NOVEL

The Eighteenth Century and the Rise of the English Novel (Mariwan N. Hasan)

It is possible to say that the novel as a literary genre emerged in the beginning of the eighteenth
century. The industrial revolution can be said, paved the way to the rise of the middle-class and it
also created a demand for people’s desire for reading subjects related to their everyday
experiences. The novel, therefore, developed as a piece of prose fiction that presented characters
in real-life events and situations. Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Henry Fielding’s Tom
Jones are some of early English novels. The novel is realistic prose fiction in such a way that it
can demonstrate its relation to real life. The eighteenth-century great novels are semi anti-
romance, or it was the first time that the novel emerged and distributed widely and largely
among its readers; reading public. Moreover, with the increase of the literacy, the demand on the
reading material increased rapidly, among well-to- do women, who were novel readers of the
time. Thus, theatre was not such feasible form of entertainment but novel was due to its large
audience and its spread all over the land in country-houses. In other words, middle was such an
important factor behind the growth of the novel as a new form of art. The social and intellectual
currents of the age were linked for creating something new and different. Those who carried out
the action became individualized; they were interpreted in and all their complexity and the social
pressure on them were minutely detailed. When people wanted to hear stories of those who are
not too different from themselves, in a community recognizably a kin to their own, then the
novel was born.

There are also other reasons and factors that influenced the rise of the English novel. The
invention of traveling library was one of those and via trade; it was developed more than before.
The social milieu and social condition of the life of the middle-class were very much affected by
the rise of the English novel. These people in the eighteenth century were acquiring their
education, what they were acquiring was less exclusively classical in context than the education
of the upper-class. Women readers were considered as a crucial factor in providing readership. A

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better education for women was coincided with a period of a greater leisure for women in middle
and upper ranks. The greater leisure for women left a time space, which needed to be filled in.
Men were also educated and had an intension to see beyond the narrow local interests and
profession to an inspired motivation. Both men and women were receptive to literary forms,
which would open up to them recent and real worlds outside their own world.

The reproduction of newspapers in the eighteenth century is evidence on the rise of the novel and
so is the popularity of The Eighteenth Century and the Rise of the English Novel the periodicals.
The seed of Richardson’s Pamela was a plan to write a series of letters, which provided
examples of the correct way of continuing in various delicate social situations.The novelists also
believe that their task is not only to inform but also to indicate morality. Middle-class people
considered usefulness significant; this would include moral usefulness.

The readers were introduced by the novelists to new social worlds, providing the moral
framework within which that behaviour. The novel was dealing with the immediate details as no
earlier fiction has been, as a result, it becomes long. As a result, in the eighteenth century, many
reasonable changes took place in strange plots and ideas of heroic tragedy. Defoe described ‘The
Great Plague of London’ in the journal of the plague year (1722), then his Robinson Crusoe
(1719), a better and more famous book. The story of the book relied on the real life event. It is
about the story of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor who quarreled with his captain, was, in
fact, put into the island of Juan Fernandez near Chile, and he lived there alone for four years.
Richard Steel and Joseph Addison worked together to produce The Tatlar, a collection of essays
without too much ornament, which helped in the production of the novel. Dr.Samuel Johnson’s
Dictionary was written in (1755).

Some of the best English letters were written during this century. Swift and Defoe wrote stories
of adventure. A good prose style was made ready to use in ‘Spectator’ by both Dryden and
Chesterfield. And Samuel Richardson wrote Pamela in (1740); a real novel, which was written in
the form of letters.When these letters appeared women were excited to read them and listen to
the readers of those letters. Richardson also wrote Clarissa and also Fielding’s great novel
appeared in the name of Tom Jones in (1749). The fourth novelist of this time was Laurence

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Sterne. His astonishing books are as confusing as life. Another important novel of the time is
The Vicar of Wakefield (1761-2), by Oliver Goldsmith. Below are several factors that contributed
towards the rise of the English novel: The rise of the literacy, the novel is essentially a written
form, unlike poetry, which exists for centuries prior to the development of writing, and still
flourishes in oral cultures today. There have been cases of illiterate people gathering to hear
novel read- part of Dickens's audience was of this sort and daring the Victorian period the habit
of reading aloud was much more spread than it is today, but the novel typically, written by one
individual in private and read silently by another. Printing was another crucial factor that
contributed to the rise of the English novel.

The modern novel was the child of the printing press, which alone can produce the vast numbers
of copies needed to satisfy literate publication up rise that they can afford.A market economy
was the third factor. The sociology of the novel is based very much upon a market relationship
between author and reader, mediated through publications, in contrast to earlier methods of
financing publication or supporting authors such as Patronage, or subscription. A market
economy increases the relative freedom and isolation of the writer and decreases his immediate
dependence upon particular individuals, groups or interests.

The Rise of Individualism was also very significant in the emergence of the English novel. Ian
Watt sees a typical of the novel that it includes individualization of characters and the detailed
presentation of the environment. The novel is more associated with the town rather than to the
village, and in some points, they are alike, for example, both involve huge numbers of people
leading interdependent lives, influencing and relying upon one another.

Watt (1957 ), in his book, Rise of the Novel states that Defoe's "fiction" is the first, which
presents us with a picture of both-individual life in its larger perspective as a historical process,
and in its closer view, which shows the process being acted out against the background of the
most ephemeral thoughts and action.

Furthermore, Sanders (1999: 303) says that the claim made the successive generations of literary
historians and critics whom Defoe is the first true master of the English novel who has a limited

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validity. His prose fiction, provided in his late middle age, sprang from an experimental
involvement in other literary forms; most notably the travelbook. His novels included elements
of all of these forms. Nor was he the only begetter of a form which it is now recognized had a
long succession of both male and female progenitors. He may in Robinson Crusoe, have
perfected an impression of realism by adapting the Puritan self confession narrates to suit the
mode of a fictional moral tract, but he would in no sense have seen fiction as superior to, or
distinct from, his essays in instructive biography. Moreover, Richetti (2005: 174) claims that no
one can say what led Defoe at 59 to write a long narrative pretending to be the memoirs of a
shipwrecked English planter from Brazil on a deserted island off the coast of South America.
After Harley's fall from power in 1714, Defoe's epistolary record goes nearly blank, and we have
little to go on for those five years until Robinson Crusoe appears in 1719.

We do know that Defoe was not idle; he was never that, and indeed writing was his main
livelihood. Having been recruited by the Whig ministry to act as a subversive mole within the
Tory opposition press, he wrote extensively for what Novak identifies as ‘the most forceful anti-
government newspaper’, the Weekly Journal, or Mist’s Weekly Journal, so called after its editor,
Nathaniel Mist. Also among the various pamphlets and tracts he published separately from his
periodical journalism in those years, he found time to write the substantial and very popular
conduct book in dramatic. But in 1719 Defoe had never done anything quite like Robinson
Crusoe, no fiction so elaborate, no narrative so devoted to evoking the life of a private person
with no topical or political importance, and no extended prose narrative so seemingly separate
from political polemic and religious controversy, although there are clearly religious themes as
well as political implications in Crusoe's narrative.

Richetti also states that the latter, especially, dragging out for modern readers and are never
obviously polemical. There is, in retrospect however, inevitability in Defoe's turning to extended
narrative fiction in the third decade of the eighteenth century. As we have seen, he had a native
talent and deep attraction for narrative. The Review and much of his other political journalism are
often enough full of narrative and vivid dramatic impersonation. There are a number of shorter
works. Moreover, from the second decade of the eighteenth century that represented finger
exercises in preparation for what can now be seen as his later career as a writer of imaginative

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fiction. These are political tracts that have a basic narrative form of an insignificant but
occasionally interesting sort.

2. Daniel Defoe and the Significance of Robinson Crusoe

Skilton (1977) states that Robinson Crusoe is certainly the first novel in the sense that it is the
first fictional narrative in which the ordinary person's activities are the centre of continuous
literary attention. Before that, in the early eighteenth century, authors like Pope, Swift, Addison
and Steele looked back to the Rome of Caesar Augustus (27 BC— 14 AD) as a golden age. That
period is called the Augustan age. Literature was very different since it focused on mythology
and epic heroes. However, to what extent can Robinson Crusoe be called the "first novel" and
how is it different from all that have been done so far? Besides, what are the evolutions in the
novel genre leading to Victorian novels, like Pride and Prejudice published almost one hundred
years later (1813) in terms of style, themes and concerns?

Augustan writers, before Daniel Defoe, were very

protective of the status quo and their novels were philosophical and religious, based upon a myth
of the eternal fitness of things. By contrast, Defoe stood for revolutionary change, economic
individualism, social mobility, trade, and freedom of consciousness. For Swift, Defoe was ‘the
fellow who was pilloried; I have forgotten his name’. He represented at once a social literary and
intellectual challenge to the Augustan world, and the Augustans reacted to him accordingly. In
Robinson Crusoe, Defoe deals with major points of Western civilisation like trade, mercantile
capitalism since at that time, a great attempt was made to dominate other continents, spread
culture, beliefs, like, for example, when Robinson tries to convert Friday into Christianity, as he
considers him a savage. In the eighteenth century, Britain economically depended on slave trade,
which was abolished on the early 1800s.

Therefore, Daniel Defoe was familiar with this practice, even though he did not active criticise it.
There is consequently, no surprise that, Robinson treats Friday as his slave. However, Crusoe
was able to recognise Friday's humanity, though he does not see his slavery as a contradiction.
Robinson Crusoe was written within a context of a European colonialism well established around
the globe. Next, material wealth is a sign of prestige and power in Robinson's mind. For instance,

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he often lists his belongings, like the amount of land ploughed. His provisions and he stores the
coins found on various wrecks. On top of that, he calls his ‘base’, his ‘castle’, and eventually
considers himself a ‘King’. Therefore, material power is an important element as well as religion
and faith in the novel. Robinson rejects his father's advice and religious teachings at the
beginning of the novel, in order to travel and have some adventure and wealth.

Although, his shipwreck can be considered as a moral punishment and his disobedience as a sin,
the protagonist did accumulate wealth and did survive at the end of the novel. Thus, the fact that
he was punished can be argued and discussed. Robinson's opinion about religion is very clear.
He is a semi-puritan figure and tries to spread his convictions on the island to convert into
Christianity. Friday, who is very rational. The hero simply refuses Friday's own beliefs, thinking
that his religion is the best one. This thought may be due to the fact that British people believed
that they had a right and a duty to transmit their knowledge, culture and Skilton continues and
says that Robinson Crusoe was written in the first-person singular. As a consequence, we
constantly have Robinson's point of view and opinion about the events happening. We have to
wonder whether the protagonist, through which the story is described, may be reliable or not, and
if we can trust him. If we had Friday's point of view instead, it is clear that we would have a
complete different opinion about Robinson. Probyn states that Chales Gildon, in his book,
Defoe's First Substantive Critic, interpreted Robinson Crusoe as an allegory of Defoe's Defoe’s
own life, but Ian Watt endorses the economic theorists' view of the novel as illustrating homo-
economicus and the rise of economic individualism. Not everyone insisted on seeing this novel
as a metaphor: Lesclie Stephan's essay of 1868 reported that Crusoe was a ' book for boys rather
than men', short of any high intellectual interest ... One of the most charming of books'. It is
essentially, of course, a superb adventure story charged with the primary appeal of all narrative
fiction: suspense, individual, resourcefulness, threatening disasters, an eventual triumph. Even
Dr. Johnson wished it had been longer, Robinson, like Gulliver after him.

To sum up, there were attempts to write novel but those attempts were not as much successful
perhaps due to the elements of the work and the style of the work but Defoe and other novelists
with the help of reading public, the rise of the middle-class, printing as well as travelling made

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the emergence of the novel successful. No doubt, the rise of the novel has developed because of
the existence of the romance and picaresque novels.

English novel came into existence in the beginning of 18th century with the emergence of new
middle class. During this time, public interest in human characters grew and this led to the
popularity of autobiographies, biographies, journals, diaries and memoirs. Novelists showed
interest in the newly emerged complex middle-class characters who were struggling with their
morality and social issues. Tom Jones, a foundling was written by Henry Fielding during this
time and focused on the social structure that prevailed in England during that time.

The first half of the 19th century was influenced by romanticism and the focus was on nature and
imagination. Gothic (horror) and romantic novels were written during this time. Jane Austen
wrote highly polished novels about the life of the landed gentry and social issues like marriage
and property from women’s perspective.

In the period between 1837 to 1901, the Victorian novelists became popular. They portrayed
middle-class, virtuous heroes responding to harsh society. Stories of working class poor people
were directed to incite sympathy. The development of the middle-class and the manners and
expectations of this class, as opposed to the aristocrat forms were the focus of the novelists of
this period. Charles Dickens emerged as a literary figure and wrote about London life and
struggles of the poor in Oliver Twist.

In the early twentieth century, Rudyard Kipling wrote highly versatile novels, short stories and
poems, often based on his experience in British India. E.M.Forster also wrote A Passage to India
which reflected challenges to imperialism. Novels from this era reflected great world events such
as The Great Depression, World War II, Hiroshima, The Cold War and Communism. Crime,
political and military confrontations were the areas of novelists and readers interest.

By looking at the history or genesis of novel in England above, we realise that author’s of
different eras have provided the readers with a glimpse, if not a complete picture of a society,
economic trends, cultural and religious beliefs of the time they wrote in. With change in time and
situation of the world, the focus area of the novelist kept on moving. They covered varied

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subjects in their work starting from romances to naturalism, marriage and property, middle-class
and landed gentry and so on.

TYPES OF NOVEL

Realistic Novel:

A fictional attempt to give the effect of realism. This sort of novel is sometimes called a novel of
manner. A realistic novel can be characterized by its complex characters with mixed  motives
that are rooted in social class and operate according to highly developed social structure. The
characters in realistic novel interact with other characters and undergo plausible and everyday
experiences.

Examples: Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, Looking for Alaska by John Green.

Picaresque Novel:

A picaresque novel  relates the adventures of an eccentric or disreputable hero in episodic form.

The genre gets its name from the Spanish word picaro, or "rogue."

Examples: Rudyard Kipling's Kim (1901), Henry Fielding’s The History of Tom Jones, a

Foundling (1749),

 Historical Novel:
A Historical novel is a novel set in a period earlier than that of the writing.

Examples: Thackeray's Vanity Fair, Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, George

Eliot's Romola and Charles Kingsley's Westward Ho!

 Epistolary Novel:

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Epistolary fiction is a popular genre where the narrative is told via a series of documents. The
word epistolary comes from Latin where ‘epistola’ means a letter. Letters are the
most common basis for epistolary novels but diary entries are also popular

Examples: Samuel Richardson’s  Pamela and Clarissa, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Alice

Walker’s The Color Purple and Bridget Jones’ Diary.

 Bildungsroman:
German terms that indicates a growth. This fictional autobiography concerned with the
development of the protagonist’s mind, spirit, and characters from childhood to adulthood.

Examples: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, David Copperfield  by Charles Dickens, The Magic

Mountainby Thomas Mann etc.

 Gothic Novel:
Gothic novel includes terror, mystery, horror, thriller, supernatural, doom, death, decay, old
haunted buildings with ghosts and so on.

Examples: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, John William Polidori’s The Vampyre, Bram

Stoker’s Dracula,The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole,

 Autobiographical Novel:
An autobiographical novel is a novel based on the life of the author.

Examples: Charles Dickens’ David Coppefield, Great Expectations, D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and

Lovers,Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, Ralph Ellison ‘s Invisible Man, Maya Angelou’ s I Know
Why the Caged Bird Sings , Virginia Wolfe’s The Light House etc.

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 Satirical Novel:
Satire is loosely defined as art that ridicules a specific topic in order to provoke readers into
changing their opinion of it. By attacking what they see as human folly, satirists usually imply
their own opinions on how the thing being attacked can be improved.

Examples: George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travel, Joseph

Heller’s Catch 22, Mark Twin’s The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn,

 Allegorical Novel:
An allegory is a story with two levels of meaning- surface meaning and symbolic meaning.The
symbolic meaning of an allegory can be political or religious, historical or philosophical.

Examples: John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress , William Golding's The Lord of the Flies,

Edmund Spenser'sThe Faerie Queene etc.

 Regional Novel:
A religious novel is a novel that is set against the background of a particular area.

Examples: Novels of Charles Dickens George Eliot etc.

 Novella:
A novella is a short, narrative, prose fiction. As a literary genre, the novella’s origin lay in the
early Renaissance literary work of the Italians and the French. As the etymology suggests,
novellas originally were news of town and country life worth repeating for amusement and
edification.

Examples: Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,

 Detective Fiction:
Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a
detective—either professional or amateur—investigates a crime, often murder.

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Examples: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’ A Study in Scarlet ( Sherlock Holmes), Satyajit
Roy’s Sonar Kella(Feluda), G. K. Chesterton’s The  Blue Cross (Father Brown), Dr. Nihar
Ranjan Gupta’s Kalo Bhramar(Kiriti)

 The Intellectual Novel:

These sort of novelists attempted to explore the intellectual responses of the intelligentia to the
world. Characteristically, their novel displays the clash of ideas and intellectual verification of
knowledge., value and response, a diminishing faith on the cosmic significance of
existence,  argument and counter argument in discussion, separation of concept of love and sex,
conversation without communication, and a dehumanizing effect of disillusionment in the
20th century.

Examples:  Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter, Elizabeth
Bowen’sThe Hotel, The House in Paris.

 Stream of Consciousness Novel or Psychological Novel:

Psychological novels are works of fiction that treat the internal life of the protagonist (or several
or all characters) as much as (if not more than) the external forces that make up the plot. The
phrase “Stream of Consciousness” was coined by William James in his Principles of Psychology
(1890), to describe the flow of thought of the waking mind.

Examples: Virginia Wolfe’s To the Lighthouse, Mrs. Dolloway, James Joyce’s Ulysses, D. H.

Lawrence’sSons and Lovers, The Rainbow.

 Roman á these/ Social Fiction/ Political Novel:

The genre focussed on possible development of societies, very often dominated by totalitarian
governments. This type of novels must have social and political message. The term generally
refers to fiction in Europe and the Soviet Union reacting to Communist rule.

Examples: George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Huxley’s Brave  New World etc.

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 Prose Romance:
This is a novel that is often set in the historical past with a plot that emphasizes adventure and an
atmosphere removed from reality. The characters in a prose romance are either sharply drawn as
villains or heroes, masters or victims; while the protagonist is isolated from the society.

Examples: The Story of the Pillow by Shen Jiji, and The Governor of the Southern Tributary
State by LiGongzuo.

 Novel of Incident:
In a novel of incident the narrative focuses on what the protagonist will do next and how the
story will turn out.
Examples: The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars etc.

 Novel of Character:
A novel of character focuses on the protagonist’s motives for what he/she does and how he/she
turns out.

Examples: Jane Austen’s Emma.

 Roman á clef:
French term for a novel with a key, imaginary events with real people disguised as fictional
characters.

Examples: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath,  Animal Farm by George Orwell, On the Road by
Jack Kerouac etc.

 Dime Novel:
Dime novels were short works of fiction, usually focused on the dramatic exploits of a single
heroic character. As evidenced by their name, dime novels were sold for a dime (sometimes a

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nickel), and featured colourful cover illustrations. They were bound in paper, making them light,
portable, and somewhat ephemeral.

Example:  Dime novels are, at least in spirit, the antecedent of today's mass market paperbacks,
comic books, and even television shows and movies based on the dime novel genres. Buffalo
Ball.

 Hypertext Novel:
Hypertext fiction is a genre of electronic literature, characterized by the use of
hypertext links which provide a new context for non-linearity in literature and reader
interaction. The reader typically chooses links to move from one node of text to the next, and in
this fashion arranges a story from a deeper pool of potential stories. Its spirit can also be seen
in interactive fiction.

