A Higher Judgment Outside Humanity
As we see the innocence of Clarissa’s character tragically lost, Samuel Richardson displays the destruction caused by youthful fancy and parental oppression. Through Clarissa’s death, the reader is left with an overwhelming feeling towards Clarissa’s virtue as the epitome of goodness that Richardson wishes us to revere for its constancy. However, because of the self-willed nature of her untimely demise, the text sheds light to the inhumanity of bearing such ideological thoughts and regimented way of life in reality. What remains evident throughout the novel is that because of her overwhelming desire to be virtuous, Clarissa alienates herself from the judgments of society, is alienated and estranged from her family, is disembodied from her own humanity. What we find is that Clarissa’s death does not stand necessarily as social commentary against the injustices of the world, but rather as evidence of Clarissa’s inability to reconcile her personal beliefs and the laws of the world, her imagined existence and compromises necessary in order to survive.