Pulling up the Drawbridge
Clarissa read-along: Letters 36 to 55
Dear friends,
After reading over 70 pages of Clarissa this week, very little has happened in terms of the plot. Since Lovelace startled our Clarissa in the woodhouse last Saturday, she’s been confined at home and subjected to more visits from extended family pressing her to marry Mr Solmes. Her refusals have led to yet more flinging out, dropping to knees and general yelling. What we do know, is that the wedding is planned for two weeks time - “this day fortnight” writes Clarissa’s mother on Tuesday 21 March. Until this time, Clarissa is now threatened with confinement at her Uncle Anthony’s, in a house with its own chapel and moat. Clarissa fears the drawbridge will be pulled up, leaving her no possible chance of escape (which makes her seem like a cursed princess in a fairytale). There have been more threats of violence and suicide this week than any other, showing how desperate everyone is becoming. The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been.
Condensed into a single paragraph it sounds pretty exciting, but Richardson sure knows how to drag things out. The length of the letters and their repetitions are becoming a bit tedious, but the glacial pace has also given us a few subtle character shifts. Clarissa is definitely becoming more outspoken, resolving to be meek and gentle no more — something I’ve relished. Her brother and sister have risen to the challenge, becoming even more spiteful, and this hasn’t gone unnoticed by some members of the family, namely Aunt Hervey. The older women - Aunts Hervey and Norton, and even Clarissa’s mother - have shown much more warmth this week too. Sadly it only reveals how much power the family’s men have over them. No one will listen to their pleas.
Meanwhile Lovelace may have overplayed his hand. After winning Clarissa round a little in the woodhouse, his sly visit to Anna Howe hasn’t gone down at all well with our girls.
Perhaps Richardson himself wondered if the bleak tone of these chapters might be a bit monotonous, because we get a wonderful lighthearted letter from Anna right in the middle (letter 46), a complete tonal shift. Anna herself even references its whimsy. She makes fun of her suitor Mr Hickman, painting him as a nervous blunderer (I got a bit of a Mr Collins vibe) and writes that:
“All men are monkeys more or less, or else that you and I should have such baboons as these to choose out of is a mortifying thing, my dear.”
I only hope Richardson gives us more gems like this next week.
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Featured image is The Harlowe Family, from Samuel Richardson's ‘Clarissa’ by Joseph Highmore (1692–1780) courtesy of Yale Center for British Art
Richardson does the same in Pamela, returning constantly to the same points over and over again with subtle shifts. It's an interesting technique but can be draining. I'm reading Tristram Shandy at the moment and the plot progression in that famously digressive book seems fast compared to Clarissa.