Examples: James Joyce's Ulysses (1922), Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves (2000),

Enrique Jardiel Poncela's La Tournée de Dios (1932), Jorge Luis Borges' The Garden of
Forking Paths (1941), Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire (1962) and Julio
Cortázar's Rayuela (1963; translated as Hopscotch) etc.

 Sentimental Novel:
The sentimental novel or the novel of sensibility is an 18th-century literary genre which
celebrates the emotional and intellectual concepts of sentiment, sentimentalism, and sensibility.

Examples: Samuel Richardson's Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740), Oliver Goldsmith's  Vicar

of Wakefield (1766), Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy (1759–67), Sentimental
Journey (1768), Henry Brooke's The Fool of Quality (1765–70), Henry Mackenzie's The Man
of Feeling (1771). Continental example is  Jean-Jacques Rousseau's novel Julie.

 Utopian Novel:
A utopia is a community or society possessing highly desirable or perfect qualities. It is a
common literary theme, especially in speculative fiction and science fiction.

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Examples: Utopia by Thomas Moore, Laws (360 BC) by Plato, New Atlantis (1627) by Sir
Francis Bacon,Robinson Crusoe (1719) by Daniel Defoe,  Gulliver's Travels (1726) by Jonathan
Swift.

 Graphic Novel:
Graphic novels are, simply defined, book-length comics. Sometimes they tell a single,
continuous narrative from first page to last; sometimes they are collections of shorter stories or
individual comic strips. Comics are sequential visual art, usually with text, that are often told in a
series of rectangular panels.1 Despite the name, not all comics are funny. Many comics and
graphic novels emphasize drama, adventure, character development, striking visuals, politics, or
romance over laugh-out-loud comedy.

Examples: Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, The Fantastic Four and X-

Men etc.

 Science Fiction (Sci-Fi):

Science fiction is a genre of speculative fiction dealing with imaginative concepts such as
futuristic settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, time travel, faster than light
travel, parallel universes and extraterrestrial life. Science fiction often explores the potential
consequences of scientific and other innovations.

Examples: The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, The Time Machine.

 Cult or Coterie Novel:

Cult novels often come from the fringes, they often represent countercultural perspectives, they
often experiment with form.

Examples: Speedboat  by Renata Adler, Sddhartha by Herman Hesse,

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 Pulp Fiction:
Term originated from the magazines of the first half of the 20th century which were printed on
cheap "pulp" paper and published fantastic, escapist fiction for the general entertainment of the
mass audiences. The pulp fiction era provided a breeding ground for creative talent which would
influence all forms of entertainment for decades to come. The hardboiled detective and science
fiction genres were created by the freedom that the pulp fiction magazines provided.

Examples: The Spider, Doc Savage, Blood N Thunder etc.

 Erotic Novel:
Erotic romance novels have romance as the main focus of the plot line, and they are
characterized by strong, often explicit, sexual content.[2] The books can contain elements of any
of the other romance subgenres, such as paranormal elements, chick lit, hen lit, historical fiction,
etc. Erotic romance is classed as pornography .
Examples:    His To Possess by Opal Carew, On Dublin Street by Samantha Young.

 Roman fleuve:
A novel sequence is a set or series of novels which share common themes, characters, or
settings, but where each novel has its own title and free-standing storyline, and can thus be read
independently or out of sequence.

Examples: Honoré de Balzac’s Comédie humaine and Émile Zola’s Rougon-Macquart,

 Anti-Novel:
An antinovel is any experimental work of fiction that avoids the familiar conventions of the
novel, and instead establishes its own conventions.

Examples:  Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy.

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 Interactive Novel:
The interactive novel is a form of interactive web fiction. In an interactive novel, the reader
chooses where to go next in the novel by clicking on a piece of hyperlinked text, such as a page
number, a character, or a direction.

Examples: J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter  Series.

 Fantasy Novel:
Stories involving paranormal magic and terrible monsters have existed in spoken forms before
the advent of printed literature.

Examples: J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia.

 Adventure Novel:
Adventure fiction is a genre of fiction in which an adventure, an exciting undertaking involving
risk and physical danger, forms the main storyline.

Examples:  Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.

 Children’s Novel:
Children's novels are narrative fiction books written for children, distinct from collections of
stories and picture books.

Examples: The Christmas Mystery, Charlotte's Web by E.B. White, James and the Giant

Peach by Roald Dahl.

 Dystopian Novel:
A dystopia is an unpleasant (typically repressive) society, often propagandized as being utopian.
Examples: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, The Giver by Lois Lowry etc.

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 Mystery Novel:
The mystery genre is a type of fiction in which a detective, or other professional, solves a crime
or series of crimes. It can take the form of a novel or short story. This genre may also be
called detective or crime novels.

Examples: Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.

Joseph Andrews
By
Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding's Work and Contribution
Introduction:

The eighteenth century--"our excellent and indispensable eighteenth century"-is known in the
history of English literature particularly for the birth and development of the novel. In this
century the novel threw into insignificance all other literary forms and became the
dominant form to continue as such for hundreds of years.

The pioneers of the novel were Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne. The work of this
foursome is of monumental significance, particularly because they were not only our first
novelists but some of our best. No doubt the seeds of the novel were already there in
the Englishliterary soil but they burgeoned only with the arrival of these masters. Addison and
Steele (Coverley papers'), Defoe, and Swift {Gulliver's Travels) had already provided the raw
material for them to work upon. It is debatable whether Defoe be denied the title of "the father of
the English novel", as many of his stories like Moll Flanders, Roxana, and Robinson Crusoe are
very close to being novels, if at all they are considered not to be genuine novels. "Whether Defoe
was", observes David Daiches rightly, "properly a novelist is a matter of definition of terms, but
however we define our terms we must concede that there is an important difference between
Defoe's journalistic deadpan and the bold attempt to create a group of people faced with
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psychological problems." Defoe was a realist in his own right, but his "interest in character was
minimal." Critical opinion, therefore, is not inclined to accept Defoe as the first
true English novelist or even as one of the pioneers of the novel.

Fielding's Greatness:
Of the four pioneers of the English novel named above, the first two were considerably
superior to the rest. Of the two—Richardson and Fielding-Fielding has been recognized to be the
greater. Edmund Gosse in A History of Eighteenth Century Literature (1902) characteristically
refers to Richardson as "the first great English novelist" and to Fielding as "the greatest
of English novelists." Though it stands to reason if Fielding was the greatest of
all English novelists, yet two things cannot be denied-first that he was one of the greatest, and
secondly that he was greater than Richardson. Among his contemporaries, no doubt, there raged
an interminable debate as to the comparative merits of the two. It is also on record that
Richardson enjoyed much the greater popularity and praise in the Continent. Modern critical
opinion is, however, in favour of placing Fielding higher—considerably higher-than Richardson
in the hierarchy of English novelists. The lachrymosic sentimentalism, prudish morality, and the
sprawling epistolary manner Richardson adopted in all his three novels along with his smugness
and conspicuous want of the sense of humour and comedy-all go against him today. Fielding's
lively realism, his sunny humour and satire, his insistent sanity and fundamental tolerance of
human frailty, his keen eye for the comic, his racy narrative, his gift of plot-construction
displayed in Tom Jones if not elsewhere too-all contribute towards his excellence as a novelist.
Louis I. Bredvold refers to the contrast between Richardson and Fielding in these words: "From
the first appearance of their earliest novels a literary feud has persisted in regard to the relative
merits of the novels of Richardson and Fielding. In personality, artistic method and ethical
outlook the two men are as far apart as the poles." This "literary feud" has by now been resolved,
and the palm has been awarded to Fielding whose work and contribution to the English novel we
are now set to examine.
FIELDING'S WORK
"Joseph Andrews" (1742):
It is Fielding's first novel. It is a classical example of a literary work which started as a
parody and ended as an excellent work of art in its own right. The work Fielding intended to
parody was Richardson's first novel Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded  which had taken England by
storm in the years following 1740 when it was first published. Richardson's smug and prudential
morality and his niminy-piminy sentimentalism were Fielding's target Richardson in his novel
had shown how a rustic lady's maid (Pamela) wins a dissolute noble for her husband by her
rather calculated and discreet virtue. In his novel Fielding intended in the beginning to show how
Lady Boody (aunt of "Lord B." in Richardson's novel) attempts the virginity of Joseph Andrews,
described as the virtuous Pamela's brother but in the end discovered to be different. The whole
intention was comic. But after Chapter IX Joseph Andrews  seems to break away completely
from the original intention. Parson Adams, who has no counterpart in Pamela, runs away with
the novel. He, according'to Louis I. Bredvold, "is one of the most living, lovable, comical
bundles of wisdom and simplicity in all literature." In the words of Edmund Gosse, "Parson
Abraham Adams, alone, would be a contribution to English letters." He indeed is the hero of the

18
novel, and not Joseph Andrews. Fielding was aware of giving a new literary form with Joseph
Andrews  which he called "a comic epic in prose."
"Jonathan Wild" (1748):
Fielding's next novel was a loose narrative suggested by the notorious gallows-bird
Jonathan Wild who was hanged in 1725. It is a deep, cynical and sarcastic satire on "greatness"
in general and the "great" Walpole in particular, as also on the many biographers of the age who
indulged in exaggerated eulogy of the persons whose lives they handled. It is so different from
Fielding's subsequent, works, namely, Tom Jones and Amelia, that Austin Dobson suggests that
it must have been written earlier than Joseph Andrews even though it was published a year later.
Throughout the work Fielding keeps up a sustained ironical pose reminiscent of the favourite
method of Swift. Walter Allen observes about Jonathan Wild: "Some pages of Swift apart, it is
the grimmest and most brilliant prose satire that We have; and perhaps it is even more effective
than Swift's because it is not the work of a misanthrope."
"Tom Jones" (1749):
Tom Jones, indeed, is Fielding's magnum opus. It is, according to Hudson, "the greatest
novel of the,eighteenth century." Moody and Lovett observe: "In structure, in richness of
characterization, Jn'sanity and wisdom of point of view, Tom Jones stands unrivalled in the
history of English fiction." In Tom Jones Fielding has a very vast canvas on which he paints with
appreciable authority a representative cross-section of the society of his age. The swarming
multiplicity and variety of characters make one feel that here is "God's plenty"~the same that
Dryden found in Chaucer's Prologue to his Canterbury Tales. A ve$ remarkable meritof the
novel is its excellent structure. Fielding is a master of that architectonic ability which we find so
lamentably lacking in the works of most novelists. In Tom Jones, unlike in Joseph
Andrews,  Fielding does not pay any attention to Richardson and tries to represent his own view
of English manners and morals and life in general. What he particularly excels in is his sense of
comedy in which he, according to Louis I. Bredvold, can be placed beside Cervantes, the
author of Don Quixote.
"Amelia" (1751):
Amelia  is the last of Fielding's novels In tone and execution it is markedly different from
all the rest. It is the pathetic story of a patient and virtuous wife who suffers much and suffers
long. Fielding here works on a much smaller canvas and his vigorous joviality and sense of
comedy are conspicuous by their absence. His fast deteriorating health and the maturity of his
years seem, at least partly, to be responsible for this cataclysmic change. Ameliais the only full-
length female character drawn by Fielding. She is described by Walter Allen as "a character
whose quiet radiance illuminates and softens a world of viciousness and deceit. Amelia is the
rarest of successful characters in literature, the absolutely good person who is
credible." Amelia is a domestic novel, not "a comic epic in prose" like Joseph Andrews or Tom
Jones.
FIELDING'S CONTRIBUTION
Introduction:

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 Both in his technique and "the philosophy of life" Fielding sets glowing examples for all
novelists to follow. Major novelists such as Jane Austen, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, and
Meredith as well as the minor ones like Fanny Burney and Maria Edgeworth accepted his
influence in varying degrees and ways. Even Lessing and Goethe paid Fielding some very
glowing tributes. The English novel, in various respects, is considerably indebted to him.
Fielding might have been less popular with his contemporaries than Richardson, yet on the
development of the English novel he exerted a much greater influence.
Reaiism:
Fielding was the pioneer of realism in English fiction. Both Richardson and Fielding
were, broadly speaking, realists, and both reacted against the French romance so popular in their
age, as also the effete taste of their predecessors like Aphra Behn. Fielding also reacted against
Richardson's sentimentalism as a.falsifying influence on the study of reality. Fielding does not
reject sentimentalism altogether-his Amelia is-rich in pathos and sentiment. "His desire", says
Cazamian, "is to give sentiment its right place; but also to integrate it in an organic series of
tendencies where each contributes to maintain a mutual balance."
Fielding is one of the few writers who, despite the wideness of their scope are capable of
observing the demands of reality with perpetual ease. He works on a crowded canVas but, as has
been said, "all his characters inhabit the same plane of reality." His novels hold up to view a
representative picture of his age. He is as authentic a chronicler of his day as Chaucer was of the
later fourteenth century. Fielding's truth is not the crude and bitter truth of Smollett's. A. R.
Humphreys observes : "Fielding's is the higher and more philosophical truth which epitomizes
the spirit, the ethos, as well as the body, of the time which deals primarily not in externals but in
the nature of man and in an intellectual and moral code."
Humour, Satire, and Sharp Sense of Comedy:
Fielding is one of the greatest humorists in English literature. The same comic spirit
which permeates his plays is also evident in his novels. As he informs us, the author upon whom
he modelled himself was Cervantes; it is not surprising, therefore, that comedy should be his
method. Fielding's humour is wide in range. It rises from the coarsest farce to the astonishing
heights of the subtlest irony. On one side is his zestful description of various fights and, on the
other, the grim irony of Jonathan Wild. Higher! than both is that ineffable, pleasant, and ironic
humour that may be found everywhere in Tom Jones but is at its best in Joseph Andrews where it
plays like summer lightning around the figure of Parson Adams-an English cousin of Don
Quixote. Fielding's very definition of the novel as "a comic epic in prose" is indicative of the
place of humour and comedy in his novels and, later, those of many of his followers. It may be
pointed our here that Richardson had no sense of humour; he was an unsmiling moralist and
sentimentalist. Comparing the two, Coleridge says : "There is a cheerful, sunshiny, breezy spirit
that prevails everywhere strongly contrasted with the close, hot, tfay-dreamy continuity
of Richardson." Fielding's humour is sometimes of the satiric kind, but he is never harsh or
excessively cynical as Smollett and Swift usually are.
Healthy Morality and Philosophy of Life:

20
 No reason proves so compulsive with Fielding in prompting him to parody
Richardson's Pamela as Richardson's hoity-toity moralism added to a somewhat mawkish
sentimental ism. Fielding must have heartily laughed at Pamela's self-regarding virtue. In his
own novels he appealed to motives higher than prudery and commercialism while dealing with
matters moral and ethical. He endeavoured to show the dignity of the natural and inherent human
values. Thus Fielding preached a morality of his own which, in the words of David Daiches, is
"goodness of heart rather than technical virtue with sins of the flesh regarded much more lightly
than sins against generosity of feeling." Whether a man is virtuous or not is decided, with
Fielding, not by his external and self-regarding conduct but by the presence or absence of inner
goodness which generally means generosity of feeling. "This," says Cross, "is a complete
repudiation of Richardson, if not of Addison: the point of view has shifted from the objective to
the subjective, from doing to being, and the shifting means war against formalism." Virtue is,
according to Fielding, its own reward and vice a punishment in itself. In the dedication to Tom
Jones he says: "I have shown that no acquisitions of guilt can compensate the loss of that solid
inward comfort of mind, which Js-the sure companion to innocence and virtue; nor can in the
least balance the evil of that horror and anxiety, which in their room, guilt introduces into our
bosoms." Even when Fielding insisted that nothing in Tom Jones "can offend even the chastest
eye on perusal," he was charged by many with grossness and ribaldry Richardon says Edmund
Gosse, "bitterly resented allthis rude instrusion into his moral garden, and never ceased to regard
Fielding with open aversion." Richardson was really mortified, but, in the words of Oliver Elton,
he only "shook his throat like a respectable turkey-cock."
Plot-construction:
Fielding was not only a great novelist but a great master of plot-construction also From
Chaucer down to the modern times English writers have mostly ignored the architectonic part of
their compositions. Fielding came to the novel from the drama, and though his plays are ill-
constructed, yet his experience as a dramatist served him in good stead. Tom Jones is, according
to Elizabeth Jenkins, an "amazing tour de force of plot-construction." Coleridge placed it among
the three best constructed masterpieces of world literature-the other two being
Sophocle's Oedipus Tyrannus and Ben Jonson's The Alchemist.  Fielding defined the novel as "a
comic epic in prose." But, as Oliver Elton points out, in Fielding's novels there is more of the
dramatic than epic quality. The last scenes of his novels, particularly, resemble the last scenes of
a well-knit comedy, such as one by Ben Jonson. "Fielding was," according to Hudson, "much
concerned about the structural principles of prose fiction a matter to which neither Defoe nor
Richardson had given much attention. To him the novel was quite as much a form of art as the
epic or the drama". Unfortunately, Fielding's successors did not learn much from his example,
and offended in respect of plot-construction as his predecessors-Defoe and Richardson-had done
before him.
Characterisation:
Fielding is a great master of the art of characterisation also. His characters are very
lifelike—excepting few caricatures like Beau Diddaper. They are not only individuals but also
representative figures. He himself remarks : "1 describe not men but manners, not an individual
but the species." His broad sweep as a master of character is quite remarkable. A critic avers :
"Since Chaucer was alive and hale, no such company of pilgrims—poachers, Molly Seagrims,
adventures and Parson Supples-had appeared on the English roads." Fielding's broad human
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sympathy coupled with his keen observation of even the faintest element of hypocrisy in a
person is his basic asset as a master of characterisation. He laughs and makes us laugh at many
of his characters, but he is never cynical or misanthropic. He is a pleasant satirist, sans malice,
sans harshness. He gives no evidence of being angry at the foibles of his characters or of holding
a lash in readiness. His comic creations resemble those of Chaucer and Shakespeare. Parson
Trulliber and Falstaff, if they were to meet, would have immediately recognised each other!

Critical Evaluation

Many critics say Joseph Andrews is Fielding’s first novel, discounting An Apology for the Life of
Mrs. Shamela Andrews (1741). Joseph Andrews, however, though a parody of Pamela: Or,
Virtue Rewarded (1740-1741; commonly known as Pamela) in its first ten chapters, is “more
refined and truly comic” than Shamela. Joseph is the “newly invented” brother of Richardson’s
heroine, and Squire Booby and Lady Booby the counterparts ofPamela’s Mr. B. When Fielding
had achieved his purpose, his novel soon moved on into an almost picaresque tale centered more
on Parson Adams, who, from the eleventh chapter on, dominates the novel.

The full title is typically eighteenth century: The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews,
and of His Friend Mr. Abraham Adams, Written in Imitation of the Manner of Cervantes, Author
of Don Quixote. The novel was published anonymously in 1742 and did not achieve the
immediate acclaim that Pamela had, though a new edition came six months later.

Joseph Andrews could be called a picaresque novel in structure, for its plotline is similar to the
one-line structure of picaresque fiction, much like Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote de la
Mancha (1605, 1615), Fielding’s mentor’s book. The plot of the novel progresses by “shuttling,”
moving forward by “small oscillations of emotion,” which, in the larger, all-over design, are
small parts of a unified whole, episodic in nature. At times, events seem like reversals, followed
by forward movement.

In the novel, Fielding employed ironies, unmaskings, conflicts, and reversals. He used
coincidences, too, but credibly, indicating one should trust in Divine Providence, the basis of his
own creed.

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Joseph Andrews has been called the first realistic novel of English literature. Henry Fielding
turned aside from the episodic sentimental writing of the age to give an honest picture of the
manners and customs of his time and to satirize the foibles and vanities of human nature. In
particular, he ridiculed affectation, whether it stemmed from hypocrisy or vanity. Although the
structure of the novel is loose and rambling, the realistic settings and the vivid portrayal of
English life in the eighteenth century more than compensate for this weakness.

