Читать книгу One Great Family: Domestic Relationships in Samuel Richardson's Novels - Simone Höhn - Страница 8

“When I was a girl, one never heard of the rights of men, one only heard of the duties.” (GaskellGaskell, Elizabeth, “My Lady Ludlow” 51)

Richardson’s novels are framed in discourses of duty. The “Preface by the Editor” to Pamela, for example, outlines a number of functions that the book will fulfil, including the common literary requirements “to Divert […] and at the same time to Instruct”, aesthetic considerations – “to draw Characters justly” – and, most importantly, moral teaching (3). The promises of the preface are shown to be fulfilled in the (untitled) afterword, where the ‘editor’ summarises the most important lessons that the reader should take to heart: “HAVING thus brought this little History to a happy Period, the Reader will indulge us in a few brief Observations, which naturally result from it; and which will serve as so many Applications, of its most material Incidents, to the Minds of the Youth of both Sexes” (500). Similar didactic framings begin and conclude his later novels, Clarissa and Grandison. Indeed, it is a commonplace of modern criticism that Richardson’s listings fall far short of the complexity of the novels; at worst, they may be seen to detract from the merit of the ‘works themselves’. Discussions of his art have long involved assessments of the degree of consciousness he had regarding the effect of his writing. In her monograph Desire and Truth, Patricia Meyer SpacksSpacks, Patricia Meyer chooses, significantly, an assessment of Richardson’s “achievement” to illustrate “the possible contrast between novelists’ claims and readers’ perceptions” (235). She opens her afterword with a quote by Carol KayKay, Carol, summarising a familiar view of this novelist’s abilities: “The convincing account of learning morality [in Pamela] […] is a more moving, more interesting account than Richardson was ever able to summarize. The list of lessons at the end of Pamela, like so many of Richardson’s efforts to define his achievement, wretchedly betrays it” (Kay 160). In a slightly earlier article, Janet ButlerButler, Janet outlines persuasively the importance of the garden as a symbol in Clarissa, but implies that this happened without, and even against, Richardson’s intention. For her, Richardson the conscious artist “fell short” of his intention which, apparently, can be divorced from his “unerring instinct” as a storyteller (535).1 And more recently, TaylorTaylor, E. Derek has noted that “[c]ritics have become understandably wary of Richardson’s frustrating tendency in his comments on his novels to simplify his own complexity beyond recognition; Richardson at times proves a hapless Richardson scholar” (Reason and Religion 10).

On one level, such criticism is quite justified. If no-one ever read Richardson’s novels for their plot,2 surely it is even more the case (one is tempted to claim) that no-one read them for their short lists of moral observations. The complex moral dilemmas faced by the main characters put into sharp relief the reductive quality of the rules that the ‘editor’ distils from them, as Richardson’s debates with his readers demonstrate. Nevertheless, Richardson eventually published an entire volume of such observations, A Collection of the Moral and Instructive Sentiments, Maxims, Cautions, and Reflexions, Contained in the Histories of Pamela, Clarissa, and Sir Charles Grandison (EavesEaves, T.C. Duncan and Ben D. Kimpel & Kimpel 420), and it is unlikely that he did so without encouragement.3 Moreover, these teachings form an integral part, not only of Richardson’s professed aims as “a properly didactic, propagandist writer” who speaks up for his beliefs (EagletonEagleton, Terry 24), but also of his novels’ power and aesthetics. KeymerKeymer, Tom has suggested that, at least in Clarissa, Richardson attempted to educate his readers’ understanding precisely by setting before them moral dilemmas which cannot be reduced to simple rules. By “mak[ing] reading not simple but problematic”, he ensures “that the reader’s activity in addressing the resulting difficulties will itself be a source of instruction” (Richardson’s Clarissa 68). As readers try to make sense of the different characters’ versions of events, they learn something about themselves, life, and morality. The text, then, is complex because of, not despite, its didactic purpose. The lists at the end of Richardson’s novels may, thus, be a less exciting – and less useful – means of instruction than that used within the narratives themselves, but they belong, nonetheless, to the same continuum of intention and method.

To apply general rules to specific cases, or to deduce moral imperatives from behaviour instinctively recognized as good and attractive, is an important part of the novels’ action, and a challenge put to characters and readers alike. The clearest example of the process occurs in Pamela, after Mr. B. has explained to the heroine the peculiarities of his temper (when he is angry, he must be left to himself) as well as given her instructions for her behaviour as a wife (she must show proper submission to his will). Pamela first relates the conversation word by word. In a next step, she summarises it: “Let me see: What are the Rules I am to observe from this awful Lecture?” (448; ‘awful’ generally signifies ‘awe-inspiring’ rather than ‘terrible’, although the modern reader may be inclined to read this differently). The “lecture” boils down to 48 rules, upon some of which Pamela comments. Frequently, her commentary draws attention to Mr. B.’s authoritarian stance, and sometimes to his intention of being a good husband nevertheless; occasionally, her remarks highlight the similarity of his rules to those set out in conduct books: his thought that bad wives encourage seducers “is a fine Lesson” (450).

