2010 FRQ #2
Post date: Jan 25, 2014 12:33:56 PM
(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts as one-third of the total essay section score.)
In the following passage from Maria Edgeworth’s 1801 novel, Belinda, the narrator provides a description of Clarence Hervey, one of the suitors of the novel’s protagonist, Belinda Portman. Mrs. Stanhope, Belinda’s aunt, hopes to improve her niece’s social prospects and therefore has arranged to have Belinda stay with the fashionable Lady Delacour. Read the passage carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze Clarence Hervey’s complex character as Edgeworth develops it through such literary techniques as tone, point of view, and language.
Clarence Hervey might have been more than a
pleasant young man, if he had not been smitten with
the desire of being thought superior in every thing,
and of being the most admired person in all
5 companies. He had been early flattered with the idea
that he was a man of genius; and he imagined that,
as such, he was entitled to be imprudent, wild, and
eccentric. He affected singularity, in order to establish
his claims to genius. He had considerable literary
10 talents, by which he was distinguished at Oxford; but
he was so dreadfully afraid of passing for a pedant,
that when he came into the company of the idle and
the ignorant, he pretended to disdain every species of
knowledge. His chameleon character seemed to vary
15 in different lights, and according to the different
situations in which he happened to be placed. He
could be all things to all men—and to all women. He
was supposed to be a favourite with the fair sex; and
of all his various excellencies and defects, there was
20 none on which he valued himself so much as on his
gallantry. He was not profligate; he had a strong sense
of humour, and quick feelings of humanity; but he
was so easily led, or rather so easily excited by his
companions, and his companions were now of such
25 a sort, that it was probable he would soon become
vicious. As to his connexion with Lady Delacour,
he would have started with horror at the idea of
disturbing the peace of a family; but in her family, he
said, there was no peace to disturb; he was vain of
30 having it seen by the world that he was distinguished
by a lady of her wit and fashion, and he did not think
it incumbent on him to be more scrupulous or more
attentive to appearances than her ladyship. By
Lord Delacour’s jealousy he was sometimes
35 provoked, sometimes amused, and sometimes
flattered. He was constantly of all her ladyship’s
parties in public and private; consequently he saw
Belinda almost every day, and every day he saw her
with increasing admiration of her beauty, and with
40 increasing dread of being taken in to marry a niece
of ‘the catch-match-maker,’ the name by which
Mrs Stanhope was known amongst the men of his
acquaintance. Young ladies who have the misfortune
to be conducted by these artful dames, are always
45 supposed to be partners in all the speculations,
though their names may not appear in the firm. If
he had not been prejudiced by the character of her
aunt, Mr Hervey would have thought Belinda an
undesigning, unaffected girl; but now he suspected
50 her of artifice in every word, look, and motion; and
even when he felt himself most charmed by her
powers of pleasing, he was most inclined to despise
her, for what he thought such premature proficiency
in scientific coquetry. He had not sufficient resolution
55 to keep beyond the sphere of her attraction; but
frequently, when he found himself within it, he cursed
his folly, and drew back with sudden terror.
To see a packet of graded essays on this topic, click the following link: 2010 FRQ 2 Graded Essay Packet