A Higher Judgment Outside Humanity
As we see the innocence of Clarissa's character tragically lost, Samuel Richardson displays the destruction caused by youthful fancy and parental oppression. Through Clarissa's death, the reader is left with an overwhelming feeling towards Clarissa's virtue as the epitome of goodness that Richardson wishes us to revere for its constancy. However, because of the self-willed nature of her untimely demise, the text sheds light to the inhumanity of bearing such ideological thoughts and regimented way of life in reality. What remains evident throughout the novel is that because of her overwhelming desire to be virtuous, Clarissa alienates herself from the judgments of society, is alienated and estranged from her family, is disembodied from her own humanity. What we find is that Clarissa's death does not stand necessarily as social commentary against the injustices of the world, but rather as evidence of Clarissa's inability to reconcile her personal beliefs and the laws of the world, her imagined existence and compromises necessary in order to survive. From its onset, the narrative sets up Clarissa as an obedient daughter, a social wonder and joy in terms of her virtues. Her primary and only disobedience against paternal law is when
Here Clarissa is the voice of outrage against Anna's persuasions to marry Lovelace. For Clarissa, the world's view of her is still very important, though she states that she will not marry Lovelace in order to "patch up" society's view of her as a demoralized woman. Clarissa refuses to compromise her sense of right and wrong, to marry Lovelace, or seek out justice to punish him or do otherwise, because her sense of justice must of necessity be unwavering, because her constancy to her inner virtue is what makes her so heavenly. That is the public image which Clarissa is trying to salvage. As stated earlier in the essay, Anna suggests that if you cannot compromise, then you cannot find a place in the world, and that to have no place in the world, is to cease to exist. Clarissa however does not seek an existence within society if she cannot exist within herself respectfully: "How willingly I would run away from myself, and what most concerns myself, if I could!" (pg. 74) Here Clarissa's existence is unacceptable because her self-conception of divinity is impossible. Clarissa is duped by Lovelace time and again, she is raped; and is finally simply unable to resolve herself with her now tarnished self-imagined identity. Clarissa based her identity upon her inviolable virtuous nature, and as her reputation was stained, her death becomes the inevitable conclusion of that marring of character. As readers/voyeurs of this finalized text we are privy to Clarissa's moralistic demise, but we are separated enough from her life so that we can judge her words, and discern which lessons of Richardson's works for us. We must question whether or not Clarissa is the ideal of feminine Virtue Richardson sets her up to be. He seemingly defeats the purpose of pulling on the reader's heart strings to emotionally connect with Clarissa, when he writes her separating herself from humanity; she becomes a simple character in a carefully crafted morality play. For Richardson, it seems female identity is based solely upon her virtue and maintaining it, something modern readers cannot fully appreciate. And even in his text, Richardson shows through Clarissa inevitable death, that one cannot base a corporeal existence solely upon ideological concerns. she is asked to compromise her values and marry an unintelligent man whom she has no love for, Solmes, to increase the material and titular gain for her family. Up until this point, Clarissa, in her arguments and letters, seems to value the will of her father above all else; that she submits to the necessity of patriarchal authority and filial duty bound in the government of the community. However, when asked to marry Solmes, Clarissa finds her father's judgment lacking in comparison to her own standard of morals-which ar
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1863
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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