Frequently, the heroines need to adjust their behaviour in ‘critical’ cases where the best course of action is far from obvious. Thus, Clarissa ponders the question whether she is justified in continuing her correspondence with Anna Howe against Mrs. Howe’s prohibition; her eventual decision to do so is endorsed by Anna’s reliable if unexciting suitor Mr. Hickman, “who pretends to a little casuistry in such nice matters” (548). When Harriet Byron, heroine of Grandison, hears of the Grandison sisters’ similar dilemma (cf. introduction), her response includes not only sympathy, but moral judgment. While acknowledging the complexity of the situation, she attempts to reduce it to a simpler rule: that sisters should “be more nice, more delicate” in their behaviour than brothers (1:322; Sir Charles, obeying his father, does not write back). All of Richardson’s important characters, including the villain Lovelace, regularly compare specific occurrences to general rules or canonical writings, so that their letters provide a commentary on various aspects of (moral) life. Indeed, as Leah PricePrice, Leah has noted, Richardson’s heroines are “anthologist[s]”, most notably Clarissa, who “keeps a commonplace book like Pamela, compiles religious extracts like Clementina, and excerpts letters like Harriet” (13, 14). In each case, the selection and condensation of materials does not deny the complexity of the source or the ability of the heroine to understand it. Instead, it shows that the women are good readers, and able to draw the “inferences” that Richardson wished from his readers. The interrelationship between the general and the specific is perhaps best exemplified in the early part of Clarissa. The heroine, “having the strictest notions of filial duty” (37), agrees with virtually every other character on the basic definition of a daughter’s duty to her parents. What is at issue in the conflict about her marriage are the application of such rules and the relative weight of varying duties. What makes the beginning of the novel claustrophobic – and, possibly, harder to bear than Clarissa’s later ordeal at the hands of Lovelace – is the apparently indissoluble conflict between theoretical and practical duty.

Richardson’s nuanced fictional treatment of moral dilemmas is innovative. However, the moral system underlying it, which I here call the ‘system of duty’, is not.4 I will here discuss in some detail two works professedly dealing with the individual’s duties as a Christian: The Whole Duty of Man, anonymously published in 1658 and attributed to Richard AllestreeAllestree, Richard, and Fifteen Sermons Upon Social Duties by Patrick DelanyDelany, Patrick, correspondent of Richardson, Church of Ireland Dean, published in 1744. Delany’s sermons lend themselves to such comparison by temporal proximity to Richardson’s writings as well as by the fact that Richardson printed several of his works – including, according to John CarrollCarroll, John, the Fifteen Sermons (Richardson, Selected Letters 23). “[B]y 1739 […], Delany was assuring [Richardson] of his life-long friendship” (EavesEaves, T.C. Duncan and Ben D. Kimpel & Kimpel 173). The Whole Duty of Man, on the other hand, was a “ubiquitous conduct manual” which remained popular throughout the 18^th century (KeymerKeymer, Tom, Richardson’s Clarissa 26).5 Richardson refers to it with approval in Pamela (see below). Hester MulsoMulso, Hester, correspondent of Richardson also testifies to its importance, albeit in a different way, namely by indignantly rejecting it as a guide to social duties.6 In fact, both these writers, especially Allestree, occupied conservative positions. Allestree, a royalist, published his best-known work shortly before the Restoration of the monarchy, and Delany had tory leanings (cf. Spurr and Barnard).

It would be rash to claim that either of these texts fully illustrates Richardson’s own attitudes. Indeed, the tone of The Whole Duty of Man, in particular, with its frequent references to the hell-fire which threatens the unregenerate reader, is far from Richardson’s preference for reforming villains and for his pained, carefully indecisive indications of the probable fates of some of his worst characters. Moreover, as prescriptive non-fiction, these moral writings differ from Richardson’s didactic novels almost as much as his lists of applications do from the bulk of his stories. Finally, these two works are only two examples of many similar texts known to Richardson. However, the conservative perspective helps to clarify the way in which the discourse of duties differs from modern conceptions of mutual responsibilities, and what challenges it posed to liberal-minded readers.

The system of duty which is outlined by AllestreeAllestree, Richard and DelanyDelany, Patrick, correspondent of Richardson is a “system of reciprocal obligations, mainly domestic” (Pamela 525, note to p. 3). These obligations are “status duties”, that is, duties on the basis of an individual’s relationship to others (GouldnerGouldner, Alvin W.) – children’s to parents, masters’ to servants, friends’ to friends. To know in what relationship I stand to another person is to know what I owe to that person. For the purposes of these writings, these relationships are envisaged as stable. Children must be born, servants must be hired, and friends must become acquainted, before parenthood, servitude and friendship can exist. However, the focus of the system of duty is not on this dynamic aspect of relationships, but on the static one. While individuals stand in specific relationships with each other, while they assume certain roles vis-à-vis each other, they have corresponding duties which cannot be cancelled. Works like Allestree’s and Delany’s are there to specify what these duties are.

