Day 19 (M, Nov. 11) |
Richardson, Clarissa, pp.
360-433
The End: Clarissa |
| Day 20 (W, Nov. 13) |
Richardson, Clarissa, pp.
434-516
Lovelace
Second paper due |
|
