Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

name, as a mark of her becoming his absolute and
dependent property . . ." (L32.1 148) . According to
Suarez, Clarissa' s understanding of marriage as "no
domain for female autonomy" is disturbingly correct (80).
Katherine Green asserts that, ideally, a woman inhabited
a dependent space within a male territory so that she
never became a litigant or head of household (3).
Inheriting the dairy house made her both, and that was
unacceptable to her brother. Clarissa tried valiantly to
uphold the male patriarchal custom by giving her father
control of her property, and later, by refusing Anna
Howe's urgings to sue Lovelace and her parents. However,
in the end, Clarissa's independent will and her
inheritance so disrupted the language of inheritance in
her family that her only legitimate act of independent
will is her last will and testament.
The dairy house thus becomes the center of
contention within the family, allowing paper wills to
dictate emotional wills. The Harlowe family' s unity,
and, it follows, their language in dealing with one
another alter after the reading of Grandfather Harlowe's
will. In this moment, the Harlowe men perceive Clarissa
as a powerful and dangerous adversary. She tells Anna, '
. . . I, who never designed to take advantage of the