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Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

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of her future been silenced, but so also has her true<br />

inheritance, her merchant upbringing, with its drive and<br />

creativity and puritan work ethic. Miguel Suarez notes,<br />

"The plot of <strong>Clarissa</strong> essentially consists of a single<br />

iterated action: the heroine says 'nof to those who want<br />

to persuade or compel her to assent" (69).<br />

<strong>In</strong> many ways, the language of the family and the<br />

language of the law insinuate themselves into each other<br />

rather than against each other so that the meaning of<br />

"will" is continually disrupted and becomes, at best,<br />

ambiguous. <strong>Clarissa</strong>'s inheritance of an independent will<br />

allows her to leave as her legacy her ability to say<br />

"no." For <strong>Clarissa</strong>, the cultural dynamic that occurs<br />

when the power of inheritance clashes with family<br />

expectations and individual objects profoundly affects<br />

the subjective dynamic that, as Ian Parker states, "tears<br />

at our sense of self as discourses use us" (xiii).<br />

Driven out of her family into the arms of a rake who<br />

installs her in a brothel, then drives her into<br />

seclusion, <strong>Clarissa</strong> comes to realize that the only<br />

effective way to communicate with her family is through<br />

their own language, in a will. Writing her will is an<br />

act she describes as "coolly deliberate" on her part, an<br />

obligation that she for some time has undertaken, so that

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