…here is MISS [CLARISSA] HARLOWE, virtuous, noble, wise, pious, unhappily ensnared by the vows and oaths of a vile rake, whom she believes to be a man of honour: and being ill used by her friends for his sake is in a manner forced to throw herself upon his protection; who, in order to obtain her confidence, never scruples the deepest and most solemn protestation of honour. After a series of plots and contrivances, all baffled by her virtue and vigilance, he basely has recourse to the vilest of arts, and to rob her of her honour is forced first to rob her of her senses.
Unable to bring her notwithstanding to his ungenerous views of cohabitation, she awes him in the very entrance of a fresh act of premeditated guilt, in presence of the most abandoned of women assembled to assist his cursed purpose; triumphs over them all by virtue only of her innocence; and escapes from the vile hands he had put her into: nobly, not franticly, resents: refuses to see, or to marry the wretch; who, repenting his usage of so divine a creature, would fain move her to forgive his baseness and make him her husband: and, though persecuted by all her friends and abandoned to the deepest distress, obliged from ample fortunes to make away with her apparel for subsistence, surrounded by strangers, and forced (in want of others) to make a friend of the friend of her seducer. Though longing for death, and making all the proper preparatives for it, convinced that grief and ill usage have broken her noble heart, she abhors the impious thought of shortening her allotted period; and, as much a stranger to revenge as despair, is able to forgive the author of her ruin; she wishes his repentance, and that she may be the last victim to his barbarous perfidy: and is solicitous for nothing so much in this life as to prevent vindictive mischief to and from the man who has used her so basely.
This is penitence! This is piety! And hence a distress naturally arises that must worthily affect every heart.
As we approach Clarissa's death, we see the characters building over-arching narratives of what has happened over the past year. Belford frames this narrative as a tragedy that rivals those of great poets. To what extent does your reading of Clarissa align with Belford's “tragedy”?
I also marked this passage! I like the way Belford tells Clarissa's story here; he seems to really do justice to it.
On thinking of whether or not my understanding of the story aligns with the tragedy described by Belford, I'm trying to decide if there was any point where we could blame Clarissa for any of this. I'm aware of how much this sounds like victim blaming, but considering the prose of the letter, I think it's warranted. Anyway, I don't know that there is, or at least, I don't want to. I think Belford gets it right when he opens by calling Clarissa someone who was “unhappily ensnared by the vows and oaths of a vile rake.” It really seems like anything Clarissa could have done to help herself is miraculously know more about the situation or at least suspect someone who she deemed honorable to be less so OR give in to less virtuous actions that go against what she really wants and marry Lovelace. Other than that, once she realizes how bad the situation is, she repeatedly tries to escape and eventually succeeds.
Belford's language could seem like it's just a bit too much, but this has been a trying, difficult situation that Clarissa never should have had to face, and I think the flowery language telling of her innocence and virtue is warranted.
I found this letter really fascinating, as well, because we see Belford’s narrative skills at work here. I find Belford’s letters so refreshing after reading Lovelace’s fragmented stories about how much he enjoys torturing Clarissa. What really caught my attention about this narrative, though, is Clarissa’s later commentary on Belford’s strengths in writing and how his writing **moves** his readers. Clarissa hopes that Belford’s accounts of her story will somehow affect Lovelace in ways that alter his behavior. She says, “But I should be glad, since you are so humanely affected with the solemn circumstance, that you could have written an account of it to your gay friend, in the style and manner you are master of.” Clarissa notes Belford’s transformative writing “style and manner” that he has “master[ed],” and I think that is exactly what we see in the letter included here. The language he uses demonstrates the extent of the tragedy, and Clarissa appreciates that, and I think we should too. We see here another person who can help construct a narrative that represents the “true Clarissa” after she is gone and do justice to the story she cannot finish.
I loved Jessica's insight that other characters are building their own “over-arching narratives” of Clarissa's life. I had never seen it that way before, but it seems completely convincing. And I also love what Megan and Keri offer in response. I think Belford–especially as a rake on the road to reform (was that too much alliteration?)–does “get it right” (to quote Megan), and that Belford's letters are compelling in not being as fragmented as Lovelace's (to quote Keri).
It's fascinating just how brilliant Richardson is at creating compelling textual voices for every important character in the novel–and every minor one, for that matter.
Just a final comment on the nature of the story as “tragedy”: I noticed that some time in the first three weeks of the course I wrote this comment opposite the title page of my copy: “Because they encounter each other, Clarissa and Lovelace must struggle against–and to assert–their natures. Both lose. The source of the deepest tragedy.” (Amazing the things that good red wine will lead you to transcribe . . .)
Good wine = great insight, Tony.
I think your marginalia is telling in one of the ways we've discussed before: how much Clarissa and Lovelace are both “heroes” of a kind in the novel (to different audiences within the novel, of course). So that the tragedy involves two characters falling from their respective heights. And we as Richardson's audience are party to witnessing both.
I am going to be the odd one out here. I do think Belford tells Clarissa's story as she would have it told. But I think in doing so he leaves some things out. First, we have to see Clarissa as something more than a mere victim for us to care about her and for her story to be a tragedy. This is not blaming the victim, but it is acknowledging that Clarissa does not always completely understand herself. At the beginning of the novel, Anna thought Clarissa was already in love with Lovelace (remember their “conditional love” exchange?). Throughout the novel, Clarissa mis-reads Lovelace in ways that are understandable but nevertheless odd, given everything that is going on. Also, Belford gives us Clarissa's view of Lovelace (the vilest of men) which is just not all Lovelace is. We have seen multiple times when he almost does the right thing. We see remorse at the end. I am going to suggest in class that much of Lovelace's bizarre behavior is a kind of defense mechanism, so that he doesn't have to face what he really knows he did. All this is just to suggest that Belford's story is one way of reading Clarissa, but not the only one. The real story of Clarissa is the entirety of the novel.
I also don't know if Clarissa ever really regarded Lovelace as a “man of honour.” She certainly never thought him capable of those “vilest of arts” we all found so shocking (tricking her into running away, keeping her prisoner, raping her, etc.), but I don't remember her explicitly saying she thought he was honorable. She originally thought he had his good sides, for sure, and the potential to be honorable, but she also seemed to simply consider Lovelace an instrument in getting away from a forced marriage to Solmes. It makes sense, though, that Belford would say this considering his close relationship with Lovelace (and since he had originally supported Lovelace's actions).