Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady
Half a year
it took me to get through this one, but then I can also say I have read one of
the longest novels in English literature. And, yeah, it is a tough one to get
through, but also worthwhile. It moves at glacial speed, but because of that we
get details, facets, aspects that enrich the tale to an extent few other novels
achieve.
The basic
story is not very complex. Clarissa is a young lady of 18 years of a wealthy,
landed family. She is the virtuous youngest child of three with a covetous and
choleric brother and an envious sister. When Clarissa gets courted by the hated
Robert Lovelace, the brother and sister sets the entire family up against her
to make her marry a terrible, but rich fellow named Solmes, partly to avoid
Lovelace and partly to get back at their beloved-by-all sister.
Clarissa
counts dutifulness to her parents among her many important virtues, but
marrying Solmes is too much. Instead she wants to remain single. The family
does not buy this but insists this is just so she can marry Lovelace. He, in
turn, is a certified libertine and is encouraging this resentment hoping it
will move Clarissa to run away with him. He almost succeeds, but when Clarissa
changes her mind, he tricks her and take her with him to London.
Lovelace
does not intend to marry her, he just wants to get into her pants, seeing her
virtuousness merely as a challenge worthy of him. He employs all his talents
for schemes and plots, gets her installed in a house that is actually a
brothel, invent characters, one of which is supposed to promote a
reconciliation with her family, and finally he resorts to sedation and rape.
This attack
on her virtue is so hard a blow that Clarissa resolves to die as the only means
to recover her virtue and while suicide is out of the question, she “dies of
shame”.
It is
obvious that Clarissa is the good girl besieged by the villain Lovelace and her
implacable family and that only her virtue saves her. It is in the tone that we
are supposed to admire her and despise Lovelace. But it is not as simple as
that. For all her qualities Clarissa is singularly incapable of helping
herself. So stuck is she in her ideas of correct behavior that she cannot save
herself from her family or from Lovelace. Yes, she makes an escape, but it is
almost pathetically poorly executed and all options of taking her fate into her
own hands are consequently refused with a “leave me alone” petulant attitude.
Her friend, Miss Howe, whom she styles her letters to, is an altogether more
resourceful type, and although both Clarissa and the author constantly chide
her for her independency, there is also a hidden admiration as if secretly the
author actually prefers her qualities, contrary to the generally accepted
sentiment of the age.
In the same
way, while we are supposed to despise Lovelace, it is difficult not to see him
as a lot more interesting man than anybody else in the story. Sure, he carries
his manipulations too far and has a very high opinion of himself, but his far
more practical and joyful approach to life is adventurous and he main error is
that he has thrown his love on the one woman who is completely unresponsive to
his charms.
So, beneath
the story of good versus evil, there is an undercurrent of criticism against
over-zealous virtue and the passive state women are supposed to be kept in.
The story
would have been entirely different if Clarissa had taken the consequence of the
impossible options of obliging the family (by marrying Solmes) or obliging
Lovelace, by choosing an active third option, such as leaving England, rather
than the passive one of “the single life”. She could have taken Miss Howe up on
the offer to go away with her or at least accept her financial support for a
solution away from her family and Lovelace, but meekness is a virtue, and
constantly those virtues force her to take the wrong decisions, camouflaged as
the right decision, ultimately leading to her “blessed” death.
How about
matching up Howe and Lovelace? Then Clarissa could have the dull and prudent
Mr. Hickman. But then of course there would be no story.
“Clarissa”
is definitely a story of its age. The gender politics are antiquated and the emphasis
on virtue is tiresome. Yet it remains an interesting read, not least because of
its epistolary format. The 537 letters give a unique view into the minds of
people of the mid-eighteen century and the characters manage to become very
much alive. I am happy I got to read it.
