Volume 6 of Clarissa opens with Lovelace in a characteristic state of self-justification, his letters to Belford weaving conditional promises with renewed scheming. The epistolary form here sharpens the contrast between his calculated levity—he calls it “gravity”—and Clarissa’s strained composure. In an early garden meeting, she speaks of wanting only “to slide into some obscure corner,” a phrase that captures her withdrawal from all former ties. Lovelace, by contrast, debates with a personified “God of Love,” a rhetorical device that lays bare his internal conflict between conscience and predatory design. The volume’s tension hinges on these opposing voices: one reaching toward resignation, the other toward control.

Lovelace’s Rhetoric of Self-Deception

Lovelace’s letters in this volume are exercises in moral acrobatics. He frames his “darling and hitherto-baffled views” as reasonable, even noble, while acknowledging his “vileness” to Clarissa. His “whimsical contest with his conscience” is not a genuine struggle but a performance: he stages debates with abstract figures—the God of Love, his own conscience—to rationalize coercion. When he writes of “his latest adieu to it,” the theatricality undercuts any sincerity. His language oscillates between flattery (“my dearest creature”) and menace (“further violences are intended me”), revealing a mind that treats persuasion as a tactical game. The reader sees him obtain Miss Howe’s letter through manipulation, then dissect it for advantage, treating female friendship as a weakness to exploit.

Clarissa’s Composure Under Duress

Clarissa’s responses, filtered through Lovelace’s reports and her own minutes, show a woman striving for “a composure which I never more expected to see you in.” She explicitly disclaims vengeance and renounces reconciliation with her family, declaring herself “unworthy of their favour.” Her language is measured but charged: she calls Lovelace “a barbarous enemy” yet controls her vehemence. The physical details—red eyes, a three-hour stomach-ache, sleeplessness—ground her spiritual anguish in bodily suffering. Her refusal to bind “my soul in covenant with so vile a man” asserts a moral agency that Lovelace cannot override. Even in despair, she frames her fate as providential: “I will leave to Providence … the direction of my future steps.”

The Structural Tension of Epistolary Voices

Richardson’s method in this volume relies on the juxtaposition of letters that never meet. Lovelace writes at length to Belford, detailing schemes and parsing Clarissa’s every word; Clarissa’s voice appears only in fragments—her “minutes” and reported speech. This asymmetry creates a power imbalance that the reader must navigate. Lovelace’s detailed accounts of his “plausible arguments” and his coaching of the pretended Lady Betty and Miss Montague expose the machinery of deception. Meanwhile, Clarissa’s sparse, direct statements—like “I never will, that I never can be your’s”—carry disproportionate weight. The reader is left to infer her full state from what Lovelace chooses to report, a limitation that mirrors her confinement.

Readers attentive to Richardson’s craft will notice how the volume’s pacing—alternating between Lovelace’s manic plotting and Clarissa’s still resistance—generates a claustrophobic rhythm. The epistolary gaps invite scrutiny: what is left unsaid, what is distorted. Pay particular attention to the moments when Clarissa’s own writing breaks through Lovelace’s narrative, as these offer the most direct access to her interiority. The volume does not resolve the central conflict but deepens it, leaving the reader suspended between hope and dread.