In Volume IX, we debated over how Richardson ended the novel in terms of characterization, particularly about each of the main characters. In death, Clarissa seemed to be elevated to an even more archetypal pedestal as an angel once bound to earth and now released to heaven. And yet, we debated, based on some of her posthumous letters (Letters 488 through 492) delivered to her family, we wondered whether or not Clarissa had, in death, assumed a kind of dual positioning as angel and judge. Tony conjectured that she seemed to be engaging in a kind of “balance of genuine forgiveness and unavoidable judgement,” a position that was reflective of her larger Judeo-Christian philosophy. “After all,” Tony reminded us, “the God Clarissa worships is both merciful and just.”

In addition to seeing Clarissa judging her family in her letters, we also discussed how she seemed, as in most things, almost perfect in her vengefulness. Debra and Keri also questioned whether or not we should read Clarissa in these letters as prideful of her own standing in relation to others, her family included. (While Clarissa did exercise agency in writing and in behavior, she did so largely in service of the closure of her narrative—therefore, we have included much discussion of her agentive identity in “Narrative”.)

Meanwhile, we also see the “end” of Lovelace in Volume IX. After Clarissa’s death, Kendra suggested that we began to see Lovelace unravel, in a sense, beginning with his ranting madness in Letter 497. One of his most shocking “demands” to Belford in this letter was a particular flashpoint for us in conversation, both on the blog and in class: “But her heart, to which I have such unquestionable pretensions, in which once I had so large a share, and which I will prize above my own, I will have. I will keep it in spirits. It shall never be out of my sight.” Debra noted that Lovelace was likely “(literally) out of his mind at this point. He later only vaguely remembers writing it, and he doesn’t pursue any of this,” including demanding her body for burial in his own family plot, and so forth.

In this particular letter (Letter 497), Megan also noted that Lovelace seemed to have departed from the usual “self” we had come to expect. She argued “It seems like a very different style of writing,” noting the absence of his usual “command of language” and “ability to persuade and convince.” This letter suggests, Megan continued, that he has made a “complete departure from the smooth, suave writer we came to know” in previous volumes. Meghan agreed, noting in the same letter that Lovelace seemed artlessly straightforward, lacking the same kind of rhetorical prowess or any of the usual contrivance we had come to expect from him.

Although we had often discussed whether or not Lovelace had a “self” that we could locate, or that he himself could lay claim to—it was most interesting how this language of “self” kept coming up in our comments on his last letters throughout Volume IX. Even when we think a character may have no central “self,” do we end up returning to this language anyway—because we have no choice? Because we cannot imagine such a character or person through our own 21st century lenses? In Letter 511, we noted that Lovelace did not seem “himself.” As he wrote, “But it won’t do!—I must again lay down my pen.—O Belford! Belford! I am still, I am still most miserably absent from myself!—Shall never, never more be what I was!”

Picking up on this “absence” of self—which he had not previously claimed—Meghan noted that he seemed like a changed man, a call that Debra took up again in Lovelace’s next to last letter, Letter 535, which he opens by declaring, “Indeed, indeed, Belford, I am, and shall be, to my latest hour, the most miserable of beings.” We agreed that this was the closest to repentance that we saw Lovelace, painfully absent from himself, until his last words in Letter 537, “LET THIS EXPIATE!” In the blog, Tony brought in his own conversation with Debra on Lovelace’s loss of his own will to live, which Jessica supported as well based on his lack of performance in the duel with Colonel Morden. In class, we also discussed who Lovelace seemed to be speaking “to” in this letter, in his last words—and we settled on Clarissa.

In this way, each of their “last words” (his spoken words to her after her death; her written words to him before her death) is uttered to the other in a way that brings so much of the novel full-circle. But rather than opening up the initial possibilities of their relationship through correspondence, they each close their “correspondence” by directing themselves to a version of the other that is (still) not present and is (again, still) largely imagined, called into being by their own responses yet silent due to the impossibility of any reply.