Harlowe
St. Albans inn. The first stop after Lovelace abducts Clarissa in a coach. Lovelace pretends that they are brother and sister and makes up a story to explain why Clarissa has no luggage and is angry at him. Clarissa is frantic to get herself out of Lovelace’s “protection,” while Lovelace himself, peeved by her romantic resistance of him, resolves to carry her to a location that he controls.
Mrs. Sinclair’s brothel. House on London’s Norfolk Street. Lovelace gives Clarissa a choice of places to go, recommending London, ironically, for the privacy it can offer her. He invents letters attesting the character of the widow Sinclair’s house, pretending it is the lodgings of a respectable officer’s widow, whereas in fact it is a private brothel presided over by an intimidating, elderly, and grotesque woman who uses the name “Mrs. Sinclair” as a pseudonym. Here Clarissa is surrounded by unsavory people who resent her for her virtue, almost as though the brothel is a parody of the Harlowe home. Clarissa is at pains to defend herself against Lovelace’s elaborate ruses to “test” her virtue.
Mrs. Moore’s house. Lodgings of a respectable widow in London’s Hampstead Heath neighborhood, and the place to which Clarissa escapes when she becomes suspicious of Lovelace’s intentions. After tracking her down, Lovelace tells Mrs. Moore that Clarissa is his wife, who has run away from him in a nervous, spoiled fit of pique. He moves into the house with his servants and tries to persuade Clarissa to return to the “Widow Sinclair’s.” He finally manages to entrap her there by a ruse, and with the collaboration of Mrs. Sinclair and her prostitutes, he drugs Clarissa and rapes her.
Smiths’ house. Shop and lodgings of an honest glove-dealer and his shopkeeper wife on King Street in London’s Covent Garden neighborhood. Clarissa escapes here from Lovelace and remains safely until she is found out by Sinclair, who has her arrested coming out of church for not paying the bill for her room and board.
Rowland’s house. Police officer’s home in London’s High Holborn neighborhood. Arrested and detained here, Clarissa chooses to stay in the prisoner’s room, a “shocking” garret with bars on the windows and a locked door. She is subjected to persecuting visits from the spiteful prostitutes and is generally humiliated and dejected by the experience. When Lovelace learns what has happened he is furious and sends his friend Belford to tell Clarissa that she is permitted to return to the Smiths’ without any danger of harassment from him. Worn out and disheartened by her persecutions and tired of life, Clarissa begins to waste away and becomes bedridden. As one of her final actions she orders and designs her own coffin. She dies in her room at the Smiths’ with the coffin beside her, dreaming of returning to and being received as a prodigal daughter in “her father’s house,” that is, her Heavenly Father’s house.