Most Richardson scholarship mentions that Clarissa shares affinities with drama; however, with the exception of three books and a few articles, there is no comprehensive study of the drama's effect upon the composition of the work. No one work deals with all areas in which drama affected the novel, and no one work deals exclusively with Clarissa. The drama influenced the composition of the novel in three ways: First, tragedy and theories of neoclassic tragedy exerted an influence upon the work. Richardson himself defended his novel in terms of eighteenth-century views of tragedy. Secondly, Restoration and early eighteenth-century plays affected the plot, character portrayals, and language of Clarissa. Lastly, Richardson adapted techniques of the stage to the novel so that Clarissa, though an epistolary novel, achieves the manner, if not the effect, of the theater.

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This thesis examines Richardson's representation in Clarissa of the heroine's triumphant death. It considers Clarissa's triumph in relation to the implicit doctrine of freedom of the will and the constitution of the self. Clarissa and Lovelace represent the uncontrollable freedom of the human will and exemplify its potentiality either to choose the good or to subject itself to the desire for power and self-gratification. Chapter one of this thesis discusses Clarissa in relation to the theories of several current literary theoreticians whose work constitutes a response to Kant's ideas on freedom and ethical decisions. The remaining chapters seek through close reading and interpretation of key scenes in the novel to understand what Richardson meant to represent through Clarissa's triumphant death. The argument reassesses Richardson's use of exemplary figures to embody his spiritual and moral ideas. It addresses the problem of ambiguity in Clarissa's forgiveness of her persecutors. Richardson's representation of Clarissa's triumph has both worldly and spiritual aspects. Acting always in accordance with principled choice (second-order evaluations), Clarissa resists all attempts to subjugate her; she reconstitutes her identity to become a Christian heroine. She achieves spiritual transcendence through penitence for her errors, forgiveness of those who have injured her and complete resignation to the will of God. Lovelace's misuse of free will and his refusal to relinquish his libertine identity and reform lead to his final worldly and spiritual defeat. Through their lives and deaths Clarissa and Lovelace demonstrate that individuals are responsible for the choices they make, for the identities they establish, and that they must accept the consequences of their choices.

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This paper proposes that Samuel Richardson consciously created the motivational complexity of Clarissa Harlowe. The arguments are the following: eighteenth-century scientific interest in motivation influenced Richardson, his Puritanism led him to suspect and emphasize motive, his frequent use of the word motive suggests an awareness, his choice of the epistolary form is ideal for revealing motives, his attention to the ambiguity of motives indicates his interest, and his complexly motivated Clarissa demands a conscious creator. The last argument constitutes the principal section of the study, and Clarissa's motives are analyzed from the events prior to the elopement, through the rape in London, and finally to her death. She is studied as a product of eighteenth-century decorum, individualism, and Puritanism, but also as an intricate personality.

This thesis presents an analysis of the ghosts in Samuel Richardson’s 1747-48 novel Clarissa, and synthesizes traditional literary criticism on that novel with British folklore and ghost traditions. It examines the novel historically and demonstrates that Richardson’s novelistic approach changed between 1740 when he wrote Pamela and 1747 when he began writing Clarissa in that he relies on the ghost image to discuss the complexities of individual identity. In Clarissa, Richardson outdoes his previous attempt at depicting reality in Pamela because his use of the ghost motif allows the audience to see beyond the physical reality of the plot into the spiritual depths of the human heart. Clarissa involves the journey of a young woman attempting to establish a sense of identity and selfhood, and the ghosts of the novel supply a lens for interpreting her course toward a sense of self that transcends the material world, its wants, its objectives, its myriad institutions, and the identity she has constructed by association with those entities.

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Coffins, Closets, Kitchens, and Convents uses anthropologist Liz Kenyon's categories of home, Gaston Bachelard's theories on the importance of imagination and metaphor in home building, as well as literary criticism, sociology, and feminist theory to examine values of "home" in various literary works of the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. This dissertation's focus on the struggles within traditional home spheres highlights the female characters' need of a protected space. Yet these characters realize they must allow for connections with various individuals to bring about such a safe space. Through the creative act of writing, Mary Leapor's Mira in the poem, "Crumble Hall," Samuel Richardson's title character in Clarissa, and Toni Morrison's Claudia MacTeer in The Bluest Eye and the convent women in Paradise, each oppressed within the home sphere, gain full access to all that the idealized home entails in constructing their individual homes; they rewrite space into a home of their own. The chapters herein are organized from lower-class to higher-class female characters beginning in the eighteenth century with Leapor's servant narrator and moving up to Richardson's higher-class character, followed by Morrison's twentieth century impoverished youth in The Bluest Eye and variety of women both impoverished and well-off residing together in a convent in Paradise.