"In this study, Lois E. Bueler examines in broad literary historical terms what she calls the Tested Woman Plot, a "story-machine" that originated in the ancient Mediterranean world (as in the stories of Eve and Lucretia), flourished in ...

This study also examines the connections among the plots: how Clarissa's self-scrutinizing response to the pressures of test and trial, and her refusal to achieve respectability at the expense of her integrity, is explained by her pursuit ...