CROSSING BORDERS IN SAMUEL RICHARDSON'S CLARISSA; OR, THE "LADDER OF DEPENDANCE" REVISITED

"As the Vine curls her tendrils, which impli'd / Subjection ..."

-John Milton, Paradise Lost

One of the most striking images Henry Fielding offers in Joseph Andrews (1742) is that of the "Ladder of Dependance" (137), up and down which "High People and Low People" (136) move. In that digression, which explains why Slipslop refuses to recognize Fanny, Fielding underlines the importance of social classes as well as the possibility of crossing the borders separating them. He is deeply aware of the consequences of relativity and of the exchange of positions, for "those bordering nearly on each other, to-wit the lowest of the High and the highest of the Low, often change their Parties according to Place and Time" (137). A shift from the High to the Low, Fielding says, entails "a Condenscention," or even "a Degradation" (137), and it is well known that the author, who came from a family linked to the aristocracy, was deeply attached to the respect of hierarchy.

Fielding in Joseph Andrews is probably alluding to Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1741), in which the heroine's change of status through marriage was so much resented by some of the novel's characters and by some readers that the middle-class novelist had to write a sequel to justify his character's intrinsic value and the transgression of borders between commoners and gentry. Unaware of the fact that her brother has married their late mother's former servant, Lady Davers reproaches the servant with showing no respect for hierarchy: "You'll forget your distance and bring me to your level before my time" (340). On seeing Mr. B.'s letter, in which he acknowledges the marriage, Lady Davers criticizes him for "stooping to such painted dirt, to the disgrace of a family, ancient and untainted beyond most in the kingdom" (355). In that scene of quarrel, Richardson says that Pamela, unlike her sister-in-law, never loses her temper, thereby suggesting that the superior character-from the moral point of view-is not the one who is such according to social standards. The novelist also shows that Lady Davers fails to see that her brother has become emotionally and religiously dependent on Pamela, and that the marriage does not prevent him from sticking to old-fashioned rules (331).

In Shamela (1741), Fielding shows how transgressive Richardson's first novel is. Feeling shocked at his rival's lack of respect for social hierarchy, he denounces the heroine's shortcomings, among which are vanity and selfishness, and has her write to her mother, "it will look horribly, for a lady of my Quality and Fashion, to own such a Woman as you for my Mother.... I will not be known to be your Daughter; and if you tell any one so, I shall deny it with all my Might" (341). For Fielding, the unjustified crossing of borders is the gateway to chaos and anarchy as well as the reversal or the end of necessary links of dependence between people.

The crossing of social barriers is a much less acute issue in Richardson's third novel. The replacement of the initial title-The Lady's Legacy-by the actual one-Clarissa; Or, the Story of a Young Lady-suggests that he decided to stress more the characters and their psychology than their ranks in society. In a letter, he explains that he hesitated over the titles he would give them, although with very little difference for the action proper: "I more than once changed the Qualities and Degrees of my Characters. I once designed that Mrs. Harlowe should have been of a noble Family; and an Earl's Daughter, I think. Another time simply Mistress Harlowe" (Selected Letters 245).

In that respect, the social difference between the Harlowes and Lovelace is not as great as that between Pamela and Mr. B. The rake, a peer's nephew, belongs to an old aristocratic family. As for the Harlowes, they are "nouveaux riches [and represent] the second generation of new moneyed men, usually Whiggish and middle-class, who had risen to greater power since 1688" (Varey 193). Lovelace despises the Harlowes not so much because of their inferior status as because they forbid him to cross the threshold of their estate, which he contemptuously compares to "Versailles ... sprung up from a dunghill within every elderly person's remembrance" (161).

Most of the time, Richardson takes pains to erase the social difference between both families. Lord M. is by no means averse to his nephew's marrying Clarissa, whose family he commends for being "of standing. All gentlemen of it, and rich, and reputable. Let me tell you that many of our coronets would be glad they could derive their descents from no worse a stem than theirs" (1036). Actually, the fact the Harlowes choose Solmes for Clarissa's husband is significant, because the man is the owner of estates contiguous to theirs. If the union were to take place-that is, if the heroine became dependent on her suitor-borders would disappear; it would mean "being on a footing with the principal [families] in the kingdom" (101), and James might be entitled to "a peerage" (77).