The system of duty is essentially foreign to our contemporary thinking, even though aspects of it can occasionally still be felt, and it is worth emphasising some of these differences at the outset. One of the central expressions of modern Western ideas of morality is the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”. It is easy to forget that this document, which is routinely evoked when questions of morality are at stake, dates only from the mid-20^th century. Indeed, the very concept of “universal human rights” – as opposed to human duties, to the value of benevolence, or to the legal rights of a specified group – may well date back no further than the early modern period: “the concept almost certainly began in 1640s London, in the heat of the English Civil Wars, from which it spread eventually to America and France and then to the rest of the world” (StamosStamos, David N. xii). According to David Stamos, John LockeLocke, John, who was writing in the aftermath of the Civil Wars, played a key role in the dissemination of these ideas.7 Somewhat more cautiously, professor of philosophy John SimmonsSimmons, John A. sees Locke as writing when “a shift in thinking about moral relations […] was still taking place” – a shift from an emphasis on duties to an emphasis on rights (99). The first position sees God “at the center of all moral relations”, and while “[e]ach of us has duties not to harm others, […] these duties are owed to God” (97). The second position, in contrast, acknowledges that “[m]oral relations hold directly between persons as well as between persons and God”; as a consequence, “we have duties that are owed to others, not just duties with respect to others” (98). Both Stamos and Simmons agree that the idea that “all statements about rights are translatable without loss into statements about their correlative duties” (and vice versa) is false (Simmons 116; cf. Stamos 101).

As the epigraph for this chapter suggests, this point is not simply a philosophical nicety, but was keenly felt at the time when this transition was occurring. Lady Ludlow, the eponymous central character of Elizabeth GaskellGaskell, Elizabeth’s mid-19^th-century tale, fears and deplores the new attention to rights. For her, rights – like the education of the masses – are intimately connected with the “rebellion in the American colonies and the French Revolution” (134). The latter holds particular horror for her, as she not only lived in France before the revolution, but knew and loved some of its victims. It is important to note that Lady Ludlow is a largely sympathetic, if quaint, character. Old-fashioned and headstrong, she is also genuinely kind, has a keen sense of responsibility, and is occasionally capable of overcoming deep-set prejudices. She is thus not a representative of tyranny, but of a past age. From the glimpses that readers receive of her life, it can be deduced that she was born around the time when Richardson’s novels were first published. GaskellGaskell, Elizabeth’s character thus bears witness to a crucial change of paradigm which people felt was happening in the decades around the French Revolution.

SimmonsSimmons, John A. identifies three crucial consequences which ensue from emphasising rights rather than duties. First, “[r]ights are grounds for self-respect; rightholders are entitled to things […], rather than being entirely dependent on others’ personal decisions about whether or not to do their duty” (118). Secondly, “rights are indispensable for such activities as claiming, demanding, or insisting on actions or outcomes” (119). Finally, rights make for more flexibility than duties, since “[r]ightholders […] may waive [their rights] or invoke them as the situation requires” (120). Of these three points, the first two especially will be shown to be crucial to the value system underlying Richardson’s novels. Indeed, Richardson (and the fictional Lady Ludlow) would probably have agreed with Simmons, but would have emphasised the flip-side of the points he enumerates. The system of duty asks what obligations the individual has to all others; a focus on rights leads the individual to ask what all others can do for him or her. As Richardson’s statements concerning filial rights imply, he thought it more likely that children would forget their responsibilities than that they would waive their rights.

It is not my contention that the system of duty was the only way to conceptualise relationships in the mid-eighteenth century. Alternatives existed; I will discuss some of them in part II of this study (including LockeLocke, John’s Two Treatises of Government). Moreover, then as now, some people simply flouted the dominant system of morality; then as now, they might even be proud of it. This attitude is exemplified in the figure of the rake or libertine, who is neither “restricted by convention or tradition” nor “restrained by morality” (OED, “libertine, n.”). I argue, however, that the system of duty is vital in order to understand some of the dilemmas in which Richardson’s heroines find themselves, and to contextualise some of the solutions which are offered to these problems. In the following sections, I will, thus, first describe the system of duty as outlined by AllestreeAllestree, Richard and DelanyDelany, Patrick, correspondent of Richardson. I will then show how this system figures in Richardson’s novels, particularly Clarissa, which features the most extended and destructive conflict of duties in his work. In the process, I will discuss further problems raised by this system, notably the relationship between duties regarding mental processes and outward action, respectively – or, to put it differently, between true virtue and hypocrisy.