Joseph Andrews is many things: a parody of Samuel Richardson’s Pamela(1740-1741), a

sentimental tale of virtue rewarded; a realistic portrayal of the English road in the eighteenth
century; a resetting of the values of comic epic poetry in prose that resulted in what Fielding
calls a “comic epic romance,” by which he had in mind the model of Miguel de Cervantes’ El
ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (1605, 1615; Don Quixote de la Mancha, 1612-
1620); and an experiment in social satire. Fielding blended all these characteristics masterfully.

Fielding, along with Richardson, is sometimes called the father of the English novel because he
ventilated the concept of narrative itself; his brilliant plotting in Tom Jones (1749) and the
desultory Odyssean travels of Joseph Andrews are contrasting patterns for realizing a broadly
imagined action rich in human nature. Joseph Andrews is one of the earliest examples of
literature’s successful extension of mimetic possibilities beyond the models of classical antiquity
and folklore. The novel is a mixed genre, being composed of tale, parable, ballad, and epic. The
mixture, however, becomes a whole greater than its parts with true innovators such as Fielding.

What holds Fielding’s novel together is its cosmic exposure of appearance. Wherever Joseph and
Parson Adams go, their naïveté and innocence make them inadvertent exposers of affectation,
that most ridiculous form of “appearance” among human beings. Affectation invites derision and
must be exposed: The effect is morally healthy but, even more to the point, mimetically
revealing. Behind appearance lie the “true springs of human action.” The essence of individuals
is often better than their appearance, although their vanity may commit them to affectation.
Parson Adams is a lovable character mainly because a heart of gold beats under his pedantries
and vanities. His naïve trust in human goodness and his unshakable belief in practiced
Christianity define the true man: The real Adams is better than his affectations. 

23
The novel’s story and full title, THE HISTORY OF THE ADVENTURES OF JOSEPH
ANDREWS, AND HIS FRIEND MR. ABRAHAM ADAMS, echo the first and greatest of all
European novels, the story of Don Quixote and his squire Sancho Panza (Part One 1605; Part
Two 1615). While Cervantes’ novel burlesques the chivalric romances of his day, Fielding’s is a
parody of Samuel Richardson’s PAMELA (1740), a sentimental novel depicting the struggle of
an honest serving maid to escape seduction by her master.

Joseph, whom Fielding makes a brother to Pamela, resists Lady Booby with the same virtue that
enabled his sister to resist Squire Booby. Joseph’s reward is dismissal. Without money or
prospects but warmed by his devotion to his sweetheart Fanny, Joseph sets out from London
determined to find her. En route he meets Parson Adams, his old tutor and friend. Under
dramatic circumstances, they happen to encounter Fanny. Soon all three have a series of quixotic
adventures.

Parson Adams is a totally ingenuous country cleric, simpleminded, good-hearted with a strong
appetite for meat and drink and a wholesome disdain of selfishness, meanness, and hypocrisy.
He is Fielding’s primary vehicle for attacking affectation, and the parson’s quick temper and
physical courage make him a formidable adversary. Although he gets himself into one
compromising situation after another, his essential goodness always shines through.

Henry Fielding published his first full novel in 1742, at a time when he was nearly penniless and
expecting the deaths of his young daughter and beloved wife. Joseph Andrews was, then, a
response to personal and financial exigencies, but it was equally a response to that great literary
event of 1740, the publication of Samuel Richardson’s much-debated and oft-
lampooned Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded. Detesting it for both its moral content and its literary
method, Fielding himself had already parodied Richardson’s novel in the anonymously
published Shamela, his classically savage novella of 1741. Joseph Andrews in some ways
continues the satirical work that Shamelabegan, but with its broad range of contemporary
reference and its self-conscious positioning vis-à-vis long-standing literary and moral
traditions, Joseph Andrews clearly considers itself far more than just another sendup of the
century’s most widely travestied novel.

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Much of the distinctiveness of Fielding’s first novel derives from the author’s background as a
gentleman, a playwright, and a peculiarly eighteenth-century type of Christian. His youth at Eton
College, where he had received a gentleman’s classical education, informed Fielding’s ambition
to elevate the middle-class and vernacular genre of the novel by giving it a classical pedigree; the
Preface to Joseph Andrews, in which Fielding explains in detail his inauguration of a hybrid
genre, the “comic Epic-Poem in Prose,” makes explicit his desire to blend high and low and is a
measure of how seriously he hoped that his work would be taken. By comparison, Fielding’s
earlier literary output had been relatively slapdash; from 1728 to 1737 he had been a writer of
comedies for the London stage, in which capacity he had sought, in the words of the earlier
dramatist John Vanbrugh, “to show People what they should do, by representing them on the
Stage doing what they should not.” A contemporary remarked that these plays had been written
“on tobacco-paper,” and indeed they show signs of haste and of having been written for money;
while Fielding would conceive more loftily of his novels in terms of their form and pedigree,
however, he would remain consistent in his view of literature’s moral utility as a vehicle of
constructive ridicule.
Joseph Andrews is a product not only of its author’s career and education but also of its age in
general, which is often called the Age of Reason or the Enlightenment Age. It was a time of
major political and doctrinal compromises, and its religious temper was optimistic and non-
dogmatic. The Christian outlook of Fielding shares in both these attributes: his novels advocate
an easygoing Protestantism in which charitable works are the infallible hallmarks of goodness,
sociability is the wellspring of charitable works, and providence is the reliable guardian of the
virtuous. Fielding’s morality, like that of his up-to-date contemporaries, is at least as much man-
centered as God-centered; the same may be said of his philosophy, for in the early eighteenth
century, faith in God was equally faith in man, as religion was held to be perfectly compatible
with human reason. Thus, Fielding shares with his Parson Adams a confidence, which borders on
the rationalistic, in the ethical value of reason, including and especially that of the pre-Christian
Greek philosophers. In the literary culture of the age at large, the consequences of such faith in
reason were substantial: as one critic has put it, “[a]nything that could not be explained was
undervalued,” and literature accordingly took on an empirical cast. The poets turned from lyric
poetry to versified philosophy, of which Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man is perhaps the supreme
instance, and the increasing interest of writers in what is real and tangible contributed to the

25
development of a new genre, namely the novel, the special province of which is the depiction of
everyday life. In company with his predecessor Defoe, his contemporary Richardson, and his
successors Sterne and Smollett, Fielding would help to determine the particular form of the novel
in English.
The subject of Joseph Andrews, as of all of Fielding’s novels, is human nature, which he
considered fallible but perfectible. The mode is comical or satirical, and the moral intention is to
puncture the facades whereby people protect themselves from moral opprobrium or from self-
knowledge, as the case may be. The field of reference comprises Homer and Richardson,
Cervantes’s Don Quixote and the Bible, the mediocrity of contemporary writers, the corruption
of contemporary gentry and officials, and many moral and ethical verities of eternal relevance.
As much as Pamela was the first best-selling novel, Joseph Andrews is the first novel of the
“modern” type, comprehending traces of the theater and of picaresque, of high culture and of low
culture, in a structure both architectural and deceptively casual.

Joseph Andrews Character List

Joseph Andrews
A handsome and virtuous young footman whom Lady Booby attempts to corrupt. He is a protégé
of Mr. Adams and the devoted but chaste lover of Fanny Goodwill. His adventures in journeying
from the Booby household in London back to the countryside, where he plans to marry Fanny,
provide the main plot of the novel.

Mr. Abraham Adams

A benevolent, absent-minded, impecunious, and somewhat vain curate in Lady Booby’s country
parish. He notices and cultivates Joseph’s intelligence and moral earnestness from early on, and
he supports Joseph’s determination to marry Fanny. His journey back to the countryside
coincides with Joseph’s for much of the way, and the vibrancy of his simple good nature makes
him a rival of Joseph for the title of protagonist.
Fanny Goodwill
The beautiful but reserved beloved of Joseph, a milkmaid, believed to be an orphan. She endures
many unsuccessful sexual assaults.
Sir Thomas Booby
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The recently deceased master of Joseph and patron of Mr. Adams. Other characters’
reminiscences portray him as decent but not heroically virtuous; he once promised Mr. Adams a
clerical living in return for Adams’s help in electing Sir Thomas to parliament, but he then
allowed his wife to talk him out of it.
Lady Booby
Sir Thomas’s widow, whose grieving process involves playing cards and propositioning
servants. She is powerfully attracted to Joseph, her footman, but finds this attraction degrading
and is humiliated by his rejections. She exemplifies the traditional flaws of the upper class,
namely snobbery, egotism, and lack of restraint, and she is prone to drastic mood swings.
Mrs. Slipslop
A hideous and sexually voracious upper servant in the Booby household. Like her mistress, she
lusts after Joseph.
Peter Pounce
Lady Booby’s miserly steward, who lends money to other servants at steep interest and gives
himself airs as a member of the upwardly striving new capitalist class.
Mr. Booby
The nephew of Sir Thomas. Fielding has adapted this character from the “Mr. B.” of Samuel
Richardson’s Pamela; like Richardson’s character, Mr. Booby is a rather snobbish squire who
marries his servant girl, Pamela Andrews.
Pamela Andrews
Joseph’s virtuous and beautiful sister, from whom he derives inspiration for his resistance to
Lady Booby’s sexual advances. Pamela, too, is a servant in the household of a predatory Booby,
though she eventually marries her lascivious master. Fielding has adapted this character from the
heroine of Samuel Richardson’sPamela.
Mr. Andrews
The father of Pamela and, ostensibly, Joseph.
Mrs. Andrews
The mother of Pamela and, ostensibly, Joseph.
Two Ruffians
Highwaymen who beat, rob, and strip Joseph on the first night of his journey.
Postilion
Lends Joseph his greatcoat when Joseph is naked following the attack by the Ruffians.

Mr. Tow-wouse
The master of the inn where Joseph boards after being attacked by the Ruffians. He intends to
lend Joseph one of his own shirts, but his stingy wife prevents him. Later he is discovered in bed
with Betty the chambermaid.
Mrs. Tow-wouse
The frugal, nagging wife of Mr. Tow-wouse.

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Betty
A chambermaid in the inn of Mr. and Mrs. Tow-wouse. Her initial care of Joseph bespeaks her
basic good nature, but she is also lustful, and her association with him ends badly.
Mr. Barnabas
A clergyman who never passes up a drink and halfheartedly attends Joseph during his recovery
from the attack by the Ruffians.
Surgeon
Belatedly addresses the injuries Joseph sustained during his attack by the Ruffians.
Bookseller
A friend of Mr. Barnabas, declines to represent Mr. Adams, author of several volumes of
sermons, in the London book trade.
Tom Suckbribe
The Constable who fails to guard an imprisoned Ruffian and may have some financial incentive
for failing in this office.
Leonora
The reclusive inhabitant of a grand house along the stage-coach route, a shallow woman who
once jilted the hard-working Horatio for the frivolous Bellarmine and then was jilted in turn.
Horatio
An industrious lawyer who intended to marry Leonora but lost her to the wealthy and flamboyant
Bellarmine.
Bellarmine
A Frenchified cavalier who values Leonora’s beauty enough to steal her away from Horatio but
who finally rejects her when her father refuses to supply a dowry.
Leonora's Father
A miserly old gentleman who refuses to bestow any money on his daughter during his life and
thereby causes her to lose Bellarmine as a suitor.
Leonora's Aunt
Leonora’s chaperone during the period of her courtship by Horatio and then Bellarmine;
encourages Leonora to pursue her financial self-interest in choosing a mate.

Mrs. Grave-airs
A snobbish stage-coach passenger who objects to traveling with the footman Joseph but turns out
to be the daughter of a man who was once a lower servant.
Sportsman
Encounters Mr. Adams while out shooting one night; extolls bravery when conversing with
Adams but flees the scene when the cries of a distressed woman are heard.
The Justice
A local magistrate who does not take his responsibilities very seriously. He handles the case of
Mr. Adams and Fanny when Fanny’s attacker accuses them of having beaten and robbed him.

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Mr. Wilson
A gentleman who, after a turbulent youth, has retired to the country with his wife and children
and lives a life of virtue and simplicity. His eldest son, who turns out to have been Joseph, was
stolen by gypsies as a child.
Mrs. Wilson
The wife of Wilson. She once redeemed him from debtor’s prison, having been the object of his
undeclared love for some time.
Pedlar
An apparent instrument of providence who pays one of Mr. Adams’s many inn bills, rescues Mr.
Adams’s drowning son, and figures out the respective parentages of both Joseph and Fanny.
Mrs. Adams
The wife of Mr. Adams and mother of his six children, prone to nagging but also appreciative of
her husband’s loving nature.
Parson Trulliber
An entrepreneurial and greedy clergyman, more dedicated to hog farming than to the care of
souls, who refuses to lend Mr. Adams money for his inn bill.
Mrs. Trulliber
The downtrodden wife of Parson Trulliber.
Hunter of Men
An eccentric and rather sadistic country gentleman who sets his hunting dogs on Mr. Adams,
allows his friends to play cruel jokes on him, and attempts to abduct Fanny.
Captain
One of the Squire’s friends, abducts Fanny on the Squire’s orders but is himself taken prisoner
by servants of Lady Booby.
Player
One of the Squire’s friends, a failed actor who pursues Fanny on the Squire’s orders but flees
when the Captain is taken prisoner.
Poet
One of the Squire’s friends, a failed playwright who pursues Fanny on the Squire’s orders but
flees when the Captain is taken prisoner.
Quack-Doctor
One of the Squire’s friends; comes up with a Socratic practical joke that exploits Mr. Adams’s
pedantry.
Priest
Discourses on the vanity of riches before asking Mr. Adams for money to pay his inn bill.
Lawyer Scout
Tells Mr. Adams that Joseph has worked long enough to gain a settlement in Lady Booby’s
parish, but then becomes a willing accomplice in Lady Booby’s attempt to expel Joseph and
Fanny.

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Justice Frolick
The local magistrate who cooperates with Lady Booby’s attempt to expel Joseph and Fanny from
her parish.
Beau Didapper
A guest of Lady Booby’s, lusts after Fanny and makes several unsuccessful attempts on her.
Pimp
A servant of Beau Didapper’s, attempts to persuade Fanny to accept his master’s advances and
then makes a few attempts on his own behalf.
Dick Adams
A son of Mr. and Mrs. Adams, nearly drowns in a river but is rescued by the Pedlar. He then
reads the story of Leonard and Paul to his parents’ guests.
Leonard
A married man who argues frequently with his wife while entertaining his friend Paul in their
home. Like his wife, he eventually accepts Paul’s advice always to yield in disputes, even and
especially when he knows himself to be right.
Leonard's Wife
The wife of Leonard, with whom she argues frequently while they are entertaining his friend
Paul in their home. Like her husband, she eventually accepts Paul’s advice always to yield in
disputes, even and especially when she knows herself to be right.
Paul
Leonard’s friend, separately advises both Leonard and Leonard’s wife to adhere to the “Doctrine
of Submission.”

Joseph Andrews Glossary

Assizes
In the English justice system, a trial session held four times per year in specific locations (one
per county), attended by an itinerant judge of a superior court.
banns
A public notice of an intended marriage, announced three times in the parish church of at least
one of the betrothed.
beau
A dandy or fashionably dressed gentleman.
character
A character reference.
coach and six
A coach drawn by six horses; a status symbol.

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crabstick
A cane or club made of wood, especially that of the crab apple tree.
curate
In the Church of England, a member of the clergy employed as a deputy to assist a rector or
vicar.
cure
Curacy; the district of a curate, rector, or vicar; the spiritual or religious charge of the people
within such a district.
excise-man
An official who collects excise taxes and enforces related laws.
free-thinker
In late-seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century Britain, a radical philosopher submitting
traditional religious and moral authorities to the test of reason.
Gaffar
Localism for “Godfather,” a term of respect for an older man of low social status.
Gammer
Localism for “Godmother,” a term of respect for an older woman of low social status.
goal
Jail; alternate spelling of gaol.
ifaukins
Slang for “in faith,” truthfully.
Justice of the Peace
In the English system of justice, a local magistrate whose function is to try minor cases in his
jurisdiction, recommend more serious cases for trial, and perform various administrative duties.
living
In the Church of England, a post granted to a clergyman that ensures a fixed amount of property
or income.
mittimus
A warrant of commitment to prison.
night-gown
Dressing-gown.
parish
In Britain, a political subdivision of a county, its boundaries corresponding to those of an
original ecclesiastical parish.
postilion
A servant who rides the left horse of the leading pair of horses drawing a coach.
settlement

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In Britain, legal residence in a specific place, including (in the case of paupers) the right to claim
food or shelter from the parish.
Smithfield match
A marriage for money.
trained-band
A civilian militia.
whipper-in
A servant who assists the huntsman in managing the hounds.
Whitefield, George
A leading English Methodist who pioneered the Calvinistic branch of Methodism emphasizing
faith over works.

                           

Joseph Andrews Themes

The Vulnerability and Power of Goodness

Goodness was a preoccupation of the littérateurs of the eighteenth century no less than of the
moralists. In an age in which worldly authority was largely unaccountable and tended to be
corrupt, Fielding seems to have judged that temporal power was not compatible with goodness.
In his novels, most of the squires, magistrates, fashionable persons, and petty capitalists are
either morally ambiguous or actively predatory; by contrast, his paragon of benevolence, Parson
Adams, is quite poor and utterly dependent for his income on the patronage of squires. As a
corollary of this antithesis, Fielding shows that Adams's extreme goodness, one ingredient of
which is ingenuous expectation of goodness in others, makes him vulnerable to exploitation by
unscrupulous worldlings. Much as the novelist seems to enjoy humiliating his clergyman,
however, Adams remains a transcendently vital presence whose temporal weakness does not
invalidate his moral power. If his naïve good nature is no antidote to the evils of hypocrisy and
unprincipled self-interest, that is precisely because those evils are so pervasive; the impracticality
of his laudable principles is a judgment not on Adams nor on goodness per se but on the world.

Charity and Religion

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Fielding’s novels are full of clergymen, many of whom are less than exemplary; in the contrast
between the benevolent Adams and his more self-interested brethren, Fielding draws the
distinction between the mere formal profession of Christian doctrines and that active charity
which he considers true Christianity. Fielding advocated the expression of religious duty in
everyday human interactions: universal, disinterested compassion arises from the social
affections and manifests itself in general kindness to other people, relieving the afflictions and
advancing the welfare of mankind. One might say that Fielding’s religion focuses on morality
and ethics rather than on theology or forms of worship; as Adams says to the greedy and
uncharitable Parson Trulliber, “Whoever therefore is void of Charity, I make no scruple of
pronouncing that he is no Christian.”

Providence

If Fielding is skeptical about the efficacy of human goodness in the corrupt world, he is
nevertheless determined that it should always be recompensed; thus, when the "good" characters
of Adams, Joseph, and Fanny are helpless to engineer their own happiness, Fielding takes care to
engineer it for them. The role of the novelist thus becomes analogous to that of God in the real
world: he is a providential planner, vigilantly rewarding virtue and punishing vice, and Fielding's
overtly stylized plots and characterizations work to call attention to his designing hand. The
parallel between plot and providence does not imply, however, that Fielding naïvely expects that
good will always triumph over evil in real life; rather, as Judith Hawley argues, "it implies that
life is a work of art, a work of conscious design created by a combination of Providential
authorship and individual free will." Fielding's authorly concern for his characters, then, is not
meant to encourage his readers in their everyday lives to wait on the favor of a divine author; it
should rather encourage them to make an art out of the business of living by advancing and
perfecting the work of providence, that is, by living according to the true Christian principles of
active benevolence.

