Imprisonment, resistance and circularity in Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa

Abstract

This essay argues the circularity of the motif of imprisonment in Samuel Richardson's "Clarissa" where it is Clarissa's captors who ultimately suffers imprisonment rather than Clarissa herself. Bringing in Foucault, feminist thinker Beauvoir and Sartre's notion of "bad faith", this essay provides a reading of "Clarissa" in a continuing dialogue with earlier Clarissa critics like Margaret Doody, Terry Castle, Terry Eagleton and Maud Ellmann to liberate Clarissa from the much argued position of a victim rather than a triumphant resistant fighter who obtains a liberation her captors does not.