Anna Howe, devoted friend who gives unreasonable advice, or Only Sane Woman coming from Richardson's subconscious to tell him how people should react to the condition of women? Telling some harsh jokes about some men and trying to hide her feelings for her fiance, or hardened Jerkass Woobie misandrist? Very attached to her friend, or plainly in love?
Draco in Leather Pants: Lovelace. Some people wrote to ask a happy ending for Clarissa and him. The author had to keep adding new bits with each edition to highlight what a hideous person Lovelace was.
Ensemble Dark Horse: A modern viewer can't help but wonder what happens during the story, and before it, to Anna Howe, the spirited, funny and fiercely loyal girl who has self-worth and Mr Hickman, the fiance who loves her, respects her, and seems to see right through her sometimes abrasive behavior that she is awesome.
Spiritual Successor: Clarissa shares the same premise with Richardson's previous work, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, only except many readers find this to be better written than the latter, with an Aesop that is still valuable nowadays.
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: It's about a little girl suffering sexual abuse at the hands of her father, and her entire family is complicit in covering it up. Kind of hard to avoid this.
The Woobie: Clarissa. Her entire plight with being sexually abused and the adults all around her doing nothing about it can make you wish you can just jump into the comic and rescue her.