Town and Country

Fielding did not choose the direction and destination of his hero’s travels at random; Joseph
moves from the town to the country in order to illustrate, in the words of Martin C. Battestin, “a
moral pilgrimage from the vanity and corruption of the Great City to the relative naturalness and

33
simplicity of the country.” Like Mr. Wilson(albeit without having sunk nearly so low), Joseph
develops morally by leaving the city, site of vanity and superficial pleasures, for the country, site
of virtuous retirement and contented domesticity. Not that Fielding had any utopian illusions
about the countryside; the many vicious characters whom Joseph and Adams meet on the road
home attest that Fielding believed human nature to be basically consistent across geographic
distinctions. His claim for rural life derives from the pragmatic judgment that, away from the
bustle, crime, and financial pressures of the city, those who are so inclined may, as Battestin puts
it, “attend to the basic values of life.”

Affectation, Vanity, and Hypocrisy

Fielding’s Preface declares that the target of his satire is the ridiculous, that “the only Source of
the true Ridiculous” is affectation, and that “Affectation proceeds from one of these two Causes,
Vanity, or Hypocrisy.” Hypocrisy, being the dissimulation of true motives, is the more
dangerous of these causes: whereas the vain man merely considers himself better than he is, the
hypocrite pretends to be other than he is. Thus, Mr. Adams is vain about his learning, his
sermons, and his pedagogy, but while this vanity may occasionally make him ridiculous, it
remains entirely or virtually harmless. By contrast, Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop counterfeit
virtue in order to prey on Joseph, Parson Trulliber counterfeits moral authority in order to keep
his parish in awe, Peter Pounce counterfeits contented poverty in order to exploit the financial
vulnerabilities of other servants, and so on. Fielding chose to combat these two forms of
affectation, the harmless and the less harmless, by poking fun at them, on the theory that humor
is more likely than invective to encourage people to remedy their flaws.

Chastity

As his broad hints about Joseph and Fanny’s euphoric wedding night suggest, Fielding has a
fundamentally positive attitude toward sex; he does prefer, however, that people’s sexual
conduct be in accordance with what they owe to God, each other, and themselves. In the mutual
attraction of Joseph and Fanny there is nothing licentious or exploitative, and they demonstrate
the virtuousness of their love in their eagerness to undertake a lifetime commitment and in their
compliance with the Anglican forms regulating marriage, which require them to delay the event
to which they have been looking forward for years. If Fielding approves of Joseph and Fanny,

34
though, he does not take them too seriously; in particular, Joseph’s “male-chastity” is somewhat
incongruous given the sexual double-standard, and Fielding is not above playing it for laughs,
particularly while the hero is in London. Even militant chastity is vastly preferable, however, to
the loveless and predatory sexuality of Lady Booby and those like her: as Martin C. Battestin
argues, “Joseph’s chastity is amusing because extreme; but it functions nonetheless as a
wholesome antithesis to the fashionable lusts and intrigues of high society.”

Class and Birth

Joseph Andrews is full of class distinctions and concerns about high and low birth, but Fielding
is probably less interested in class difference per se than in the vices it can engender, such as
corruption and affectation. Naturally, he disapproves of those who pride themselves on their
class status to the point of deriding or exploiting those of lower birth: Mrs. Grave-airs, who turns
her nose up at Joseph, and Beau Didapper, who believes he has a social prerogative to prey on
Fanny sexually, are good examples of these vices. Fielding did not consider class privileges to be
evil in themselves; rather, he seems to have believed that some people deserve social ascendancy
while others do not. This view of class difference is evident in his use of the romance convention
whereby the plot turns on the revelation of the hero’s true birth and ancestry, which is more
prestigious than everyone had thought. Fielding, then, is conservative in the sense that he aligns
high class status with moral worth; this move amounts not so much to an endorsement of the
class system as to a taking it for granted, an acceptance of class terms for the expression of
human value.

JOSEPH ANDREWS THEME OF APPEARANCES

Joseph's face could launch a thousand ships… Wait, that's not how that goes. But seriously,
Joseph is a handsome guy who attracts ladies right and left. A major plot point has to do with his
obliviousness to female attention, largely a result of that gorgeous mug. What's a male model-
lookalike to do?

Like Fanny, Joseph isn't aware of how attractive he is—and that could be one thing that makes
him even more attractive to the ladies. Think of it this way: since Joe doesn't know how
handsome he is, he's free to dwell on the stuff that matters, like developing his inner self and,

35
you know, memorizing Parson Adams's copy of Aeschylus. Everyone else is free to stare at his
pretty face.

The ladies are the lustful ones in Joseph Andrews. Sure, the men (besides Joseph) have their fair
share of randy moments, but the women are the ones who actually indulge their feelings. Take
Lady Booby, for instance: she makes a pretty bold move by inviting Joseph into her bedroom
while she's naked. Or consider Mrs. Slipslop, who makes a pretty straightforward play for Joseph
at the beginning of the book.

In a society where lust often has serious social ramifications, what's the deal with these women?
Lady Booby, at least, has a lot to lose. That should tell us a lot about how tempting Joseph is,
first and foremost. But Fielding is also totally making fun of Samuel Richardson's Pamela, where
the virtuous heroine tries to withstand a lot of unwholesome male attention. It's as if Fielding is
saying, "Hey, this is the eighteenth century: everybody's got sex on the brain. Some of us just
deal with it better than others."

Of course, in Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop, we do also see these women taking control (if you
can call it that) of their sex lives in a way that isn't totally typical—or representative—of
eighteenth-century life. If Lady Booby really pulled a stunt like seducing Joseph, she probably
would have some major consequences to face up to—if anybody ever found out, anyway.

For a comedic book, there's an awful lot of violence in Joseph Andrews.Between Parson Adams
and his crabstick and Joseph and his cudgel, we wouldn't want to mess with this crew. While
we'd like to see these dudes as the defenders of justice, Adams is often the one to throw the first
punch. Like, does he really need to deck the grumpy innkeeper?

We could see this two ways. Either Adams harbors a lot of inner rage that he's letting out, or he
really does believe in the principles he advocates. (Good thing he doesn't advocate for violence,
right?) We're going with the second option. Usually, the fights Adams gets in have to do with
sticking up for his friends or being slighted by someone rude. Surely, we can forgive him that
much.

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For all the smart cookies lurking around in Joseph Andrews, there's alsoplenty of foolishness and
folly to go around. Though Lady Booby (that name!) comes close, we're gonna say that Parson
Adams wins the prize for most foolish of all. (Perhaps he's earned some fool's gold?) His
appearance certainly does some of the work for him: with that cassock and ridiculous wig,
certain folks find it hard to take him seriously. But then, on top of that, he has to go around
quoting the most ridiculous, obscure texts, just to make himself look extra foolish.

If we learn anything from Parson Adams, it's that foolishness and wisdom aren't necessarily
mutually exclusive. The good Parson has plenty of life lessons to impart to his young friends,
and they'd be missing out if they dismissed him as a total fool… even if he does look pretty
funny rolling down that hill.

According to Fielding, Adams is the very model of Christian charity. What exactly does that
mean in Joseph Andrews? Well, we definitely get to see how Adams sticks to his principles and
doles out his minimal wealth to anyone who asks. More importantly, we see what a great
influence Adams is on everyone around him. Joseph is generous at the start of the book, but
that's largely because he grew up with Adams as a dad figure. (Parson Trulliber is probably more
characteristic of the average character in Joseph Adams… which means that he's totally
unconcerned with anyone else's well-being.)

Hey, it's a tough world out there, but somebody's gotta be the good guy.

You can talk a big game, but it all comes down to whether or not you'll face up to danger when it
comes. In Joseph Andrews, that's the message Parson Adams tries to pass on to Joseph—and just
about anyone who'll listen. Adams's conversation with the hunter shows that courage is hard to
come by, especially when scary situations call for immediate action. The hunter skedaddles
seconds after hearing Fanny yell, while Adams heads straight towards the screams. Who's got the
courage this time?

Courage is often called for in startling situations. Joseph might not consider himself the bravest
guy, but he jumps to defend Fanny no matter what. Adams gets a lot of his courage from his
trusty crabstick, but let's face it: his fists could cause even the bravest warrior to tremble.

37
Society is just one more thing that Joseph is oblivious about—but just because he's clueless
about crumpets and tea doesn't mean that everyone else is, too. Lady Booby, for one, is certain
she can have her way with Joseph as soon as he figures out the (ahem) benefits of living the
upper-class life. Mr. Wilson, on the other hand, learns the hard way that his class position won't
shelter him from the seedy side of London.

So even if Joseph isn't aware that he's navigating a complicated social system, it definitely
influences everything he does. For example, while the hoity-toity folks of Joseph
Andrews gallivant around the countryside in coaches, they're not often eager to share those
coaches with a footman—handsome as he might be. The great epic of the road has everything to
do with the fact that Joseph's class limits the spaces he can access.

Our boy Joseph might as well be singing that Sister Sledge song about family. Yeah, he's that
proud of his darling sister, Pamela. He should be: she was a big-time celebrity in the eighteenth
century. But when that strawberry-shaped birthmark shakes things up at the end of the book,
Joseph has to deal with having everything he knows about family ripped out from under him.

That's not to say everything is bad. Joseph gains a pretty nifty new father in Mr. Wilson, plus an
inheritance that would make Paris Hilton blush. Most importantly, he gets to maintain a family
connection to Pamela—after all, she's now revealed to be Fanny's sister. Following us so far?
Family is always complicated in Joseph Andrews, but it's always portrayed as a positive force in
our fave characters' lives.

Everyone in Joseph Andrews seems to want something from our poor hero, and few of them
have any qualms about resorting to shady tactics. Parson Adams and Fanny Goodwill may be on
the up and up, but basically all of the minor characters justify messing with Joseph's head in
order to get at their baser desires: sex for Lady Booby, Mrs. Slipslop, and Betty, and money for
just about everyone else.

So, is Joseph really as gullible as he seems? We'd say that he's at least a little wise to the ways of
the road. It's better to be underestimated than totally predictable, after all.

Still, he's pretty gullible.

38
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

Who'da thunk Joseph would be so interested in a piece of gold? What's gold to this goody-two-
shoes, right? Yeah, well, this particular piece of gold is a special symbol that reminds Joseph of
Fanny. When he's robbed on the road, he begs people to "search for a little piece of broken gold,
which had a ribband tied to it, and which he could swear to amongst all the hoards of the richest
men in the universe" (1.14.10).

Later on, the folks at the inn try to confiscate the piece of gold to use as evidence against the
robbers who left Joseph in a ditch. Great, right? Not right: we find Joseph practically in tears as
he tries to prevent his piece of gold from disappearing in a lengthy trial. More than revenge or
justice, Joseph values his relationship with Fanny. If he let this piece of gold vanish into the
ether, his value system would be totally out of whack.

In a nutshell, Joseph is keen on recovering the piece of gold because it represents Fanny and his
love for her. Joseph doesn't care how much the gold is worth in monetary terms; it's only
meaningful to him as a reminder of Fanny. On top of that, Joseph is struggling to keep his virtue
intact. He tells us he's resisting temptation so that he can save himself Fanny, so it makes sense
that he needs a little reminder now and again.

THE STRAWBERRY-SHAPED BIRTHMARK

Joseph has a particularly pretty birthmark on his chest. Now, it's not like he goes around flashing
that birthmark to everyone, but still, all of Joseph's buddies know that this birthmark separates
Joseph from the pack. Little do they know that it's also the thing that shows his true parentage—
yep, it turns out that Joseph is a gentleman, through and through. As Mr. Wilson's son and heir,
he's got plenty of wealth coming to him.

Joseph is a handsome guy, but he's by no means perfect. Fielding takes great pains to show how
Joseph is always in the middle. He's middle-class, middling height, and not particularly smart
about navigating the world. Joseph's flaws help him, though. The strawberry-shaped birthmark is

39
the perfect example of a flaw that changes Joseph's life for the better, due to how recognizable it
is.

Take a look at what the peddler says about Joseph and his birthmark, for example. After all, it's
the savvy peddler who brings the birthmark to everyone's attention. He asks Gammar Andrews if
her supposed kid has a birthmark, and she answers: "Yes, he had as fine a strawberry as ever
grew in a garden" (4.15.4). By implying that Joseph's strawberry birthmark is natural, Gammar
Andrews suggests that he's pretty awesome, flaws and all.

See, even if Joseph isn't at the top of his game, his birthmark shows that he's a natural gentleman.
We're thinking that Fielding is making a joke about how virtue is inherited. Is it really passed
down from generation to generation, like social status? We mean, really, if it all comes down to a
fruity birthmark, then how important could any of this be? Well, hey: better check for your
strawberry-shaped birthmarks, Shmoopers—you could be kings in disguise.

PAMELA ANDREWS

Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

Okay, you knew this was coming.

We can't overstate the importance of Miss Pamela Andrews to Fielding's work in general—and
to Joseph Andrews in particular. We'd even say that she's less of a character and more of a
symbol in this book. Joseph breaks it down for us: "I don't doubt, dear sister, but you will have
the grace to preserve your virtue against all trials, and I beg you earnestly to pray, I may be
enabled to preserve mine […]" (1.10.5).

Hold up. What's he talking about? Obviously, Joseph is trying to withstand the temptation to give
up his virtue. But he's also talking about Pamela's trials to hold off her master, Mr. B. This battle
of wills is the whole plot ofPamela, Samuel Richardson's masterpiece (or master-stinker, if you
agree with Fielding).

The ghost of Pamela haunts all of Joseph Andrews. Joseph is constantly in his sister's shadow,
trying to measure up to her unattainable level of perfection. Although we don't actually meet

40
Pamela, the character, until the very end of the book, Joseph hopes to "copy [her] example" all
the way through (1.10.5).

Isn't this all a little bit much? Surely, no one thinks about their bratty siblingthat much. Still,
we're talking about Pamela Andrews, the single biggest sensation to hit eighteenth-century
literature. Even better, Fielding has a hay day making fun of the secret of the book's success.
Despite Pamela's will to resist sex, people read the book because it was sexy.

On top of that, by switching the sex of the main character from a female (Pamela) to a male
(Joseph), Fielding is sending up Richardson's whole premise. At least in the eighteenth century,
it would have been a lot more absurd for a handsome young buck to be holding off a bunch of
lusty ladies than for a virtuous maiden to be holding off a lecherous old man. Fielding is making
fun of the whole double standard.

THE HISTORY OF LEONORA

Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

The story Leonora inserted is inserted seemingly randomly in the middle ofJoseph Andrews,
right after Joseph and Adams split up to travel. The only connection this story has to the book's
plot is that the coach passes right by Leonora's house. So what's the deal? Why devote a chapter
to Leonora?

We're Not Saying She's a Gold-digger

Basically, Leonora's a gold-digger. She's totally fickle: she throws off her first fiancé, Horatio,
just because a new guy appears with a coach and six horses. Okay, we'll say it straight: Leonora
seems to be in it for the money. Or maybe she's just in it for the prestige that comes with
marrying a fancy Frenchman: "Aye, but Bellarmine is the genteeler and fine man; yes, that must
be allowed" (2.4.35). Now, wealth-obsessed women don't feature prominently in Joseph
Andrews, so it seems odd to introduce Leonora at this point.

41
Or does it? Joseph is practically the opposite of Leonora in every way. IfJoseph Andrews is the
story of a man who preserves his virtue, the story of Leonora is an allegory about what happens
when someone is willing to compromise her integrity for the promise of material objects.

Of course, all of that vanishes into thin air once Bellarmine can't get a dowry from Leonora's
father—so Leonora does pay a price for her greedy ways.

Don't Forget Horatio

Horatio, the guy who doesn't have the coach and six, is Leonora's spurned lover. Let's not forget
his significance to this story, especially since he's the only one who isn't mercilessly satirized. He
loves Leonora despite her fickleness, even though he sees the writing is on the wall when
Bellarmine appears. And sure, he could have her after Bellarmine ditches her for good, but why
bother with an unhappy marriage?

See, Horatio conducts himself on the straight and narrow. "[…] Give yourself no more airs, for
you see I am coming for you," he tells Bellarmine as soon as he finds out his involvement with
Leonora (2.4.42). That's shades of Inigo Montoya right there.

All this is to say that Horatio is the one shining example of a gentleman in Leonora's story. He
doesn't pull punches and he doesn't fall for Leonora's doe-eyed act. And yet he's still a little
unhappy at the end of the story: he wouldn't ever go back to the scheming Leonora, but he still
sighs when he hears her name. We're thinking you could read this story two ways: either it's no
use to fall in love, or if you're going to fall in love, you should make sure to fall in love with a
lady like Fanny. Luckily, Joseph's nabbed her already.

ANALYSIS: SETTING

Where It All Goes Down

The Eighteenth-Century Open Road

Setting in Joseph Andrews is all about the characters. Yes, it's kind of weird that we get pages of
description of Fanny's face and hardly anything about the English countryside the characters

42
travel across. In each new location, Joseph encounters colorful characters who distract him from
his journey. Still, we get snippets here and there of description of the open road.

Ooh-La-La, London

Before Joseph ever starts his journey, he has a grand time hanging out in London—not that he
really gets what London is all about. While walking around in Hyde Park, for example, Lady
Tittle and Lady Tattle spot him walking arm-in-arm with Lady Booby (1.4.3). How did that
happen? Well, Hyde Park is the place in London to go to promenade around, see, and be seen.
Translation: it's Gossip Central.

Joseph is definitely seen by the town gossips, but he doesn't seem to see much himself. Classic
Joseph: unaware that Hyde Park is a magnet for theDesperate Housewives of England, just as he
seems pretty unaware that he himself is… a magnet for the Desperate Housewives of England.

Stormy Seasons

Joseph doesn't choose the best time to hit the road. As soon as he departs from Lady Booby's
London house, he finds himself in "a violent storm of hail" that forces him "to take shelter in this
inn, where he remembered Sir Thomas had dined in his way to town" (1.11.11). The countryside
is often depicted as inhospitable to the naïve Joseph, who is totally not prepared to travel through
poor weather conditions.

Come In to the Inn

Instead, Joseph seeks refuge in that middle-class haven: the inn. Joseph stops in at countless inns
along the way, where his fellow travelers gather to talk shop and get a good pint of ale. Even
though you have to have money to stay at an inn (which Joseph frequently doesn't), they're more
hospitable places than the open road.

For instance, check out when Joseph is rescued from that ditch. His reluctant saviors drop him
off at the nearest inn, where the maid gives him "a great coat belonging to one of the hostlers,
desired him to sit down and warm himself, whilst she made his bed" (1.12.11). Sounds pretty
fantastic to us. Of course, there's always the problem of paying… but Joseph seems to get by
relying on the charity of others, such as Adams and random strangers.

43
ANALYSIS: NARRATOR POINT OF VIEW

Who is the narrator, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?

Third Person Omniscient

Oh, hey, third person omniscient.

Joseph gets a lot of playing time in the story, but the real star of the show is the intrusive
narrator. That pesky guy weaves in and out of every character's consciousness; he knows
everything about everything, and he'll tell you what's up even when the characters are lying
through their teeth.

Check out how this tidbit, for example, when the narrator gives us the real scoop about what
Lady Booby'll do to get at Joseph: "She resolved to preserve all the dignity of the woman of
fashion to her servant, and to indulge herself in this last view of Joseph […]" (1.7.6). Yeah, that
narrator's a sneaky son of a gun.

The best parts, though, are when the narrator decides to give us a little sermon of his own. What,
he doesn't think it's enough to make us listen to Parson Adams? No sir: our bud the narrator is
particularly fond of holding forth at the beginning of each volume in Joseph
Andrews. Sometimes, he even gives us insights into the author's trades: "I take this dividing of
our works into books and chapters to be none of the least considerable [secrets]" (2.1.1). What
does that have to do with Joseph? Nothing, but our third person omniscient narrator is going to
tell us, anyway.

Actually, all this chatter about constructing a novel does have some purpose. Fielding
wrote Joseph Andrews as send-up of Samuel Richardson's Pamela, so when he talks about how
to properly construct a novel, you can bet he's giving the middle finger to old Richardson and
saying, "Hey, buddy, here's how you write a real novel."

