Adam Yaghi
Prof. Stephan Flores
English 504
Critical Response
Friday, October 13, 2006

In chapter three of Clarissa’s Plots, Lois E. Bueler explicates the nature of the on-going conflict and presents the motives behind its ferocity. Bueler builds a considerable analogy between Clarissa and Job, the Judeo-Christian figure on the basis of the almost identical “Tests” and the resulting suffering they both undergo. Job was tested in his body, wealth and family while, as Bueler states, Clarissa’s test involves a grave loss of wealth, family and friends’ ties and finally the power of mind or reason itself. Her sanity is heavily examined and tested. The wider the gap between Job and his family or the surrounding social circle, the greater his plight is, and the more serious the test becomes.  The same, Bueler argues, is true of Clarissa’s case.
Bueler’s task is “to understand the nature of Clarissa’s test—as Lovelace engineers it and as Clarissa undergoes it” (42). Bueler argues that this test is based on an intricate plan carried out through sequential or serial stages. The first stage of the test according to Bueler has been put into action as a result of the submission and obedience, the Harlowes expected and demanded from Clarissa regarding her marriage, or what Bueler calls “the sexual obedience to patriarchal authority” (42) in order to execute and establish the advancement of the economic plans of the family. Faced with this first stage of the test, the prudent, virtuous, obedient and graceful Clarissa is torn into pieces with the impossible task of evaluating, judging, balancing and to compromising her actions and needs to those of her family. Clarissa, as Bueler believes, relies on her prudence and wisdom to stay a faithful Christian and find her way out of this dark tunnel (44). Thus, she tries to reach a consensus and assuage the growing enmity and antagonism between Lovelace and her family. Lovelace, meanwhile, makes a good use of this growing tension among the Harlowes:
 His chief tool is, ambitious, hot tempered, self-centered Brother James, whose unseemly challenge and subsequent humiliation allow Lovelace to be constructed as a physical threat, whose sadism makes the prospect of Solmes press upon Clarissa to the point of terror, whose fear of Clarissa’s persuasiveness cuts off her access to her father. The result of this unholy alliance, which Lovelace manages with a zestful appreciation for its ironies, is the systematic subversion of all the patterns of authority that have given stability to Clarissa’s life. (53-54)
In this tumultuous and insane familial environment, Clarissa is gradually stripped of any source of guidance than her dependence on her personal judgment, wisdom, and prudence beside Miss Howe’s directions which apparently continue to shrink and dissolve.
        Lovelace next stage is to break the Harlowes’ patriarchal authority through physically separate Clarissa of her family and friends and here the compulsory elopement of Clarissa with him follows. Lovelace’s aim of this separation is to impose his authority and power over Clarissa and render her state of independence to a state of extreme dependency. “This deprivation,” as Bueler states “will quickly proceed to possessions” (54). Bueler continues to argue that “Lovelace imagines that Clarissa is powerful, and therefore is resistant to him, only because she lives in the economic, social and psychological matrix of the Harlowe family. Smash that matrix, or crack it merely, and Clarissa will lose her moorings. Thus lost, she will be forced to turn to him” (54).
Bueler proceeds towards a more elaborate and complex argument: Lovelace is targeting “the woman’s will,” she says (56). This end is achieved “by means of importunity and opportunity….His prime target is never Clarissa’s will; rather, it is her understanding…he in fact always misrepresent his intentions. He actually conducts the Test as though his purpose were, not to move Clarissa, but to confuse her” (57). The end that Lovelace plans to reach out of this misrepresentation is Clarissa’s submission. Bueler says that Lovelace “does not want her [Clarissa] warmth, nor her pleasure. He wants submission—as an end, not merely a means. He wants, not seduction, but enforcement” (60). He is eagerly ambitious to exert and practice the strongest degree of authority over Clarissa.
Consequently, he weaves his sticky net and inescapable snares slowly though tightly around Clarissa. More test stages are imposed on Clarissa: she is incarcerated in Mrs. Sinclair house, forced to dine with Lovelace’s companions, weakened by the fire plot which enabled Lovelace to exert and practice more power and authority over Clarissa, especially after she escapes, entrapped by the false Montague relatives and finally raped (61).  Lovelace has sought knowledge by invading Clarissa’s privacy. Realizing the importance of letters, Clarissa’s only means of communication, and familial support to her, Lovelace starts to read Clarissa’s and her friends’ letters. Moreover, he presumes “to authority over her one piece at a time, substitutes a familial structure of his own invention for that from which he has almost succeeded in detaching her, and dares her to dislodge him” (65).
