The struggles between the characters within the diegesis betray social constructions regarding both women and language that are emblematic of a social class, the then evolving bourgeois class. If poetically speaking, according to Roland Barthes, the whole of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past has arisen from but a few names, 6 names in Clarissa play a role that is yet to be ascertained.ģA debate on the nature of the signifier stems, rather indirectly, from the many discussions on marriage in the novel. 5 This incisive remark does not however lead Kaufman to a thorough examination of the name ―the capacity of naming being equated to that of writing. The eponymous character’s very crime, according to Linda Kaufman, lies precisely in her pretention to name herself: “Her transgression lies not only in her defying her father's authority but in being an author to herself, attempting to name, to define herself to others”. The characters in Clarissa tear each other apart to assert its pre-eminence. It speaks the character just as it is spoken by him or her: the documentary function is doubled by a pragmatic one. The name, just like rumor and money, circulates and is exchanged.

It has to do with what one might call along with Philippe Hamon diffuse speech, 4 as opposed to direct, inasmuch as it is a means of indirectly characterizing participants of the action through their connection to the signifier. 6 Roland Barthes, “Proust et les noms,” Nouveaux essais critiques, Œuvres complètes IV, (Paris: Seui (.)ĢThe name and the associated process of naming are in Clarissa not only a point of contention but also the very goal of the narrative.5 Linda Kaufman, Discourses of Desire, Genre and Epistolary Fiction (Ithaca: Cornell University Pres (.).4 Philippe Hamon, Le Personnel du roman: le système des personnages dans les Rougon-Macquart d'Emile (.).It reminds us, along with Ian Watt, that characters are christened and baptized ―and that their names may not be as arbitrary as ours. 1 This nameless novel, Richardson’s patronym not appearing on the title page, 2 emphasizes from the start the importance of the convention of naming. Lovelace” while MRS SINCLAIR is “the pretended name of a private brothel keeper in London”. TOMLISON, we are told, is “the assumed name of a vile and artful pander to the debaucheries of Mr. It emphasizes the arbitrariness of the name in the novel. 3 Ian Watt, “The Naming of Characters in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding,” The Review of English Stu (.)ġThe dramatis personae presented at the onset of Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa is not only a gallery of portraits but also one of names.2 The title page indirectly identifies the authority responsible for publication as “the editor of P (.).

1 Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady, ed.

Clarissa samuel richardson pages