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ANALYSIS: GENRE

Adventure; Comedy; Picaresque

In Joseph Andrews, we've got a handsome hero who hits the road to find his one true love. Along
the way, he encounters obstacles galore in order to get back to the place where he grew up. If
that isn't an adventure, we'll eat our hats.

If that isn't enough for you, we've got ruffians, evil squires, sheep-stealers who may or may not
be ghosts, and grumpy innkeepers. There's a lot of local color in this story that adds to its
adventurous elements.

We've also got characters named Lady Booby, Mrs. Slipslop, and Mr. Tow-wouse. Funny? You
bet. Beneath it all, Joseph Andrews is a comedy meant to make its readers chortle. Think of
Adams "rolling down the hill, which he did from top to bottom, without receiving any harm"
(3.2.8). The story isn't meant to be all serious and educational all the time. We'll admit it—we
giggled.

Finally, Joseph Andrews is a darn-tootin' good example of the picaresque. What's that, you ask?
Well, it usually consists of a series of adventures undertaken by a lower-class hero. That's Joseph
to a T, even if the ending reveals him to be a gentleman. Usually, the plot of a picaresque novel
is pretty loose—it usually just involves the hero wandering around getting into trouble and
listening to outlandish stories. Sound familiar?

ANALYSIS: TONE

Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?

Lighthearted, Didactic

Part of Fielding's goal with Joseph Andrews is to analyze "the only source of the true ridiculous
(as it appears to me) […] affectation" (Preface.15). We'd call that a lighthearted approach, to the
point of even being flippant. Fielding definitely tackles serious themes, but he does it by
constantly poking fun at his best characters—especially characters who take themselves too

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seriously (that's called "affectation"). Parson Adams is a great example of a pious parson, but he
also wears a pretty obvious toupee.

What's it all leading toward? As you might have figured, Fielding wouldn't leave you hanging
with pointless comedy. Instead, he sets out to school us all on hypocrisy, virtue, and true
gentility. He doesn't hide his didacticism, either. Fielding is like your favorite funny teacher (or,
ahem, all of us here at Shmoop) who always has a lesson behind his jokes. He wants you to learn
something, but he doesn't want to be all lame and boring about it.

ANALYSIS: WRITING STYLE

Rollicking, Abrupt

Yep, we said the writing style is rollicking. Think about a rollercoaster, slowly inching toward
the top of the steepest drop. When you head over the edge, you're thrown around a little bit, but
it's all in good fun. How does that play out in Fielding? Check out the scene where the hunting
dogs tear off Parson Adams's wig and the group is thrown into chaos, for example: "[…] they
began to pull him about; and had not the motion of his body had more effect on him than seemed
to be wrought by the noise, they must certainly have tasted his flesh" (3.6.7). That rollicking
pace is exactly what you can expect from Joseph Andrews.

But even as you're rushing along on this action-packed rollercoaster, you get jerked back and
forth with a series of random events. Who'da thunk that the wig-stealing scene would end up
with Adams and the crew going to dinner at the perpetrator's house? Or that Adams would be the
butt of every single one of the squire's jokes?

In fact, when the story takes unexpected turns, the writing style becomes especially jerky and
abrupt. Get a load of this example, when the group suddenly leaves the squire's house: "Adams
and Joseph […] went out with their sticks in their hands; and carried off Fanny […]" (3.8.1).
Where they'll go, nobody knows.

ANALYSIS: WHAT'S UP WITH THE TITLE?

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The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and of his friend Mr. Abraham Adams is a
mouthful. We think it's pretty significant that the full title includes both Joseph and his right-
hand man, giving them nearly equal billing.

Joseph is definitely the star of the show, but Parson Adams is Fielding's personal addition to
the Pamela franchise. While Joseph himself is straight-up satire of Pamela Andrews, Adams adds
his own particular brand of tomfoolery to the trope of the bumbling parson. Plus, Fielding pretty
much promises to give us a new species of writing in the Preface. We're thinking that the
"History" part of the title shows us which direction that writing will take.

ANALYSIS: WHAT'S UP WITH THE ENDING?

Once we find out what Joseph's strawberry-shaped birthmark really means, the story ends pretty
quickly. We already know deep down that Joseph's a gentleman, so it should be no surprise that
the newly revealed heir of Mr. Wilson "remains blest with his Fanny, whom he doats on with the
utmost tenderness, which is all returned on her side" (4.16.20).

Oh, yeah, and Fielding does have to get in one last dig at Richardson: he tells us that Joseph will
not be "prevailed on by any booksellers, or their authors, to make his appearance in High-Life"
(4.16.20). What the heck? Well, that's a reference to Richardson's authorized sequel
of Pamela (yes, this massive, 600-page snooze-fest—according to Fielding—had a sequel),
which chronicles her pregnancy. Scandalous. Another guy, John Kelly, wrote a similarly named
sequel, Pamela's Conduct in High Life.

Pamela is just the gift that keeps on giving, but Joseph Andrews… well, Fielding says it's better
to stop while you're ahead.

ANALYSIS: PLOT ANALYSIS

Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict,
complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up
the recipe and add some spice.

Exposition (Initial Situation): Playing Footsie with the Footman

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Joseph's got a pretty sweet gig as a footman for Sir Thomas Booby. Sure, Lady Booby has the
hots for him, but he's the talk of London-town. After Sir Thomas dies, Joseph's just managing to
hold off Lady Booby when she abruptly fires him. The lady's a fickle mistress.

Conflict: On the Road Again

Joseph hits the road in search of his one true love, Fanny Goodwill. His beloved is holed up at
Lady Booby's country estate, but that's a long way from London. How will Joseph make it
through a maze of storms, thieving ruffians, and angry innkeepers? His first day on the road ends
with him lying naked and beaten in a ditch. Not exactly a good start.

Complication: Parson Adams is Packin' Heat

By a total stroke of luck, Parson Adams runs into Joseph after his near-fatal injury. Once he
heals up, the pair plans to take on the world together—or at least travel to the Booby country
estate together. Adams causes at least as many problem as he solves, though. The bumbling
parson forgets his horse, forgets to pay for his horse, and gets into fights with innkeepers. Will
these dudes ever get to the Booby's?

  

Climax (Crisis, Turning Point): The Crabstick Prevails While Justice Fails

Always the chivalrous hero, Parson Adams comes to the aid of a young woman being attacked
by a stranger. With the aid of his trusty crabstick, Adams knocks some sense into that fool. The
grateful young lady turns out to be none other than Fanny Goodwill. But a group of bird-batters
mistake the two for criminals and haul them to justice. Joseph and Fanny have never been so
near and yet so far from each other.

Falling Action: Lady Booby Nearly Wrecks It

Lady Booby has to take one last stab at sabotaging Fanny and Joseph's impending nuptials. With
the help of the dastardly lawyer Scout, she schemes to have the pair thrown in Bridewell, a
notorious prison. Well, she'd rather have Fanny locked away and Joseph spared for her own
nefarious plans, but it's both of them who get framed for a minor crime.

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Resolution (Denouement): Pamela's No Sham(ela)

Pamela and her new hunky husband, Mr. Booby, are initially skeptical that Fanny and Joseph are
meant to be. But Mr. Booby clears their names, regardless, and he prevents them from being
thrown in Bridewell. Even better, the mysterious peddler emerges with a story to tell: Fanny is
actually Joseph's parents' daughter (bear with us), and Joseph is the son of Mr. Wilson. So that
settles it: Joseph and Fanny finally get hitched.

ANALYSIS: THREE-ACT PLOT ANALYSIS

For a three-act plot analysis, put on your screenwriter’s hat. Moviemakers know the formula
well: at the end of Act One, the main character is drawn in completely to a conflict. During Act
Two, she is farthest away from her goals. At the end of Act Three, the story is resolved.

Act I

Joseph leaves his cushy job as a footman when Lady Booby gets a little too amorous toward him.
He journeys to the Booby country estate to find his sweetheart, Fanny, but the road is paved with
ruffians and other obstacles. Parson Adams runs into Joseph after his first day on the road and
joins him as they encounter grumpy innkeeper after grumpy innkeeper. The pair separates briefly
when Parson Adams forgets he has a horse.

  

Act II

As Parson Adams is walking along and minding his own bees' wax, he runs into Fanny Goodwill
being attacked by a random stranger. Yes, that would be Joseph's sweetheart Fanny. Without
knowing who she is, Adams defends her and plans to accompany her back to see Joseph. But the
villain who attacks Fanny frames the pair, saying they're thieves, and the two are hauled before
the lazy Justice of the Peace to answer for their fake crimes. After Adams and Fanny are cleared,
Joseph and Fanny have a tearful reunion. They stay at the charming Mr. Wilson's house and hear
the story about Wilson's long-lost son as they make their way to the country.

Act III

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A dastardly squire kidnaps Fanny with the intention of ravishing her, but Peter Pounce comes to
her rescue. When the group finally makes it to the Booby's countryseat, Lady Booby is waiting
with every intention to foil Joseph and Fanny's marriage. The lawyer Scout is totally willing to
help her, and even Pamela and Mr. Booby aren't particularly thrilled about the match. But when
the peddler reveals Joseph's true parentage, no one can help but approve.

Joseph Andrews Quotes and Analysis

“The only Source of the true Ridiculous (as it appears to me) is Affectation.”

Fielding, 52

In the Preface to the novel, Fielding rejects burlesque as the depiction of “the monstrous,”
whereas he, as a comic writer, seeks to depict “the ridiculous”; that is, while burlesque heightens
distortions of value into a sense of unreality, comedy depicts only the forms of absurdity that
exist in real life. The phenomenon of “the true Ridiculous” in literature arises from the exposure
of “Affectation,” which is itself the source or sanction of much of the evil in the world. Thus, in
his preference for comedy over burlesque and for the ridiculous over the monstrous, Fielding has
a didactic and ethical purpose in addition to his simply humorous one.

“It is a trite but true Observation, that Examples work more forcibly on the Mind than
Precepts.”

Fielding, 61

Fielding explains in Book I, Chapter I the moral utility of the novel: it has this advantage over
sermons and works of moral philosophy, that it can embody virtue in the biographies of
exemplary characters, thereby “inspir[ing] our Imitation” of virtue rather than merely enjoining
it. He goes on to cite Richardson’s Pamela and Cibber’s autobiography as examples of recent
works of literature that have moved readers to the imitation of virtue; while the examples are
obviously sarcastic, the principle and its enunciation are not.

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“Mr. Joseph Andrews, the Hero of our ensuing History, was esteemed to be the only Son of
Gaffar and Gammer Andrews, and Brother to the illustrious Pamela, whose Virtue is at
present so famous.”

Fielding, 63

In introducing the title character, Fielding makes explicit the connection between his hero and
Richardson’s heroine: he has made them not only sister and brother but, implicitly, original and
spoof. The reference to their parents as “Gaffar and Gammer,” dialect terms of respect for older
people of low social rank, emphasizes the (ostensible) low birth of the hero, which in turn signals
the “low” or comical nature of the action, and is perhaps a satiric glance at the many rusticisms
that characterize the diction of Richardson’s Pamela. The detail of Joseph’s being “esteemed” the
son of his parents will take on obvious importance in light of later developments.

“He was generous, friendly and brave to an Excess; but Simplicity was his Characteristic.”

Fielding, 65

Fielding introduces Parson Adams, the novel’s great innocent, succinctly and with judicious
reference to the weaknesses that temper his virtues. Adams’s generosity, friendliness, and
bravery appear to be tied to one another, as indeed they ought to be according to Fielding’s moral
scheme, which designates natural sociability, rather than supernatural grace, as the source of that
benevolence which is the only true expression of goodness. In Adams, however, bravery is
excessive because he does not regulate it with prudence; “Simplicity,” or naïveté, is certainly
more present in Adams’s character than in any other in the novel.

“Her Complexion was fair, a little injured by the Sun, but overspread with such a Bloom,
that the finest Ladies would have exchanged all their White for it: add to these, a
Countenance in which tho’ she was extremely bashful, a Sensibility appeared almost
incredible; and a Sweetness, whenever she smiled, beyond either Imitation or Description.”

Fielding, 173

Fanny Goodwill, like all of Fielding’s heroines, is beautiful in a way that would have appealed to
eighteenth-century men: buxom and zaftig, she seems palpable and accessible rather than remote

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and ethereal, and such naturalistic “imperfections” as her sunburn set off her appeal. Fielding is
careful, however, to specify that Fanny’s attractions are not merely physical and sexual: her
“Sensibility” and “Sweetness” somehow manifest themselves corporally and render the proper
appreciation of her appearance an exercise not just of physical impulses but of the moral faculty.
Fielding’s mention of her “extreme[] bashful[ness]” is not a throwaway detail, either, for
Fanny’s retiring nature is congruous with the role of potential rape victim that she plays
repeatedly throughout the novel.

“As when a hungry Tygress, who long had traversed the Woods in fruitless search, sees within
the Reach of her Claws a Lamb, she prepared to leap on her Prey; or as a voracious Pike, of
immense Size, surveys through the liquid Element a Roach or Gudgeon which cannot escape her
Jaws, opens them wide to swallow the little Fish: so did Mrs. Slipslop prepare to lay her violent
amorous Hands on the poor Joseph.”

Fielding, 74

This passage, which refers to Slipslop’s lustful attempt on Joseph in London, is a good example
of Fielding’s use of mock-epic diction. The comparison of the lecherous Slipslop to a “hungry
Tygress” is a satirical version of the Homeric simile; Homer’s epic poems employ many of these
highly detailed similes, often comparing valiant warriors to predatory animals. While Homer
used this technique to exalt the heroic actors in his tales, Fielding uses the disjunction between
elevated diction and “low” subject to poke fun at his characters. Sometimes, as here, the
character and action are sordid and the humor is somewhat harsh and satirical; at other times, as
when Fielding renders the epic battle of Joseph with the Hunter’s hounds, the character and
action are low in class status but good and honorable, and the humor is warmer and more
indulgent.

“Whoever therefore is void of Charity, I make no scruple of pronouncing that he is no Christian.”

Fielding, 185

Mr. Adams makes this pronouncement during his argument with Parson Trulliber over the true
nature of Christianity and the duties of a Christian. Trulliber, like Parson Barnabas, contrasts
with Adams in preaching that faith is sufficient for salvation without good works; Adams,

52
meanwhile, preaches very nearly the opposite doctrine: as he says in another important passage,
“a virtuous and good Turk, or Heathen, are more acceptable in the sight of their Creator than a
vicious and wicked Christian, though his Faith was as perfectly orthodox as St. Paul’s himself.”
St. Paul himself was presumably on Fielding’s mind when he penned Adams’s declaration to
Trulliber, as the line seems to echo 1 Corinthians 13.2: “and though I have all faith, so that I
could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.”

“[I]t is more than probable, poor Joseph, who obstinately adhered to his modest Resolution, must
have perished, unless the Postilion, (a lad who hath been since transported for robbing a Hen-
roost) had voluntarily stript off a great Coat, his only Garment, at the time swearing a great Oath,
(for which he was rebuked by the Passengers) ‘That he would rather ride in his Shirt all his Life,
than suffer a Fellow-Creature to lie in so miserable a Condition.’”

Fielding, 90-91

This incident of the poor Postilion’s lending Joseph his coat when the fastidious coach
passengers would prefer to leave him to die naked in a ditch is perhaps the most famous
illustration of hypocrisy in all of Fielding. It alludes to the parable of the Good Samaritan, in
which respectable passersby, including a priest, refuse to help a waylaid Jewish traveler until
finally a Samaritan, member of a despised class, stops to clothe the traveler and tend his wounds;
here the Postilion, like the Samaritan before him, shames his “betters” by acting charitably
despite his modest means. In addition to exposing the hypocrisy of the passengers, this incident
also touches on Joseph’s virtue, which verges on prudishness: he is so “modest” that he would
not approach the ladies in the coach while naked, even if it costs him his life.

“‘Now believe me, no Christian ought so to set his Heart on any Person or Thing in this World,
but that whenever it shall be required or taken from him in any manner by Divine Providence, he
may be able, peaceably, quietly, and contentedly to resign it.’ At which Words one came hastily
in and acquainted Mr. Adams that his youngest Son was drowned.”

Fielding, 303

Speaking to Joseph shortly before his marriage to Fanny, Mr. Adams returns to one of his
frequent themes, that of the regulation of the passions and submission to the divine will. The

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rationalistic side of Adams demands that people control even their spousal and familial
affections, which are not sinful in themselves, so as not to repine when it should please God to
take the life of that spouse or family member. This doctrine is easier preached than practiced,
however, as Mr. Adams himself will demonstrate through his reaction, which is not at all
resigned, to the supposed death of his son (who quickly turns out not to have drowned after all).
This episode alludes to the Old Testament story of Abraham and Isaac, in which God commands
the Patriarch to sacrifice his son and Abraham prepares to comply without protesting, only for an
angel to stay his hand before he can take the life of Isaac. In both cases God appears to demand
the death of a beloved son but ultimately spares him; each case represents a test of the father’s
faith and resignation to providence, a test which Abraham passes but Adams fails. While Adams
certainly shows himself incapable of taking his own advice, however, many readers will decide
that his spontaneous emotional responses reveal him to be a better person than his rationalistic
strictures seemed to imply.

“[T]he Pleasures of the World are chiefly Folly, and the Business of it mostly Knavery; and both,
nothing better than Vanity.”

Fielding, 231

Thus does Mr. Wilson summarize the lesson of his lost youth spent debauching in London. Like
Fielding himself, Wilson views “Vanity” as one of mankind’s leading flaws. “Vanity” has two
related but distinct meanings, both of which are in play in the novel. It can refer to the quality of
being vain, of considering oneself better than one is; Mr. Adams is frequently vain in his high
estimation of his sermons, his teaching prowess, and his moral dignity. Vanity may also,
however, refer to that which is trivial and hollow: traditional moralists often refer to a life of
frivolity and dissipation, such as that in which Wilson indulged in “the Pleasures of the World,”
as a life of vanity. The language of this passage bears the influence of a famous phrase that
recurs in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Finally,
Wilson’s implicit designation of London as the locus of vanity is consistent with Fielding’s
moral geography, whereby London represents “the World” in all its pride and corruption and the
countryside represents the classical ideal of virtue and contented solitude; the maturing Christian,
either Wilson or Joseph, must therefore progress from town to country, from the life of vice and
vanity to the life of virtue and retirement.