The final themes, Bueler explores, are marriage and rape. She sees that the novel presents marriage as the only defense mechanism left for the lonely and powerless Clarissa, though Clarissa herself does not agree with this the more she knows Lovelace. Evidently, Miss Howe advises Clarissa to snatch marriage when the terms are fair to her. Lovelace, on the other hand, sees rape as what “makes marriage possible.” He intends to subjugate Clarissa through debasing and degrading her before he resorts to marriage which will be a winning card in his hands against her: “Lovelace intends to force her [Clarissa’s] hand. Knowing his plot, he knows that a virgin raped by an unmarried man has two choices, either one of which will continue the game on his term” (68). She can enjoy herself with him without marriage without even suffering that sense of fault and guilt since she has been forced, or she would beg for marriage. Bueler concludes that by raping Clarissa, Lovelace “will not be forced into marriage; she will. It is she who will beg, he who will grant” (68). Paradoxically, the rape, according to Bueler “frees her [Clarissa] from the test stage of the plot by allowing her to make the last part of her required choice clearly and unequivocally… she can not honorably contract herself to a man essentially dishonorable. The rape shows him definitively for what he is; it gives her knowledge” (69). She dies defiant to Lovelace’s authority and inferiority.
Bueler’s discussion covers most of the serious puzzling questions a reader might ask when he or she is struck by Lovelace’s complex plots and torrent of thoughts. Bueler’s explication and development of the Job-Clarissa Test argument presents Clarissa in fashionable and novel attire: she is guaranteed the status of a saint rather than a sinner. Certainly, Lovelace is equipped with satanic skills that he employs to the utmost in his restless trial to achieve a full control over Clarissa. By the time the rape occurs, the heroine achieves victory and freedom. Her will is stronger than before. She believes herself to be pious and pure even after the rape. To her, sin is based on her individual will and intention rather than the others’ actions against her.
Taking what Bueler has mentioned of her perception of the test’s nature, undoubtedly, it is clear that Clarissa and Lovelace both are undergoing this “Test.” Though Lovelace is the organizer of this test, he himself falls in the same trap he has set for Clarissa. Trying, by all the possible and impossible means he can think of to win, Lovelace fails to retreat or quit this test though he knows that his chances of winning are very limited. Lovelace acknowledges at certain level that this test will lead not to the subjugation and destruction of Clarissa but him.  In letter no.246 to Belford, Lovelace states,
Upon my soul, Jack, it is very foolish thing for a man of spirit to have brought himself to such a height of iniquity, that he must proceed, and cannot help himself; and yet to be next to certain that his very victory will undo him. Why was such a woman as this thrown in my way, whose very fall will be her glory, and perhaps not only my shame, but my destruction? (Richardson 848).
Lovelace artfulness tells him of his inability to win this test or immoral battle, but his pride prevents him from taking a step backwards. He consoles himself and tries to persuade himself, when he address Belford in the same letter, that he still can subdue and bring Clarissa down on her knees before him when he states:
But if I should, Jack (with the strongest antipathy to the state that ever man had), what a figure shall I make in rakish annals? And can I have taken all this pains for nothing? Or for a wife only, that, however excellent (and any woman, do I think, I could make good, because I could make any woman fear as well as love me), might have been obtained without the plague I have been at, and much more reputably than with it? And hast thou not seen that this haughty lady knows not how to forgive with graciousness [he means submit and surrender as well as to praise him as the superior conqueror]? But holds me soul in a suspense, which has been so grievous to her own. (Richardson 846-47)
Lovelace believes that a woman’s love for her man can be forced and imposed upon her mind either by fear or love. The word love equals compliment, or flattery! The woman has no free will to take a minute or two and decide whether she loves the man or not.   
Lovelace is repeatedly frustrated and defeated by Clarissa’s strong will and ability to reject him. She tells him, “If I were in doubt myself which I would prefer; marriage, or the scheme I have mentioned. You cannot think, sir, but the latter must be my choice. I wish to part with you with temper—don’t put me upon repeating” (Richardson 851). She rejects him as a possible husband because he is not the virtuous candidate whom she will accept as a husband. The “Test” proves Clarissa the victor who defeated the artful designer of her test. Lovelace has succeeded to subdue Clarissa physically but failed to defeat her beautiful mind and spirit. She has gained full knowledge and stripped Lovelace of all his mischievous plots following the rape scene.

Works Cited
Bueler, Lois E. Clarissa's Plots. Newark: University of Delaware
       Press; London: Associated University Presses, c1994.
Richardson, Samuel. Clarissa. London: Penguin Books, 1985.