Clive

Character Analysis

The Father

Clive is a total patriarch who thinks that men should act like men and women like women. Or, to be more exact: men should have total control and women should do what men tell them to do. Oh yeah, he's also a racist who thinks that white people are inherently better than black people.

In case there's any confusion about this, he says in the opening lines of the play that, "I am father to the natives here, / And father to my family so dear" (1.1.14-15). In other words, the fact that he's a white man means that everyone should obey and respect him. This is more or less what he means when he talks about being a "father" as a synonym with "master."

But Clive isn't going to get through this play without having his beliefs deeply questioned. First off, his adopted black son Joshua is constantly disobeying him behind his back; but Clive has no clue that anything is ever going on. On top of that, Clive has to deal with the fact that his son Edward likes to play with dolls. But when he's actually confronted with this fact, Clive responds, "Yes, it's manly of you Edward, to take care of your little sister. We'll say no more about it" (1.1.224-225). Clive is clearly aware that he's telling himself what he wants to hear and not acknowledging the fact that Edward genuinely likes to play with dolls.

The Cheater and Cuckold

Even though Clive is all about devoting his life to his family and jolly old England, the guy is a total hypocrite. Before Act 1 is even over, we see Clive telling Caroline that if she were shot with poisoned arrows, he'd have sex with her dead body and poison himself in the process. Yeah, you heard that right. He's trying to seduce a woman with a necrophilia pickup line.

But even though Clive is perfectly happy to have sex with a woman who isn't his wife, he still can't believe that his wife Betty Would ever dare to kiss another man. He even tells her, "If I shot you [for kissing Harry] every British man and woman would applaud me" (1.3.173-174). But in the end, Clive feels like he can handle what's happened, because after all, "Women can be treacherous and evil" (1.3.161-162). He really doesn't seem to see the double standard that's going on here.

Finally, Clive has to pass one last test, which is the test of finding out that his best friend and hero, Harry Bagley, wants to have sex with him. Finding out that Harry is gay is almost more than Clive's (narrow) mind can handle. But he never wavers in his dedication to traditional gender roles. He just tells Harry, "you must get married" (1.4.153), because he feels that a nice sham marriage would bury Harry's sexual preferences. At the end of the first act, Clive makes a nice little speech in support of traditional marriage, and it seems like his limited worldview hasn't been broadened at all.

In Act 2, we see Clive briefly when he appears in the park to tell his estranged wife Betty that she's not the kind of strumpet that would be interested in having pleasurable sex and picking up men. Thankfully for Betty, this is just the input she needs to decide that yes, in fact she is that "kind of woman." The play ends on a sad note for Clive, but a happy note for Betty and all of the other characters.