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 Joseph Andrews Henry Fielding and Samuel Richardson

The Richardson-Fielding contrast has been around since the novelists were alive, and literary
criticism has always had difficulty talking about either novelist without comparing him to the
other, whether explicitly or implicitly. The opposition is a natural one, not least because of
Richardson’s role in launching Fielding’s career: the latter wrote Shamela (1741), his first
sustained attempt at fiction, as a satirical response to Richardson’s controversial Pamela (1740),
and his longer and more serious Joseph Andrews (1742) likewise draws on Richardson’s novel
for an equivocal sort of inspiration. The precise nature of that inspiration is worth examining, for
whileShamela is a straightforward travesty of Pamela, Joseph Andrews is something more
complex, and its relation to Pamela is something other than the relation of parody to original.
Pamela was one of the great popular phenomena of British literary history. It is the story of a
teenage servant-girl, Pamela Andrews, who withstands the unwanted attentions of her Master,
the lecherous squire Mr. B., and maintains her purity against long odds. Near the midpoint of the
novel Mr. B. recognizes her moral worth, reforms himself, and marries her; the second half of
the story concerns Pamela’s triumphant acclimation to her new exalted condition, her conquering
of the snobbish upper class by the sheer force of her goodness. The entire novel comprises a
series of letters and journal entries, a few of which (near the beginning) are written by other
characters but the vast majority of which are the work of Pamela herself; this epistolary format is
part of the Richardson’s revolutionary contribution to the development of the novel in English,
for the first-person narration of events, in nearly real-time, allows the novelist to explore, quite
naturalistically, the depths and nuances of Pamela’s psyche. Part of Fielding’s revulsion from
Richardson’s creation may have been owing to this method of characterization, so different from
his own and perhaps bringing the reader in too close for comfort. Thus, the great essayist Samuel
Johnson distinguished Fielding from Richardson in this manner: “There is all the difference in
the world between characters of nature and characters of manners; and there is the difference
between the characters of Fielding and those of Richardson. Characters of manners are very
entertaining; but they are to be understood by a more superficial observer than characters of
nature, where a man must dive into the recesses of the human heart.” In this respect, at least,

55
Richardson was on the cutting edge where Fielding was not, as the distinctive province of the
novel in the modern age would turn out to be the lavish delineation of individual subjectivity.
Pamela was also modern in being the first true best-seller. Richardson and his associates in the
London publishing trade prepared the way for its debut with a P.R. campaign involving
newspaper advertisements and celebrity endorsements. The pre-release hype tended to
emphasize the moral utility of the novel and the laudable example that its virtuous heroine set for
young ladies, and indeed upon its publication the novel received accolades from clergymen and
other professional moralists in addition to literary types and the general public. The
wholesomeness of Richardson’s moral message and the value of his aesthetic achievement were
not evident to all observers, however, as a contingent of vocal detractors soon developed, some
of whom vented their disgust in literary parodies. One such was Fielding, whose first
contribution to Anti-Pamela literature was the bawdy Shamela.
The criticisms that inform Fielding’s parody are typical of the Anti-Pamela sentiment of the day,
and many readers find that they remain compelling. One major problem, for Fielding and those
who agree with him, arises from an unintended consequence of Richardson’s narrative method:
Pamela’s authorship of virtually all the documents that make up the novel means that all
information must come through her, with two unfortunate implications for her characterization.
The fact that Richardson also needs Pamela to report other characters’ constant praises of her
gives an impression of vanity -- and of hypocrisy as well, given Pamela’s many “humble” claims
that she is unworthy of such praise. Pamela thus seems guilty of both of Fielding’s types of
affectation. Worse, since the action of the novel revolves entirely around the possibility of sex,
Pamela’s writing can make her appear to be sex-obsessed; this impression in turn makes her
insistent protestations of virtue seem dubious. Indeed, in Fielding’s opinion Pamela was never
sincere in her rejections of Mr. B.’s advances but was simply being strategic.

Richardson’s subtitle provides the clue: “Virtue Rewarded.” Is virtue, specifically female sexual
virtue, its own reward, as the saying goes, or does it meet with some other, more tangible
reward? In other words, is Pamela’s pursuit of virtue self-interested (and thereby hypocritical)?
Given the plot of the novel, in which Richardson rewards his heroine with a socially elevating
marriage, the pursuit of virtue for material gain might indeed seem a rational enterprise. On this
theory, Pamela resists Mr. B. at first in order to maximize the rewards when she capitulates later;
she is acting on the insight behind the vulgar expression, “Why buy the cow when you can get
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the milk for free?” In stressing that female chastity precedes marriage, Richardson meant to
recommend virtue for its own sake; in the opinion of Fielding and some others, however, the
novel that many moralists extolled as a positive moral example to young women was in fact an
instruction manual on how to use the appearance of virtue to gain social and financial
advantages. InShamela, Fielding makes this interpretation of Pamela’s character explicit: his
sham-Pamela is a hussy pretending to be a prude, affecting to detest the advances of her Master
while slyly encouraging them with her “involuntary” physical responses. In a famous passage,
she confesses to her correspondent, “I thought once of making a little fortune by my person. I
now intend to make a great one by my virtue.”
In Joseph Andrews, however, Fielding is no longer concerned with the genuineness or falsity of
Pamela’s sexual morality, and what is more, the parodic motive has receded drastically in his
conception of the work; what may be called the “Richardson material” occupies the first ten
chapters but is marginal at best thereafter. The plot begins with a direct link to Richardson’s
novel: Pamela has married Mr. B. (now “Mr. Booby”), and Fielding has endowed her with a
brother, Joseph Andrews, who is in the service of Mr. Booby’s uncle, Sir Thomas Booby. Sir
Thomas’s wife occupies a role analogous to that of Mr. B. in Pamela, as she soon sets about
trying to seduce the physically charming Andrews in her employ. Parody, however, is never the
only, or even the primary, point of the encounters between Joseph and Lady Booby: though
Joseph’s “priggishly self-conscious virtue” (in the words of one critic) raises laughs by
transferring Pamela’s signature attributes to a strapping young man, nevertheless Joseph never
becomes merely a figure of parody; he is too clearly justified in his opposition to those detestable
hypocrites, Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop, and his pursuit of virtue has no ulterior motive. As
Homer Goldberg puts it, “the prime target of the ridicule is not the footman but his mistress, a
figure with no derisive implication for Richardson’s novel.”
If Fielding no longer cares to impugn Pamela’s sexual virtue and accuse her of hypocrisy, then
what is the point of his use of Richardson’s characters? As Brian McCrea has argued in an
influential essay, Fielding’s new target is Pamela’s (and, by extension, Richardson’s) class
attitudes. In an important moment, Fielding has his Pamela attempt to derail Joseph’s marriage to
Fanny on classist grounds that, had they applied to her own case, would have kept her a servant-
girl forever. When reminded that Fanny’s origins are similar to her own, Pamela responds with
damning smugness: “She was my Equal . . . but I am no longer Pamela Andrews, I am now this

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Gentleman’s Lady, and as such am above her.” This is an appalling sentiment, but in Fielding’s
opinion it scarcely exaggerates the position implicit in Richardson’s novel. When Richardson’s
Mr. B. stoops to marry his servant, his disregard of class boundaries may seem revolutionary; in
the full half of the novel following the couple’s marriage, however, Richardson does much to
mitigate what at first seemed a radical social message. Upon her marriage and elevation, says
McCrea, “Pamela changes her identity”: having once looked to her beloved parents as her moral
and spiritual guides, she suddenly adopts Mr. B. as her paragon and creator, describing him as
“God-like” and confessing herself “entirely the work of [his] bounty.” As she seeks to comply in
all things with the will of Mr. B., she finds that she is not the same person she once was; as she
remarks to a servant, “times . . . are much altered with me. I have of late been so much honored
by better company, that I can’t stoop to yours.” Or, as Fielding’s Pamela would put it: “I am no
longer Pamela Andrews, I am now this Gentleman’s Lady.” In becoming Mr. B.’s creature when
she becomes his wife, Pamela demonstrates, against Richardson’s ostensible social and moral
message, that a servant-girl cannot really become a lady, because in order to become a lady she
must cease entirely to be the person she once was.

Fielding perceived this contradiction in Richardson’s handling of the class theme, and Pamela’s
appearance in Joseph Andrews makes explicit the covert snobbery that her original creator
unwittingly bequeathed to her. Not that Fielding himself cared much about the social aspirations
of servant-girls or footmen: his conclusion, in which he reveals Joseph to be a gentleman and
Fanny to be higher-born than everyone had thought, implicitly aligns individual worth with
genteel birth and thereby is decidedly un-egalitarian. If Fielding’s novel is not more democratic
than Richardson’s, however, it is definitely more honest; in Fielding’s moral outlook, which
condemns hypocrisy above everything, honesty makes all the difference.

JOSEPH ANDREWS

Character Analysis

He's Just An Average Joe

Before Average Joe was the subject of a mediocre reality TV show, he was Fielding's go-to guy
to show off middle-class values. After all, he's "the highest degree of middle stature" (1.8.4).

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He's not super-ambitious about being anything other than a footman, and he's not particularly
bright about worldly matters (sorry, Joe). We mean, seriously: he has no clue that Lady Booby is
trying to get with him, even though she invites him right into her bedroom, where she's lying
around naked.

So why is Joe the kind of guy who inspires some guy to write an entire book about him?

It might be easy to say we're supposed to make fun of who Joseph is and what he represents. But
the thing is that Joseph also has "a dress, and an air, which to those who have not seen many
noblemen, would give an idea of nobility" (1.8.5). An average Joe who also looks like a
nobleman makes us think that Joseph might represent some kind of an ideal to his readers. In the
novel, it's as if everyone generally wants to help Joseph out because he represents the best parts
of average people.

Pretty and Pure

One thing matters above all others to Joseph, and that's staying "pure and chaste" (1.13.5). In
this, he's taken some lessons from his famous sis Pamela, the virtuous heroine of Samuel
Richardson's mega popular—and, according to Fielding, mega lame—novel of the same name.
Joseph doesn't seem to have a problem turning down Lady Booby or Mrs. Slipslop, but he's also
coming to the realization that continuing to resist sex may be difficult.

That's why he writes to Pamela to affirm that he's doing the right thing. Pamela, the girl with the
world's biggest rep for being the purest in town, is basically his life coach in all things.

Joseph has an end goal, though. He wants to preserve his "virtue" for "the arms of my dear
Fanny," his childhood sweetheart (1.13.5). Ladies love Joseph, but he only has eyes for the
milkmaid next door. We don't often see Joseph struggling to stay chaste when he's around Fanny,
but he always seems to bring it up in his letters to Pamela. All that inner turmoil has to come out
somewhere, right?

It's not that Joseph's against getting it on—he just wants to get in on at the right time, with the
right person.

Don't Mess with His Girl

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Joseph may be mild-mannered, but the one thing that gets him madder than a wet hen is when
Fanny's life is threatened. A different side of Joseph emerges when a bad guy decides to mess
with his sweetheart. As soon as he knows Fanny's safe from the dastardly squire, he gives the
captain "a most severe drubbing, and ended with telling him, he had now had some revenge for
what his dear Fanny had suffered" (3.12.6).

If Joseph sometimes has violent impulses, it's just because he cares too deeply for Fanny and his
friends. Everyone thinks he's just a carefree footman who doesn't know left from right, but his
troubles on the road show how vulnerable the people closest to him are. Joseph may have rose-
colored glasses from growing up with Pamela, but he proves he can hold his own when he
encounters a bunch of deceitful men along the way who are only out for themselves. When
Joseph finally faces off with Beau Didapper, he doesn't even hesitate: poor Beau gets "so sound a
box on his ear, that it conveyed him several paces from where he stood" (4.11.1).

It turns out there's more to Joseph than meets the eye.

Holding His Own

Sure, Joseph's indebted to Parson Adams, his mentor and an all-around good guy. Adams has a
knack for showing up at the most convenient times, like when Joseph's at death's door after
having been robbed. Or how about when Adams prevents Fanny from being attacked? Let's give
Joseph his due, though. Not only is he his own person, but also, he gradually develops the ability
to defend his loved ones and argue Adams into the ground.

For instance, Adams has a chip on his shoulder when it comes to public schools. Adams just
doesn't see the point of them. Joseph politely begs to differ, offering an example of how "great
schools are little societies, where a boy of any observation may see in epitome what he will
afterwards find in the world at large" (3.5.3).

Sure, it's only a little tiff between two good friends. But it's one of the first times we see Joseph
differing from his beloved mentor and generating an opinion that's all his own. Let's just call it
the New and Improved Joseph: the road warrior who boxes ears like a maniac and uses his
education to eloquently argue his point. If this is a coming-of-age story, it all comes down to
Joseph figuring out how to be a big boy.

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Key points

As a little kid, Joseph has a great job: he scares away birds by singing.

Joey gets recruited to be the new footman at Sir Thomas and Lady Booby's.

Before long, it's off to London for Joseph. Hello, high-society life. Joseph enjoys himself, but he
doesn't get too crazy.

When Sir Thomas dies, Lady Booby gets a little too friendly with Joseph, if you know what we
mean. Or, well, correction: she tries to get a little too friendly with Joseph.

Joseph causes a bit of a stir with the London gossips, but he's totally unaware that Lady Booby's
into him.

In fact, Joseph has no idea what's going on when Lady Booby propositions him in her bedroom.
That doesn't stop him from turning her down, though.

Joseph's on a roll: Mrs. Slipslop also tries to proposition him, but he's not having it from her,
either.

In a fury, Slipslop tells false stories about Joseph to Lady Booby. Lady Booby promptly fires
him—though not without trying one more time to get with him.

Joseph hits the road on a quest to see his longtime love, Fanny Goodwill. She's employed at the
Booby country estate. But he barely gets anywhere before he's robbed and beaten by a bunch of
hoodlums.

A coach grudgingly stops to help Joseph and deposits him at a nearby inn.

There, Joseph is told by the surgeon that he's going to die of his injuries.

Before that happens, Joseph's old pal Parson Adams shows up in a random coincidence.

Joseph doesn't die. In fact, he hits the road with Adams.

Adams and Joseph get separated due to their unconventional method of traveling.

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Adams rescues Fanny and brings her back to the inn where Joseph is staying. The reunion is
truly awesome.

The three travelers set out together.

Along the way, the travelers stop at Mr. Wilson's house and hear his life story.

The group encounters an evil squire who invites them over for dinner. They leave before dinner
is over. That's a bad sign.

Joseph tries to defend Fanny from the squire's henchmen but ends up being tied to the bedposts
at an inn as Fanny is carried off.

Luckily, Fanny is rescued, and Joseph gets to punch the guy who kidnapped her.

The group finally makes its way to the Booby country house, where Joseph reunites with his
beloved sister Pamela and her husband.

Fanny and Joseph nearly get thrown in jail thanks to Lady Booby's scheming.

A peddler reveals Joseph's true parentage: Mr. Wilson is his dad. Joseph's strawberry-shaped
birthmark is the proof.

Fanny and Joseph happily marry. Mr. B. gives them tons of money so that they can live happily
ever after in the country.

PARSON ADAMS

Character Analysis

Just A Little Forgetful

You know the kind of person who forgets silly daily tasks like brushing his teeth? Parson Adams
probably would forget his wig if it wasn't glued to his head. Sure, he's a totally brilliant scholar
who can quote Aeschylus for days, but he mistakes his beloved sermons for "none other than
three shirts, a pair of shoes, and some other necessaries" (2.2.1). He's not the most observant
about worldly matters.

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Maybe he's a little forgetful because his mind is occupied with more philosophical matters.
Adams teaches Joseph that it's okay to think about big-picture concepts, like charity and
education. Not everyone responds so well to this kind of intellectual forgetfulness. One
gentleman traveler Adams meets "at first sight conceived a very distasteful opinion of the
parson" (2.7.7). Luckily, like most things, Adams doesn't even notice.

He Puts His Money Where His Mouth Is

Accuse Adams of forgetfulness, but never make the mistake of accusing him of cowardice.
Adams is always ready to rush to the attack with his fists or his crabstick, as he does on many
occasions. When Adams hears a woman screaming in the distance, he immediately "offered to
snatch the gun out of his companion's hand" (2.9.2). And that's after a big burly hunter just ran
away from the danger.

That's the thing about Adams. He always strikes people as hypocritical when he's preaching, but
that's because they don't see him in action. Adams believes wholeheartedly in those dratted
sermons, to the point of stubbornly insisting on placing himself in danger. He's always looking
for an opportunity to practice what he preaches, but that usually comes in the form of punching
someone in the mouth.

But hey, in this novel, whoever's getting punched in the mouth usually deserves it.

Violence is Not the Answer

For someone who's a parson, Adams sure gets in a lot of fistfights. We're thinking he doesn't
really have the opportunity to indulge his "punchy" side when he's back in the Booby parish. Not
only can this dude "bear a drubbing as well as any boxing champion in the universe," but that
trusty crabstick also helps even the score.

Why all the violence? If we had to guess, we'd say that Adams's passions run high. He feels
strongly about all that he says and preaches (see above), and he's willing to back up his words in
any way he knows how. When a grumpy innkeeper gives him grief about the people and
concepts he works so hard to defend, he realizes that the only way to get through is a good one-
two. We don't advocate this approach, obviously, but it certainly seems to work for this guy.

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The Pious Preacher

For all his violent tendencies, Adams is a pretty devout guy. While encountering some dangerous
sheep-stealers, Adams "fell on his knees, and committed himself to the care of Providence"
(3.2.6). Although he has his crabstick as a backup, Adams takes his duty as a parson pretty
seriously.

Specifically, he's concerned about making sure his parson duties translate to the real world.
That's why he preaches at every opportunity to everyone who will listen—and to some folks who
don't. Even though being pious should be a given for parsons, Fielding shows us that Adams is
an anomaly among a bunch of hypocrites. Adams's old-fashioned tendencies to preach and quote
his sources are light-years away from what's going on in the rest of corrupt society.

Key points

Parson Adams teaches young Joey Andrews about the important things in life: religion, Latin,
and Aeschylus.

Adams sets out for London to sell his sermons.

Adams has the great good luck to run into his old pal, Joseph Andrews, at an inn.

Adams plans to wait until Joseph recovers to continue on his journey to London.

While he's hanging out at the inn, Adams tries to bargain with a bookseller to take his sermons.
It's a no-go.

Oops: Adams's wife packed him some extra shirts instead of those sermons. Guess he has no
reason to go to London now.

Adams decides to travel with Joseph on his way back to the Booby country estate.

Too bad Adams forgot to pay for the horse. Adams is long gone before Joseph figures out he
needs to come up with a way to pay.

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Waiting for Joseph at an inn, Adams falls into conversation with two dudes who have very
different opinions about a gentleman whose house Adams passed on the road.

Adams is just running into old pals right and left. Mrs. Slipslop passes by the inn and offers him
a lift.

Adams hears the scintillating story of Leonora while riding in Slipslop's coach.

Adams and Joseph meet up again at the next inn. Unfortunately, Adams picks a fight with the
wrong guy—the innkeeper.

Adams and Joseph set out separately again, but Adams forgets that he has a horse at his disposal.

While he's walking along, Adams encounters a gentleman out hunting. The two fall into
conversation.

Adams runs to the rescue of a lady in distress, while the gentleman runs in the other direction.

The lady turns out to be Fanny. Adams tries to escort her home, but the villain attacking Fanny
accuses the pair of being thieves.

Fanny and Adams stand trial and nearly get thrown in jail, but a random stranger notices that
Adams is the parson of Booby parish. Score.

Adams facilitates the reunion of Joseph and Fanny. Aww.

The group sets out again and runs into a band of sheep-stealers.

While trying to run away, Adams takes a nasty tumble down a hill.

At the bottom of the hill is Mr. Wilson's house. Wilson tells Adams and the others the story of
his life.

When the group journeys on, they run into a squire and his hunting dogs. The dogs rip off
Adams's wig. Undignified, indeed.

Adams and the group wolf down dinner at the squire's house.

Adams is submerged into a pot of water. Totally embarrassing.

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The group hightails it out of the squire's house and makes its way to an inn.

The squire's men overtake Adams and company and kidnap Fanny. Adams gets tied to a bedpost
alongside Joseph.

With Fanny recovered, the group finally heads back to the Booby country parish.

Adams tries to defend Fanny and Joseph's impending nuptials, but Lady Booby is having none of
it.

Adams hears the news that his son, Dick (nicknamed Jacky, logically), has drowned. He goes
totally berserk with grief.

But the peddler delivers news that Adams's son is actually safe and sound. Random, but whew.

Adams settles down in his country parish after Mr. Booby makes sure he's set for the rest of his
life.

FANNY GOODWILL

Character Analysis

Hot Stuff… and Empathetic, Too

Fanny may be demure and kind and all of those qualities generally attributed to Princess Barbies;
she's also pretty cute. But that's not to say that you can tell a book by its cover.

Because she's such a looker, Fanny has to deal with people gawking at her everywhere she goes.
When she just walks into an inn, she attracts "the eyes of the host, his wife, the maid of the
house, and the young fellow who was their guide; they all conceived they had never seen any
thing half so handsome […] (2.12.2). Luckily, Fanny's got plenty of tricks up her sleeve to foil
the bad guys. More than once, Fanny stands up for herself and gets herself out of a sticky
situation.

