Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

empowered as such to make all decisions regarding the
running of the manor and the lands.
The unnaturalness of the Harlowe family situation is
not James, Jr.'s possession and control of the family
estate, but his financial need to control his sister, who
should still be under the jurisdiction of his father.
Richardson deliberately makes young Harlowe a fanatical
tyrant. He writes Aaron Hill that he is not sure he made
the family's treatment of Clarissa or the antagonistic
nature of her brother and sister's instigation of the
rest of the family's resentment toward her clear and
apparent enough for his readers (Selected Letters 74).
Richardson did make apparent, however, the possibility of
shifts in power when resettlement of an estate occurs.
James, Jr., becomes what Lawrence Stone calls
"influential kin," one of the " 'friends' . . . who often
assumed the right of the control or veto [in marriage]
and were in a position to enforce their will by granting
or withholding favors, be it money, house, property or
good will . . . " (15) . Desire for property and rank
consumes James, Jr., as it does his father and uncles.
Clarissa writes Anna, "I have more than once mentioned to
you the darling view some of us have long had of raising
a family . . . A view . . . entertained by families which