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

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СКАЧАТЬ obedience. Eventually, the hero finds a solution for this double-bind; Clementina is granted the exertion of her free choice (cf. 3.6). However, for Clarissa, the conflict will ultimately be solved by taking on herself the sin of leaving her “father’s house”. By actually becoming and taking on the role of a sinful daughter (both of Mr. Harlowe and of God), her guilt as well as her merit become visible and meaningful. Clarissa becomes both Eve-like and Christ-like; a sinner as well as an innocent sufferer who takes on herself the guilt of others.

      The contradictory demands for openness and cheerful submission are replayed in Clarissa’s relationship to Lovelace. Like Mr. Harlowe, Lovelace desires Clarissa’s submission,7 and like her mother, he desires that this should be an expression of her interiority: “The heart, Clary, is what I want”, Mrs. Harlowe insists (103). The demand is perhaps an echo of such passages as this one from The Whole Duty of Man: God “requires the heart, and not the lips only” of those who pray (126; Sunday V). Uttered by mere human beings, however, it takes on different connotations. Significantly, Mrs. Harlowe’s word “want”, unlike the term chosen by AllestreeAllestree, Richard, can be interpreted as both ‘desire’ and ‘lack’; both are equally true for the Harlowes and for Lovelace (cf. R. EricksonErickson, Robert A. 188, 205). Demanding the heart is, in effect, a demand for the whole being of a person: “The heart, physiologically as well as in the sense of mind, emotion, sincerity, courage, commitment, integrity, inner religious conviction, and above all—by the mid-eighteenth century—compassion, comes to stand for the essential core of humanity” (R. Erickson 186).

      Despite these similarities between Lovelace and the Harlowes, however, there is a crucial difference. The demands of Clarissa’s family are ultimately reconcilable with social norms. If she could control herself so entirely as to marry Solmes and become a respectful wife, the Harlowes (at least the older generation) would be satisfied. This is not so with Lovelace, whose attitude to the system of duty, as we have seen above, is selfishly ambivalent if not hostile. The idea that Clarissa might be influenced by other motives than her feelings for him “mortifies [his] pride”: “this exalted creature, if I were to marry her, would not be governed in her behaviour to me by love, but by generosity merely, or by blind duty; and had rather live single, than be mine” (669). Lovelace counters this mortifying vision by an alternative of his own. His ideal Clarissa is not only “governed” by true love, but is even oblivious to everything except Lovelace’s desires:

      I would have the woman whom I honour with my name, if ever I confer this honour upon any, forgo even her superior duties for me. I would have her look after me when I go out, as far as she can see me […]; and meet me at my return with rapture. I would be the subject of her dreams, as well as of her waking thoughts. I would have her look upon every moment lost, that is not passed with me: sing to me, read to me, play to me when I pleased; no joy so great as in obeying me. […] Be a Lady Easy to all my pleasures, and valuing those most, who most contributed to them; only sighing in private, that it was not herself at the time […]. (669–70)

      And when his obsessive8 analysis and manipulation of Clarissa ends in her utter rejection of him and in her death, he demands, now literally, what he could not attain in her life: “her heart, to which I have such unquestionable pretensions […]. I will keep it in spirits” (1384). In their absolute demands on Clarissa, the Harlowes and Lovelace arrogate to themselves God’s place. Lovelace goes even further in this than the heroine’s family; while they see her duty as culminating in obedience to her family, Lovelace’s wishes in the above quote go directly against the system of duty. Their desire to keep Clarissa to themselves succeeds, indeed, in partly severing her bonds to other human beings. However, as, in David GrahamGraham, David, correspondent of Richardson’s words, she “steadily […] keep[s her] Eye on [God]” (cf. 1.2), this merely results in her turning from them and to God: “God will have no rivals in the hearts of those he sanctifies” (1338).

      Like the Harlowes and Lovelace, Anna Howe desires Clarissa’s heart. In contrast to them, however, she neither expects to fill all Clarissa’s heart, nor does she arrogate to herself a right to control. Instead, knowledge of her friend’s feelings – due, as they both agree, to their friendship – will enable her to give the best possible advice. However, both Anna and Lovelace frequently find that the feelings they impute to Clarissa cannot be ascertained to be either real or not. What is at issue is not only the question of which feelings Clarissa may actually hide, but also what the quality of those feelings is. Clarissa’s “heart” is controllable and yet unmanageable, an open book and yet opaque. When Belford for the first time tries to persuade Lovelace to marry her, he notes Lovelace’s inconsistency in pleading both that Clarissa has been led into error by him, and so may be seduced by others, and that Clarissa does not love him enough: “are not the pretences thou makest for further trial most ungratefully, as well as contradictorily, founded upon the supposition of error in her, occasioned by her favour to thee?” For Belford, “there is no reason to doubt” that Clarissa is in love, although she has such “a command […] over herself, that such a penetrating self-flatterer as [Lovelace is] sometimes ready to doubt it” (502). However, although Belford’s is an accurate summary of Lovelace’s wavering, it also emphasizes difficulties of interpretation, for if self-control can hide love, how can love be ascertained?

      To the extent that Lovelace’s wavering is caused by his difficulties of reading Clarissa – as opposed to his general unwillingness to marry – it has as much to do with a struggle with the system of duty as with his struggle with a specific woman. Lovelace feels uncomfortable with this system, which is based on individual roles rather than on the equal return of actions. Legally and financially independent, the system of duty would still press him into obligations which he shuns. As we have seen, he usually acknowledges duties based on status only to press it into his own service: his uncle is “undutiful” and therefore undeserving of respect; Anna breaks a maternal command, and therefore should be punished by him. His wilful misreading of the system shows to what extent the system of duty puts high demands even onto those most seemingly powerful. For although this code may criminalize opposition to a man like Lovelace, directly subordinate only to political authority, he is still bound by it to his duty, a state he finds intolerable: “Everything I do that is good is but as I ought!—Everything of a contrary nature is brought into the most glaring light against me!—Is this fair?” (420).

      Mr. B., the rake who reforms and who marries the woman he has pursued, does think it fair. When Pamela suffers from anxiety before the wedding, he comforts her by reminding her that he “joyfully subscribe[s]” to every part of the marriage service (340). Because the duties of spouses are reciprocal, and because both he and Pamela want to fulfil their obligations to each other, everything will turn out well. Lovelace, in contrast, desires a position where he is under no obligations, so that all his good deeds are voluntary favours. In matters where he is just or generous – good manners, generosity to tenants or to “his Rosebud” – he tries to draw on a system of gift giving where, having the power to oblige others, he can then control them through their duty to reciprocate. However, according to the system of duty, these same acts are merely the fulfilled duties of justice and charity. As Clarissa stresses more than once (sometimes too severely, but in general justly), he has no right to be proud of doing merely what he should: “TRUE GENEROSITY is not confined to pecuniary instances: it is more than politeness: it is more than good faith: it is more than honour: it is more than justice: since all these are but duties, and what a worthy mind cannot dispense with” (594).

      However, Lovelace does not ‘merely’ wilfully abuse the system of duty; rather, he seems genuinely puzzled by it. When he ponders Clarissa’s feelings for him or admires her virtue, he is disturbed by the ways in which her emotions may be due to her sense of moral duty rather than to his influence over her. Unlimited agency – not only inward, but outward – is paramount for Lovelace. Indeed, TaylorTaylor, E. Derek diagnoses “a ‘god-complex’” (Reason and Religion 120): to describe his actions, Lovelace uses the language of divine power, and like God, he combines omnipotence with the claim that he is not responsible for his creatures’ СКАЧАТЬ