But there's more. Fanny's smart and gorgeous, all right, but lots of her appeal comes from "a
natural gentility, superior to the acquisition of art, and which suprized all who beheld her"
(2.12.3). It's no surprise that Joseph would couple up with a nice young gal.

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On top of that, Fanny has empathy in spades—perhaps more than any other character in the
book. After the experience of watching a hare being hunted right in front of her, Fanny is "unable
to assist it with any aid more powerful than pity; nor could she prevail on Joseph […] to attempt
any thing […] (3.6.4).

Fanny feels deeply for animals and humans, which could be because of her own vulnerability.
Fanny's the victim of three random attacks during the book, each of which she escapes by the
skin of her teeth. Now, part of that might have to do with women's status in eighteenth-century
Britain. As a young peasant woman, Fanny is doubly at risk on the open road because of her
class and gender. She miraculously makes it out of harm's way each time because her friends are
almost equally quick help those in need.

Family Matters

Spoiler alert—stop reading if you haven't made it all the way to the end of the book. Well, it
turns out that Fanny's sis is none other than the famous Pamela Andrews, star of Samuel
Richardson's novel of the same name. If we know one thing about Pam Andrews, it's that she's
more virtuous, kind, and empathetic than anyone in the world. No, that's not an exaggeration. So
by virtue of being related to Pam, Fanny's got to be pretty great.

Best of all, figuring out who Fanny's true parents are helps solve one of the smaller mysteries
of Joseph Andrews. Fanny's "natural gentility" is repeatedly emphasized, but it's not totally clear
where it comes from (2.12.3). Since Fanny's related to Pamela, all the puzzle pieces come
together.

The point isn't so much that noble blood makes you a good person even if you've been kidnapped
at birth. It's more of a metaphor: everyone has a lot of goodness and nobility in them if you look
for it, so class differences, in the end, are surface-level and totally artificial. That makes it all the
more awful that social status determines so much of a person's life in this world. Have things
changed much today?

Key points

Fanny is under attack from a man she met on the road—until Parson Adams comes to her rescue.

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Adams and Fanny are immediately (and mistakenly) arrested as criminals and escorted to the
Justice of the Peace to be tried.

After they're let off, Fanny gets to have her reunion with Joseph. Say it with us, now: aww.

Fanny sets off on the journey back to the Booby country house with Joseph and Adams.

Along the way, Fanny encounters sheep-stealers with the rest of the group. It's totally terrifying.

Fanny hits the hay as soon as she gets to Mr. Wilson's house, so she doesn't get to hear his life
story.

The group, including Fanny, goes to dinner at an evil squire's house. He's definitely into Fanny.

The group leaves the squire's house and makes its way to an inn—at which point Fanny is
suddenly kidnapped by the squire's men.

Fanny is rescued by Peter Pounce, Lady Booby's right-hand guy.

The group finally makes it to the Booby country parish. Whew.

But Fanny and Joseph are immediately arrested on trumped-up charges from Lady Booby, and
they're almost sent to the clinker. Luckily, Mr. Booby, Joseph's sister Pamela's hubby, saves
them.

The peddler reveals that Fanny is really the child of Mr. and Mrs. Andrews. Thank goodness
she's not Joseph's sister (there was some brief confusion).

Fanny and Joseph are married.

Character Analysis

Beau Didapper only has one role in Joseph Andrews: to cause mischief for Fanny and Joseph
that will benefit Lady Booby. Sure, Beau also seems to like Fanny—but he's got a weird way of
showing it: the guy sees her walking down the road and immediately tries to kiss her. Obvi, she's
not interested.

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Really, all that we know about Beau is that he's extremely wealthy and "apt to ridicule and laugh
at any imperfection in another" (4.9.3). Not to be too critical, but he's one to talk. Between his
ridiculous insect-like characteristics and his brash nature, we're thinking that he's not much of a
catch.

BETTY

Character Analysis

Betty seems like she's looking out for Joseph as soon as he arrives at Mr. Tow-wouse's inn. She
tells her mistress that "the man in the bed was a greater man than they took him for," thus
ensuring that he gets some extra-special treatment (1.15.1).

Yeah, well, Betty has a special treatment of her own in mind for Joseph. Not only does she nurse
him back to health, but she also tries to make a move on him once he's all better. Joseph's not
interested, which provokes her into a scary rage: "One moment, she though of stabbing Joseph,
the next, of taking him in her arms, and devouring him with kisses, but the latter passion was far
more prevalent" (1.18.10). Um, girl, which is it?

Luckily for our boy Joseph, Betty doesn't act on either emotion. Still, she seesaws back and forth
enough that we'd warn Joseph to steer clear.

LADY BOOBY

Character Analysis

Let's just say that Lady Booby doesn't like to be crossed. She's incredibly interested in Joseph, to
the point that she'll do just about anything to sabotage his relationship with Fanny. She's also
willing to totally go against class conventions in order to wed and bed her beloved Joseph. This
is one lady who knows what she wants.

By the time Lady Booby's plot to send Fanny to the clink is foiled, she's completely "in the
agonies of love, rage, and despair; nor could she conceal these boiling passions any longer,
without bursting" (4.13.1). What gives? Well, for one thing, Joseph is the ultimate out-of-reach
boy toy. Also, Lady Booby is used to her wealth opening doors. Joseph, on the other hand,
doesn't care about wealth or fame—all he cares about is Fanny.

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MR. SCOUT

Character Analysis

Lawyering Up

Mr. Scout is the kind of lawyer who would put Saul Goodman to shame. We don't put that
lightly, either—Scout is all too happy to bend to Lady Booby's will: "The utmost that was in the
power of a lawyer, was to prevent the law's taking effect; and that he himself could do for her
ladyship as well as any other […]" (4.3.1). Yeah, this dude is corrupt with a capital K. Scout
immediately comes up with a scheme to throw Fanny and Joseph in jail, even though the crime
they supposedly commit is miniscule.

Mr. Booby is totally shocked that such corruption exists: "Would you commit two persons to
Bridewell for a twig?" (4.5.3). Scout is totally proud of his dastardly scheme, which tells you a
lot about how far he's willing to go. It's not unusual for Lady Booby to try to manipulate
everyone around her, but Scout doesn't have a problem sacrificing innocent people for the lady's
approval. This dude should be disbarred.

MRS. SLIPSLOP

Character Analysis

Bring on the Big Words

Mrs. Slipslop displays a very particular brand of pretentiousness. After years of exposure to Lady
Booby's whims, Slipslop uses big, made-up words to make people think she's super smart—only
most of the time, she totally misuses each and every one of this words. Let's be honest,
though:malapropisms or no, Slipslop's got plenty of smarts. She's the crafty kind, even if you
wouldn't guess it from the airs she puts on—like when she says she is "confidous" that Lady
Booby would not leave Joseph behind when she goes to London (1.3.10).

Like mistress, like maid, we guess. At least that's Slipslop's approach to trying to seduce Joseph.
She's described as "a hungry tigress, who long had traversed the woods in fruitless search" after

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seeing Joseph emerge from Lady Booby's bedroom (1.6.8). While Slipslop's not quite as
committed as Lady Booby is to vying for Joseph's affections, that might be because she knows
when to bow out. When it becomes clear that Joseph's just not that into her, Slipslop uses her
wiles instead to manipulate Lady Booby into re-hiring her.

MINOR CHARACTERS

Character Analysis

Parson Trulliber

If you're looking for a pacifist parsons, don't call up Parson Trulliber. He immediately forces
Parson Adams to go look at his hogs for sale, and then he flies into a fury when Adams isn't
interested. Oh, you want to borrow money from this guy? Forget it. Of course, when his wife
sees him "clench his fist," she intervenes (2.14.4), but you'd better believe he won't hesitate to
defend his farm and his hogs if he has the chance.

The Peddler

The peddler's an example of a guy who doesn't seem important until the very end of the novel. If
you haven't read to the end, a major spoiler is coming your way: the peddler reveals Joseph's true
parentage. Why does he do it? Well, his old mistress revealed the secret on her deathbed. But
he's also "inquisitive from the time he had first heard that the great house in this parish belonged
to Lady Booby […] and that Sir Thomas had bought Fanny […]" (4.12.1). In other words, this
dude's something of a detective.

Let's be honest: it takes a bit of gumption to figure out the significance of Joseph's strawberry-
shaped birthmark. It also demonstrates empathy, since this peddler's basically trying to solve a
mystery that involves a bunch of strangers. We already know that the peddler helped out Adams
when he was in a bind, so we can guess that this guy's pretty much invested in helping out
anyone who needs it.

Mr. Wilson

Once upon a time, Mr. Wilson got up to some serious mischief. Parson Adams is completely
scandalized by Mr. Wilson's history, even though Mr. Wilson turns out to be a decent guy: upon

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hearing about all of Wilson's youthful affairs, for example, Adams wonders "what wicked times
these are?" (3.3.8).

Okay, it's also not like Wilson made one mistake right out of the gate and instantly repented.
Nope, our gentlemanly friend keeps up his rakish lifestyle for at least a few years.

Getting thrown in jail seems like it was the best thing that happened to Mr. Wilson. After all, it
allows him to clean himself up a bit and meet his future wife, Joseph's real mother. But Mr.
Wilson seems to feel that his sinful life led directly to the greatest tragedy of all: losing Joseph
when he was just a wee babe. Thinking through that logic, maybe recovering his eldest son is a
sign that he's finally made up for his crimes.

Joseph Andrews Summary No.1

Joseph Andrews, a handsome young footman in the household of Sir Thomas Booby, has
attracted the erotic interest of his master’s wife,Lady Booby. He has also been noticed by the
parson of the parish,Mr. Abraham Adams, who wishes to cultivate Joseph’s moral and
intellectual potential. Before he can start Joseph on a course of Latin instruction, however, the
Boobys depart the country for London, taking Joseph with them.

In London, Joseph falls in with a fast crowd of urban footmen, but despite his rakish peers and
the insinuations of the libidinous Lady Booby he remains uncorrupted. After a year or so Sir
Thomas dies, leaving his widow free to make attempts on the footman’s virtue. Joseph fails to
respond to her amorous hints, however, because he is too naïve to understand them; in a letter to
his sister Pamela, he indicates his belief that no woman of Lady Booby’s social stature could
possibly be attracted to a mere servant. Soon Joseph endures and rebuffs another, less subtle
attempt at seduction by Lady Booby’s waiting-gentlewoman, the middle-aged and hideous Mrs.
Slipslop.

Lady Booby sends for Joseph and tries again to beguile him, to no avail. His virtue infuriates her,
so she sends him away again, resolved to terminate his employment. She then suffers agonies of
indecision over whether to retain Joseph or not, but eventually Joseph receives his wages and his
walking papers from the miserly steward, Peter Pounce. The former footman is actually relieved

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to have been dismissed, because he now believes his mistress to be both lascivious and
psychologically unhinged.

Joseph sets out for the Boobys’ country parish, where he will reunite with his childhood
sweetheart and now fiancée, the illiterate milkmaid Fanny Goodwill. On his first night out, he
runs into Two Ruffians who beat, strip, and rob him and leave him in a ditch to die. Soon a
stage-coach approaches, full of hypocritical and self-interested passengers who only admit
Joseph into the coach when a lawyer among them argues that they may be liable for Joseph’s
death if they make no effort to help him and he dies. The coach takes Joseph and the other
passengers to an inn, where the chamber-maid, Betty, cares for him and a Surgeon pronounces
his injuries likely mortal.

Joseph defies the Surgeon’s prognosis the next day, receiving a visit from Mr. Barnabas the
clergyman and some wretched hospitality from Mrs. Tow-wouse, the wife of the innkeeper. Soon
another clergyman arrives at the inn and turns out to be Mr. Adams, who is on his way to
London to attempt to publish several volumes of his sermons. Joseph is thrilled to see him, and
Adams treats his penniless protégé to several meals. Adams is not flush with cash himself,
however, and he soon finds himself trying unsuccessfully to get a loan from Mr. Tow-
wouse with a volume of his sermons as security. Soon Mr. Barnabas, hearing that Adams is a
clergyman, introduces him to a Bookseller who might agree to represent him in the London
publishing trade. The Bookseller is not interested in marketing sermons, however, and soon the
fruitless discussion is interrupted by an uproar elsewhere in the inn, as Betty the chambermaid,
having been rejected by Joseph, has just been discovered in bed with Mr. Tow-wouse.

Mr. Adams ends up getting a loan from a servant from a passing coach, and he and Joseph are
about to part ways when he discovers that he has left his sermons at home and thus has no reason
to go to London. Adams and Joseph decide to take turns riding Adams’s horse on their journey
home, and after a rocky start they are well on their way, with Adams riding in a stage-coach and
Joseph riding the horse. In the coach Mr. Adams listens avidly to a gossipy tale about a jilted
woman named Leonora; at the next inn he and Joseph get into a brawl with an insulting
innkeeper and his wife. When they depart the inn, with Joseph in the coach and Adams
theoretically on horseback, the absent-minded Adams unfortunately forgets about the horse and
ends up going on foot.

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On his solitary walk, Adams encounters a Sportsman who is out shooting partridge and who
boasts of the great value he places on bravery. When the sound of a woman’s cries reaches them,
however, the Sportsman flees with his gun, leaving Adams to rescue the woman from her
assailant. The athletic Adams administers a drubbing so thorough that he fears he has killed the
attacker. When a group of young men comes by, however, the assailant suddenly recovers and
accuses Adams and the woman of robbing and beating him. The young men lay hold of Adams
and the woman and drag them to the Justice of the Peace, hoping to get a reward for turning them
in. On the way Mr. Adams and the woman discover that they know each other: she is Joseph’s
beloved, Fanny Goodwill, who set out to find Joseph when she heard of his unfortunate
encounter with the Ruffians.

The Justice of the Peace is negligent and is about to commit Adams and Fanny to prison without
giving their case much thought when suddenly a bystander recognizes Adams and vouches for
him as a clergyman and a gentleman. The Justice readily reverses himself and dismisses the
charges against Adams and Fanny, though the assailant has already slipped away and will not be
held accountable. Soon Adams and Fanny depart for the next inn, where they expect to meet
Joseph.

Joseph and Fanny have a joyous reunion at the inn, and Joseph wishes to get married then and
there; both Mr. Adams and Fanny, however, prefer a more patient approach. In the morning the
companions discover that they have another inn bill that they cannot pay, so Adams goes off in
search of the wealthy parson of the parish.Parson Trulliber, who spends most of his time tending
his hogs rather than tending souls, reacts badly to Adams’s request for charity. Adams returns to
the inn with nothing to show for his efforts, but fortunately a generous Pedlar hears of the
travelers’ predicament and loans Adams the money he needs.

After a couple more miles on the road, the travelers encounter a gregarious Squire who offers
them generous hospitality and the use of his coach but then retracts these offers at the last
minute. Adams discusses this strange behavior with the innkeeper, who tells him about the
Squire’s long history of making false promises.

Walking on after nightfall, the companions encounter a group of spectral lights that Mr. Adams
takes to be ghosts but that turn out later to be the lanterns of sheep-stealers. The companions flee

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the scene and find accommodations at the home of a family named Wilson. After the women
have retired for the evening, Mr. Adams and Joseph sit up to hear Mr. Wilson tell his life story,
which is approximately the story of a “rake’s progress” redeemed by the love of a good woman.
Wilson also mentions that since moving from London to the country, he and his wife have lost
their eldest son to a gypsy abduction.

The travelers, who are quite won over by the Wilson family and their simple country life, depart
in the morning. As they walk along, Mr. Adams and Joseph discuss Wilson’s biography and
debate the origins of human virtue and vice. Eventually they stop to take a meal, and while they
are resting, a pack of hunting dogs comes upon them, annihilates a defenseless hare, and then
attacks the sleeping Mr. Adams. Joseph and his cudgel come to the parson’s defense, laying
waste to the pack of hounds. The owner of the hounds, a sadistic Squire whom Fielding labels a
“Hunter of Men,” is at first inclined to be angry about the damage to his dogs, but as soon as he
sees the lovely Fanny he changes his plans and invites the companions to his house for dinner.

The Hunter of Men and his retinue of grotesques taunt Mr. Adams throughout dinner, prompting
the parson to fetch Joseph and Fanny from the kitchen and leave the house. The Hunter sends his
servants after them with orders to abduct Fanny, whom he has been planning all along to
debauch. The servants find the companions at an inn the next morning, and after another epic
battle they succeed in tying Adams and Joseph to a bedpost and making off with Fanny. Luckily
for Fanny, however, a group of Lady Booby’s servants come along, recognize the milkmaid, and
rescue her from her captors. They then proceed to the inn where Adams and Joseph are tied up,
and Joseph gets to take out his frustrations on Fanny’s primary captor before they all set off
again. Mr. Adams rides in a coach with the obnoxious Peter Pounce, who so insults the parson
that he eventually gets out of the coach and walks beside Joseph and Fanny’s horse for the last
mile of the journey.

The companions finally arrive home in Lady Booby’s parish, and Lady Booby herself arrives
shortly thereafter. At church on Sunday she hears Mr. Adams announce the wedding banns of
Joseph and Fanny, and later in the day she summons the parson for a browbeating. She claims to
oppose the marriage of the young lovers on the grounds that they will raise a family of beggars in
the parish. When Adams refuses to cooperate with Lady Booby’s efforts to keep the lovers apart,
Lady Booby summons a lawyer named Scout, who trumps up a legal pretext for preventing the

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marriage. Two days later Joseph and Fanny are brought before the Justice of the Peace, who is
perfectly willing to acquiesce in Lady Booby’s plans.

The arrival of Lady Booby’s nephew, Mr. Booby, and his new wife, who happens to be Joseph’s
sister Pamela, thwarts the legal proceedings. Mr. Booby, not wanting anything to upset his young
wife, intervenes in the case and springs her brother and Fanny. He then takes Joseph back to
Booby Hall, while Fanny proceeds to the Adams home. The next day Lady Booby convinces Mr.
Booby to join in her effort to dissuade Joseph from marrying Fanny. Meanwhile, Fanny takes a
walk near Booby Hall and endures an assault by a diminutive gentleman named Beau Didapper;
when the Beau fails to have his way with Fanny, he delegates the office to a servant and walks
off. Fortunately, Joseph intervenes before the servant can get very far.

Joseph and Fanny arrive at the Adams home, where Mr. Adams counsels Joseph to be moderate
and rational in his attachment to his future wife. Just as Adams finishes his recommendation of
stoical detachment, someone arrives to tell him that his youngest son, Dick, has just drowned in
the river. Mr. Adams, not so detached, weeps copiously for his son, who fortunately comes
running up to the house before long, having been rescued from the river by the same Pedlar who
earlier redeemed the travelers from one of their inns. Adams rejoices and once again thanks the
Pedlar, then resumes counseling Joseph to avoid passionate attachments. Joseph attempts to point
out to Adams his own inconsistency, but to no avail.

Meanwhile, Lady Booby is plotting to use Beau Didapper to come between Joseph and Fanny.
She takes him, along with Mr. Booby and Pamela, to the Adams household, where the Beau
attempts to fondle Fanny and incurs the wrath of Joseph. When the assembled Boobys suggest to
Joseph that he is wasting his time on the milkmaid, Joseph departs with his betrothed, vowing to
have nothing more to do with any relations who will not accept Fanny.

