Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

The bawdy Mrs. Sinclair is a housemother to her girls and
Clarissa, while Clarissa herself is a mother to those
involved in her Poor Fund. Toni Bowers elaborates this
point, asserting that "nearly all the adults in the novel
are, in some sense, Clarissa's parents, and one of the
heroine's main problems is that she has altogether too
many parental figures to answer to" (213). Her brother
becomes her father, while Lovelace plays to her need for
a guardian and savior, the heroic male who ironically
presages Christ as her ultimate guardian and savior.
Once the novel presents Grandfather Harlowe's will,
the letters that follow between Anna Howe and Clarissa
catalogue the inheritances of Clarissa and her brother
and sister, all the while detailing the decline of the
Harlowe family happiness as each member reacts to the
conditions set out through Grandfather Harlowe's last
wishes. James, Jr., moves to control Clarissa and her
legacy through his plot to have her marry Solmes. He
sees the marriage as an ironclad way to accumulate the
land and wealth he needs to acquire his title. Clarissa
shares her shrewd assessment of the family's dealing with
Solmes: " . . . now a possibility is discovered (which
such a grasping mind as my brother's can easily turn into
a probability) that my grandfather's estate will revert