One Great Family: Domestic Relationships in Samuel Richardson's Novels. Simone Höhn

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СКАЧАТЬ Duty of Man for support, for AllestreeAllestree, Richard explains that, if someone thinks erroneously that the action he is going to commit is a sin and does it nevertheless, this “may make an indifferent action that is in itself no sin, become one. For though my Conscience should err in telling me such a thing were unlawful, yet so long as I were so perswaded, it were sin for me to do that thing” (74; Sunday III).

      Richardson eventually brought MulsoMulso, Hester, correspondent of Richardson to partly retract her statement and concede that the marriage vow is not a statement of present love, but a promise to “endeavour to love” (219). In a world where daughters have little power to evade a forced marriage, it is to some extent reassuring to believe that Clarissa, had she yielded to her parents, would not have been guilty of perjury. On the other hand, this interpretation could be a justification for forced marriage, as Mulso was quick to notice. Richardson seems to have suggested to her that Clarissa would have loved Solmes had she married him.3 MulsoMulso, Hester, correspondent of Richardson reacted with shocked indignation:

      […] I did not expect […] of Mr. Richardson, that however strong your aversion may be to your lover, you can’t fail of loving your husband; as if the ceremony of marriage could […] remove the natural antipathy between worth and baseness, between good sense and folly, between the grovelling, dirty little soul of a Solmes, and that of the almost divine Clarissa. (215)

      She therefore still insisted that Clarissa, and in fact “every woman”, “as a rational creature, […] must have a right to refuse to shackle her conscience with a vow, if she does not choose it” (245). After all, Clarissa herself describes the traumatic aspects even of a happy marriage in a moving plea to her uncle John:

      To be given up to a strange man; to be engrafted into a strange family; to give up her very name, as a mark of her becoming his absolute and dependent property: to be obliged to prefer this strange man to father, mother—to everybody: and his humours to all her own—Or to contend, perhaps, in breach of a vowed duty for every innocent instance of free will: to go no-whither: to make acquaintance: to give up acquaintance—to renounce even the strictest friendships perhaps; all at his pleasure, whether she think it reasonable to do so or not. Surely, sir, a young creature ought not to be obliged to make all these sacrifices but for such a man as she can approve. (148–9)

      Since the status of wife entails a re-construction of the bride’s entire network of duty and of her very identity, it should never be forced on a woman.

      Besides the diversity of duties, Clarissa (and her creator) draw on her general dutifulness as evidence for her good motives in this case. As both Anna and Lovelace observe, and as the Harlowes themselves occasionally complain, it is they who are blamed in their contention with Clarissa. From the first letter, it is clear that Clarissa is both “the subject of the public talk” and “the public care” (39). Indeed, as Anna formulates it, “[e]very eye, in short, is upon you with the expectation of an example” (40). Despite her integration into her family and the community as a whole, Clarissa’s merits have singled her out, disposing people to take side with her (at least in theory), but also ensuring the inconveniences of public talk – which will enrage, but not otherwise influence, the Harlowes. (Lovelace, too, has been attracted by public talk about Clarissa’s virtues, cf. 143). While the “family union” (80) lasted, Clarissa’s reputation reflected positively on the Harlowes (584). However, once she resists one of their commands, the “union” is broken, and the contention invites comparison between the relative merits of the different family members. Thus, if Clarissa is in the right, it follows that blame must attach to the other Harlowes, and if she is in the wrong, then the family paragon must have feet of clay. To compel her to obey, the Harlowes quickly confine Clarissa’s sphere of action. She is ‘discouraged’ from attending church (62), an action which in itself casts doubt on the purity of their motives, as “no man must […] absent himself [from public worship] without a just cause” (AllestreeAllestree, Richard 49; Sunday II; cf. also LatimerLatimer, Bonnie, Making Gender 144).

      Given their negligence of the duty of public worship, it is not surprising that the Harlowes also confine Clarissa’s actions in the worldly sphere and limit her opportunities to fulfil her duties to her ‘neighbours’. The keys needed for, as well as symbolising, her housekeeping are taken away; servants are discouraged from talking to her; she is forbidden to visit, leave the house or correspond. The only freedom left to her is that of going into the garden – a freedom which, on the level of the ‘real author’, is necessary for the continuance of the story. On the level of the diegesis, it is motivated by the Harlowes’ trust in their servants’ watchfulness (cf. 164) and Clarissa’s continuing ‘prudence’. More than this, however, it highlights the way in which Clarissa is less confined to a place than barred from places, people, and action. Her imprisonment involves a sudden stop not only of her socialising (although, as Uncle Antony taunts her, she was never “fond of” visiting anyway; 155), but of her visits to the poor, of alms-giving, of advising and being advised by her friends or mentors. She loses the opportunity of doing active work in the household or of teaching the servants. That she has done the latter is implied by the gullible, treacherous servant Joseph Leman, who tells Lovelace (and himself) that he has “kept my young lady’s pressepts always in mind” (386) at the very time that he has become the villain’s agent. If Clarissa’s “precepts” have done little good in this case, they are at least preferable to the Harlowes’ choice of Leman as a spy on Lovelace – something which gives the latter an opportunity to corrupt him.

      By reducing her scope of action to the one duty they want her to perceive, Clarissa’s family hope to subdue her strength. Succeeding in cutting off Clarissa’s correspondence out of the house would amount to a restriction of her field of action to private prayer and meditation, on the one hand, and to her duty as a daughter, on the other. They basically set the form of hierarchy – the almost unlimited duty of child to parent – against the form of the network. It is James Harlowe junior who expresses this point most openly: “But, sweet child! as your worthy mamma Norton calls you, think a little less of the matrimonial (at least till you come into that state), and a little more of the filial, duty” (223). There is an element of hubris to such an enforced reduction of Clarissa’s sphere of action: the Harlowes – even while neglecting some of their own duties – place themselves at the centre of Clarissa’s obligations, a place which is due only to God. As the novel plays out and Clarissa’s sphere of action is further reduced, she does indeed focus her duty on its ultimate source: “GOD ALMIGHTY WOULD NOT LET ME DEPEND FOR COMFORT UPON ANY BUT HIMSELF” (1356). Thus, by preventing Clarissa from attending to all her duties, both the Harlowes and Lovelace force on her a single-minded attention to God, the ultimate source and centre of all duties. However, even here, Clarissa does not neglect any subsidiary duties, as is shown, among other things, in her meticulous inclusion of everyone connected to her in her will, and in her gradual, conscious “weaning” (cf. 1306, 1372) herself of even her dearest friendships.

      As the Harlowes attempt to confine Clarissa, they also confine themselves. A little over a month after she herself has been stopped from church-going (cf. 62), the heroine can remark: “Nobody, it seems, will go to church this day [April 9]. No blessing to be expected perhaps upon views so worldly, and in some so cruel” (362). More charitable constructions would be possible; after all, the family had been shocked and frightened by Lovelace’s appearance at their church not long ago (where, significantly but “happily”, Clarissa’s brother was absent; 140). Nevertheless, their voluntary absence is an indication that they set their aims concerning Clarissa above public worship – she, in contrast, never voluntarily stops going to church, even at the risk of falling into the hands of her parents, after the elopement, or of Lovelace, after her first escape from him. The Harlowes’ negligence is at least more harmless than Lovelace’s attitude, however: when Clarissa prepares to go to church for the first time in London, he is surprised and almost comically unprepared: “Who could have dreamt of such a whim as this?” (538).

      The Harlowes’ exclusion of anyone who disagrees with their views about СКАЧАТЬ