Imprisonment, resistance and circularity in Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa

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...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ang, Jinghui
Other Authors: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Format: Final Year Project
Language:English
Published: 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10356/50539
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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Summary: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.