Clarissa Introduction

If you've ever tuned into a telenovela, you know they're about as addicting as a can of Pringles. Well, Clarissa is the ultimate soap opera. Between the family drama, the duel, the secret trysts, and—ahem!—the shocker ending, Clarissa is soapier and sudsier than a bubble bath. Except, y'know, eighteenth-century-style.

And let's be honest, Shmoopers. Samuel Richardson could write a heck of a soap opera when he wanted to (and even when he didn't want to). By the time Clarissa hit the scene in 1748, Richardson had already proven he could write a super-sexy story. You might say Pamela (1740), Richardson's original claim to fame, set the will-she-or-won't-she formula that had all of London reading late into the night. They were so up-in-arms about Richardson's racy style of writing that they formed two camps: the Pamelists and the Anti-Pamelists.

Richardson knew when he had a winning formula, and—like Coca-Cola—he didn't mess with it. Clarissa borrows a bunch of plot points from Pamela, including the virtuous heroine, the devastatingly handsome and devilish dude, and all of those letters. Good thing for Richardson's pocketbook, because even the Anti-Pamelists had to get their Richardson fix by the time Clarissa rolled around.

Long before Americans asked "Who shot J.R?," the British wanted to know if Clarissa would succumb to the dastardly Lovelace. And did she?

Read on to find out. 

 

What is Clarissa About and Why Should I Care?

Clarissa is your girl. You might say she'll explain it all.

We'll show ourselves out.

Okay, okay, we've actually got a lot to say before heading out. First of all, everybody wants to get all up in her love life. Her sister is more into sabotaging all of Clarissa's happiness than hair-braiding and boy talk. And if it isn't bad enough to have a grumpy brother, he has to go and try to murder Clarissa's new boyfriend. Can you even imagine the Facebook drama?

Clarissa might have it a bit worse than the rest of us, but she gets savvy pretty quickly about running interference with her majorly intense family. (Forget about passing notes in class—Clarissa has to find a trustworthy servant to deliver her letters.) And, just like an episode of a '90s sitcom, Clarissa ends with a moral. Richardson always has a moral up his sleeve. The trick is figuring out which moral makes the story tick. Is Clarissa's busy-body family right to be extra-cautious about Lovelace? Or did they inadvertently cause the whole fiasco by being so nosy?

Dating might be better suited to laugh tracks than tragedies these days, but in the eighteenth century, these were big questions. Because most women couldn't earn their own money, they were completely reliant on men to protect them—first fathers, then husbands. Choosing the right husband was literally a life-or-death decision; no wonder all the dads wanted to do the choosing.

In fact, the only choice a girl really had was the power to say no. Even though Clarissa is super-virtuous and obedient, she doesn't have a problem saying "No way, Jose!" to her dad when he wants her to marry Solmes. So, maybe her decision doesn't turn out so well—but would Samuel Richardson say that it was all her fault? Or would everything have turned out fine if her dad had just respect her decision?

Bet you can guess what we think the moral is.