Joseph, Fanny, the Pedlar, and the Adamses all dine together at an alehouse that night. There, the
Pedlar reveals that he has discovered that Fanny is in fact the long-lost daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
Andrews, which would make her the sister of Joseph and thereby not eligible to be his wife.
Back at Booby Hall, Lady Booby rejoices to learn that Joseph and Fanny have been discovered
to be siblings. Everyone then gathers at the Hall, where Mr. Booby advises everyone to remain

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calm and withhold judgment until the next day, when Mr. and Mrs. Andrews will arrive and
presumably will clear things up.
Late that night, hi-jinx ensue as Beau Didapper seeks Fanny’s bed but ends up in Mrs. Slipslop’s.
Slipslop screams for help, bringing Mr. Adams, who mistakenly attacks Slipslop while the Beau
gets away. Lady Booby then arrives to find Adams and Slipslop in bed together, but the
confusion dissipates before long and Adams makes his way back toward his room.
Unfortunately, a wrong turn brings him to Fanny’s room, where he sleeps until morning, when
Joseph discovers the parson and the milkmaid in bed together. After being briefly angry, Joseph
concludes that Adams simply made a wrong turn in the night.

Once Adams has left them alone, the apparent siblings vow that if they turn out really to be
siblings, they will both remain perpetually celibate. Later that morning Mr. and Mrs. Andrews
arrive, and soon it emerges that Fanny is indeed their daughter, stolen from her cradle; what also
emerges, however, is that Joseph is not really their son but the changeling baby they received in
place of Fanny. The Pedlar suddenly thinks of the Wilson family, who long ago lost a child with
a distinctive birth-mark on his chest, and it so happens that Joseph bears just such a distinctive
birth-mark. Mr. Wilson himself is luckily coming through the gate of Booby Hall at that very
moment, so the reunion between father and son takes place on the spot.

Everyone except Lady Booby then proceeds to Mr. Booby’s country estate, and on the ride over
Joseph and Fanny make their wedding arrangements. After the wedding, the newlyweds settle
near the Wilsons. Mr. Booby dispenses a small fortune to Fanny, a valuable clerical living to Mr.
Adams, and a job as excise-man to the Pedlar. Lady Booby returns to a life of flirtation in
London.

Summary No.2
Joseph Andrews is a novel written in the middle eighteenth century by Henry Fielding. In this
novel, Fielding talks of human nature and of the need for control of sexuality. He does not just
come right out and say it, but instead expresses his concern through examples of the constant
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sexual advances through the entire novel, Mr. Wilson’s experiences, and the little self control
people have in containing themselves properly.

The most obvious example of the advances on Joseph, is made by Lady Booby in the first few
chapters of Book I. She would take walks with Joseph in the park, and spend a lot of time alone
with him. Then, not even a week after her husband’s death; she invites Joseph into her room a
talks with him about women, when she intentionally lifts her head so Joseph would find out that
she is naked under the covers of the bed. To urge him on, she plays an actress’ role in saying:
“I have trusted myself with a man alone, naked in bed; suppose you should have any wicked
intentions upon my honor, how should I defend myself?”
The second example of the sexual advances and the lack of control of their barbaric nature, was
made by a man who had promised to take Fanny to London, but instead had ideas of his own. If
it wasn’t for Abraham Adams, Fanny might have been raped by the man who was accompanying
her to London.

The next show of a sexual advance on Fanny was made by a Squire that they had encountered
after leaving Mr. Wilson’s house. Since the Squire’s dogs had attacked Adams, he defended
himself by hitting them with his cane. When the Squire arrived, and saw the bruises on his dogs,
he would have probably had Joseph and Adams indicted had he not seen Fanny. He invited all of
them to dinner at his estate, trying to get Joseph and Parson Adams drunk, so he and Fanny could
spend some time alone, but Parson Adams leaves with Joseph and Fanny, disgusted at the Squire.
He sends his three of his men to go and kidnap Fanny, and they do so successfully. Luckily for
Fanny, on their way back, Fanny is saved by Peter Pounce who takes her to the inn where Joseph
is.
 
Near the end of the novel, Lady Booby returns to Sunsetshire, and because of her desire for
Joseph tries to plead Parson Adams to dislike Fanny and then later incarcerate them both. Since
should doesn’t succeed in doing so, she decides to move back to London and find herself another
young man to occupy her time with.

Another instance made by Fielding was the story of Horatio and Leonora. Leonora was a very
pretty, sociable woman who adored by many men, but the one she liked the most was a man by
the name of Horatio. She had agreed to marry him, but while he is away on business, Leonora

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attends a social outing and vows not to dance with anyone since her fiancé is not there. But she
sees a man named Bellarmine, who was adored by all the women there, and had his eyes set on
her. She then invited him over to her house for many days. Horatio arrived back surprising
Leonora and punching Bellarmine. Bellarmine then returned to Paris forgetting about Leonora
and Horatio broke up with her because of her unfaithfulness, and Leonora moved to an estate
where she spent the rest of her days.

The last example of human sexuality addressed by Fielding is the experiences Mr. Wilson had
with women when he was young. His first encounter with women was a cohabitation with a
mistress he met through a man he knew. But by midday, she was already flirting with another
man, so thus they parted and went their own ways. His second encounter was with a young girl,
who was to be married with a linen-draper, but as Mr. Wilson puts it:

“I represented him in so low a light to his mistress, and made so good an use of flattery,
promises, and presents, that,……I prevailed with the poor girl and conveyed her away from her
mother!”
They lived together for some months together in happiness but hen grew sick of each other and
began to fight constantly. They broke up, with the young girl running off with Mr. Wilson’s
money.

He then encountered a seductive, married woman named Sapphira. She divorced her former
husband and married Mr. Wilson. After Mr. Wilson’s successful affair with another married
woman, they divorced and Mr. Wilson had to pay a L3,000 settlement. After this affair Mr.
Wilson decided to end his affairs with women and pursue other activities to entertain himself.

All of these are examples that are shown throughout the entire novel and tell the reader a moral
that one should contain himself and not to let his natural desire be fulfilled through little
pleasures. Through the sexual advances made on Joseph and Fanny, this desire for them by the
other characters tells the reader not to become so barbaric. Through the stories of Leonora and
Mr. Wilson, the moral reason is not lose their solf control just because somebody is attractive
and they want a quick thrill.

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 Joseph Andrews Summary
Henry Fielding

                        
Joseph Andrews; Preface and Book I, Chapters I through VI

Summary.
Preface.

Fielding defines and defends his chosen genre, the comic epic, or “comic Epic-Poem in Prose.”
Claiming a lost work of Homer as precedent, he explains that the comic epic differs from
comedy in having more “comprehensive” action and a greater variety of incidents and
characters; it differs from the “serious Romance” in having lower-class characters and favoring,
in “Sentiments and Diction,” the ridiculous over the sublime. Fielding is particularly concerned
to differentiate the comic epic, and comedy generally, from burlesque: “no two Species of
Writing can differ more widely than the Comic and the Burlesque,” for while the writer of
burlesque depicts “the monstrous,” the writer of comedy depicts “the ridiculous.” “The
Ridiculous only . . . falls within my Province in the present Work,” and Fielding accordingly
goes on to define it. “The only Source of the true Ridiculous (as it appears to me) is Affectation,”
to which Fielding assigns two possible causes, “Vanity, or Hypocrisy.” Vanity is affecting to be
better than one is: the vain man either lacks the virtue or quality he claims to have, or else he
claims to possess it in a greater degree than he actually does. By contrast, hypocrisy is affecting
to be other than one is: the hypocritical man “is the very Reverse of what he would seem to be,”
and Fielding gives the example of a greedy man pretending to be generous. The ridiculous arises
from the discovery of affectation, and as hypocrisy is a more egregious form of affectation than
is vanity, so, says Fielding, the sense of the ridiculous arising from its discovery will be stronger
than in the case of vanity.

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Fielding anticipates the criticism that, in addition to affectation, he has given a great deal of
space in the novel to “Vices, and of a very black Kind.” Vices, which inspire moral revulsion
rather than amusement, are not the stuff of comedy. Fielding acknowledges the presence of vices
in his story but offers several mitigating considerations, among which is the fact that they are not
very potent, “never produc[ing] the intended Evil.”

Finally, Fielding addresses the characters of the novel, claiming that all are drawn from life and
that he has made certain alterations in order to obscure their true identities. Fielding also
conciliates his clerical readers by emphasizing that the curate Mr. Abraham Adams, though he
participates in a number of low incidents, is a credit to the cloth due to his great simplicity and
benevolence.
Chapter I.

Fielding justifies the moral agenda of his novel by observing that “Examples work more forcibly
on the Mind than Precepts.” Inspiring stories about virtuous figures will have a better moral
effect than the recital of maxims, because in them “Delight is mixed with Instruction, and the
Reader is almost as much improved as entertained.”

As instances of the positive moral influence of written accounts of exemplars of virtue, Fielding
cites two recent publications, in both cases sarcastically. The first is Samuel
Richardson’s Pamela (1740), an epistolary novel about a virtuous maid-servant; Fielding
detested the novel and the moral system implicit in it, and both Joseph Andrewsand his previous
effort in fiction, Shamela, are spoofs of Richardson’s novel. The second is the Apology for the
Life of Colley Cibber (1740), the autobiography of the scantly talented Poet Laureate who was
despised by Fielding, Alexander Pope, and almost every other contemporary writer of note.
Chapter II.

Fielding introduces “Mr. Joseph Andrews, the Hero of our ensuing History.” Joey, as Fielding
and his characters call the hero at this stage of the narrative, is the son of the low-born Mr.
and Mrs. Andrews and the brother of Pamela Andrews, the fictive heroine of Samuel
Richardson’s famous novel. Fielding confesses that, despite his best genealogical efforts, he has
been unable to discover the ancestry of the Andrews family. Jokingly, he asks the reader to
contemplate the possibility that the Andrews family has no ancestors at all, though of course they

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must be descended from someone. Fielding is satirizing the social convention whereby only
families of high standing are considered to be “families” in the proper and exalted sense;
accordingly, a person who lacks ancestors of note is said, in this snobbish idiom, to lack
ancestors altogether. From his comment on the arbitrary nature of social distinctions, Fielding
goes on to argue for the suitability of Joey as a hero: “Would it not be hard, that a Man who hath
no Ancestors should therefore be render’d incapable of acquiring Honour, when we see so many
who have no Virtues, enjoying the Honour of their Forefathers?”
Fielding summarizes Joey’s early biography. At age ten he went to work in the household of Sir
Thomas Booby, his initial job being to scare birds; he failed at this task, however, because his
sweet voice tended rather to attract them. His second job was to keep Sir Thomas’s hounds in
line with a whip, but he failed at this task for a similar reason. His third job was to ride Sir
Thomas’s horses in races, which task he performed so well through his combination of
athleticism and invulnerability to corruption that Lady Booby noticed him and, when he was
seventeen, began to employ him as a footman. Joey’s new responsibilities involved attending
Lady Booby everywhere, including at church, where his singing voice and general good conduct
attracted the notice of the curate, Mr. Adams.
Chapter III.

Fielding introduces Mr. Abraham Adams, who besides being a clergyman is a master of several
tongues both ancient and modern and who exemplifies ingenuous good nature: “He was
generous, friendly and brave to an Excess; but Simplicity was his Characteristic.” He is fifty
years old, and his income does not go far in providing for his wife and six children.

Mr. Adams quizzes Joey on his knowledge of the Bible and, in answer to a series of questions,
learns that Joey has had some formal education but is largely an autodidact. Mr. Adams, finding
Joey so deserving of cultivation, attempts to secure Lady Booby’s permission to tutor him in
Latin, “by which means he might be qualified for a higher Station than that of Footman.” Lady
Booby will not deign to speak with the curate, however, and Mr. Adams must deal with Mrs.
Slipslop, her ladyship’s pretentious waiting-gentlewoman. Mrs. Slipslop informs Mr. Adams that
the Boobys are soon to depart for London and that Lady Booby will not wish to leave her
footman behind to receive Latin instruction. The family leaves within a few days, taking Joey
with them, but not before the latter has thanked Mr. Adams for his consideration of him.

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Chapter IV.

In London, Joey falls under the influence of the big-city footmen, who succeed in getting him to
change his hair but fail to make him pick up any of their vices. He spends most of his free time
on music, about which subject he becomes very learned. He becomes less obviously devoted to
his religion, but “his Morals remained entirely uncorrupted.” Lady Booby now flirts incessantly
with him and seeks opportunities of leaning on his arm when he accompanies her on her walks.
Other ladies in town begin to gossip about Lady Booby and her footman. The footman himself
remains oblivious to the gossip and to his lady’s intentions, and Lady Booby finds that his
restraint makes him even more attractive.

Chapter V.

Sir Thomas Booby dies, and Lady Booby accordingly confines herself to her room, ostensibly to
mourn his passing but really to play cards. On the seventh day of her “mourning” she sends for
Joey and hints around at her amorous intentions. When he does not catch her drift, she
“accidentally” exposes her neck but fails to produce the desired result. When Lady Booby
pretends to worry whether it is safe for her to be alone in her bedroom with Joey, he vows that he
would “rather die a thousand Deaths” than commit any sexual transgression. Lady Booby finally
dismisses him in frustration.

Chapter VI.

Joseph writes a letter to his sister Pamela, reporting on the strange behavior of Lady Booby since
the death of Sir Thomas. He attributes her baffling conduct to grief over the loss of her husband,
despite the fact that he always thought that they did not like each other. He then recounts the
incident in Lady Booby’s bedroom, remarking that “if it had not been so great a Lady, I should
have thought she had had a mind to me.” Joseph anticipates losing his place soon because of this
falling-out, and in any case he does not wish to remain in her employ if she is going to continue
to be psychologically unstable.

After finishing this letter, Joseph walks downstairs and comes upon the hideous Mrs. Slipslop,
whose physical person Fielding describes in some detail. Like her mistress, Mrs. Slipslop is
strongly attracted to Joseph, and she has tried in the past to entice him with “Tea, Sweetmeats,

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Wine, and many other Delicacies.” Now Joseph accepts her offer of a glass of cordial, and they
sit down together for a chat. Mrs. Slipslop suggest that Joseph has been ungrateful in failing to
return her affections; Joseph denies this charge, angering Mrs. Slipslop, who springs at him with
the intention of satisfying her lust and wrath. Lady Booby rings the bell, however, in time to
deliver Joseph from the clutches of the waiting-gentlewoman.

Analysis.
The Preface makes clear that while Fielding's outlook is undoubtedly comic, his comic writing
nevertheless has a serious point. Fielding rejects the genre of conventional romance because it
contains "very little instruction or entertainment," whereas Fielding's twofold goal is precisely to
instruct and entertain. The notion that good art is "utile et dulce," both useful and sweet,
educational and enjoyable, comes from the Roman poet Horace, an authoritative source of
classical thinking on the purposes of art. Fielding makes ironic reference to Horace in Chapter I
when, having listed a number of popular tales available in cheap pamphlet form, he remarks, "In
all these, Delight is mixed with Instruction, and the Reader is almost as much improved as
entertained." The target of his irony here is not the classical principle itself but the modern works
that fail to live up to that principle. In outlining his own "utile et dulce" approach to the novel,
Fielding rejects burlesque and caricature because he wants to inspire laughter not for its own
sake but constructively, with humor being the vehicle of moral commentary. His target,
therefore, will not be "what is monstrous and unnatural," what never really occurs in life and
thus, in being exposed, cannot edify readers; rather, he will "confine [himself] strictly to Nature,"
exposing "the true Ridiculous" as it exists in everyday life, thereby performing a corrective
function for the morals of the age.
In Fielding's analysis, the outstanding moral fault of the day -- the fault which is consequently
the outstanding preoccupation of Fielding's writing -- is "Affectation," the "only source of the
true Ridiculous." Affectation comes in two forms: the Affectation that arises from Vanity and the
Affectation that arises from Hypocrisy. Fielding treats the latter as the more dangerous flaw,
because when hypocrites conceal their true motives and attitudes, they may deceive other people,
sometimes to very serious effect. Fielding seeks to oppose the forces of affectation by making
vain and hypocritical people seem ridiculous, and he executes this project by employing a kind
of humor that encourages solidarity among readers, who are implicitly assumed to be on
Fielding's side. In inspiring readers to laugh at affected people, Fielding insinuates that society
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breaks down into two camps, the affected and the genuine, and his moralizing humor supplies
readers with incentives, mainly a string of jokes and a sense of moral superiority, to join (or
remain on) the side of the genuine. This literary program effectively exempts readers from
Fielding's criticism, and one may validly object to it on the grounds that it actually encourages
moral complacency on the part of readers, allowing them to feel that they confirm their own
righteousness simply by laughing at others. Ironically, this sort of moral laziness would itself be
a form of affectation.

Fielding soon presents two paragons of hypocrisy in Lady Booby and her servant and imitator
Mrs. Slipslop. Lady Booby dissembles her motives continually, for example in walking out with
Joseph: supposedly, she sees “the Effects which Town-Air hath on the soberest Constitutions,”
so she heads to Hyde Park with her handsome footman, whose arm she will naturally require as
support. More serious is her conduct following the death of her husband. Fielding’s manner of
announcing Sir Thomas’s death is immensely clever: “At this Time, an Accident happened
which put a stop to these agreeable Walks, . . . and this was no other than the death of Sir
Thomas Booby, who departing this Life, left his disconsolate Lady confined to her House.” By
killing off Sir Thomas in a subordinate clause, Fielding insinuates that Sir Thomas’s living or
dying is of merely secondary importance to his own wife, who considers his departure from this
life only in terms of its effects on her, since it compels her to stay indoors for a period of ritual
mourning. Thus, the reader understands “disconsolate” in a sarcastic sense even before learning
that Lady Booby’s visitors consoled the bereaved widow with card games and before witnessing
the ease with which she rebounds and attempts to acquire a new bed-mate.

Mrs. Sliplsop takes after her mistress both in her passion for Joseph and in her attempts to appear
other than she is. In a helpfully literal moment in Chapter III, Fielding shows the simple and
trusting Mr. Adams unable to understand the pretentious Slipslop, that "mighty Affecter of hard
Words"; in a parallel moment in Chapter V, Joseph fails to understand the sexual suggestions of
Lady Booby. Both Mr. Adams and Joseph are too trusting and deferential to react properly to the
tortured relationships between appearance and reality: the learned Adams recognizes Slipslop's
coinages as solecisms, but his ingenuous respect for her gentility abashes him into complicity
with her pretensions; similarly, Joseph has seen enough of the world (or at least of London) that
the evidences of Lady Booby's libido are not totally baffling to him, and yet his reverence for her

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exalted status causes him to lose the thread: “if it had not been so great a Lady, I should have
thought she had had a mind to me.” Both Lady Booby and Sliplsop have a mind to him, of
course, and Fielding clearly intends their rivalry to be the source of much humor: the incongruity
of so much sexual vigor animating Slipslop’s homely postmenopausal body is, in Fielding's
view, not only funny in itself but funny in relation to the passion of Lady Booby. The fact is that
Lady Booby, though possessing so many seeming advantages (of status, comparative youth, and
presumably beauty) over her waiting-gentlewoman, in fact has no better chance with the
footman.

The character of Joseph has been a stumbling-block to many modern readers for whom sexual
purity may not seem intrinsically valuable, and the extent to which Fielding intended even
eighteenth-century readers to take his title character seriously is a matter for debate. The
character of Joseph has a serious precedent in the Book of Genesis, in which his namesake is
sold as a slave to the house of Potiphar and rebuffs heroically the sexual advances of Potiphar's
wife; Joseph also, however, has a precedent in contemporary English literature, namely Samuel
Richardson's Pamela Andrews, whom Fielding has made into Joseph's sister and idol. Fielding
detested Richardson's novel and its heroine, so that insofar as Joseph functions as a stand-in for
Richardson's Pamela, Fielding almost certainly intended him and his virtue to be risible. As
Maurice Johnson comments, there is undeniably something absurd about "a squeamish male
Pamela, strong, handsome, and twenty-one," and yet the actual humor value of Joseph's defense
of his virtue tends to arise mostly from the miscalculations and psychological turmoil of Lady
Booby and the low comedy of the vulgar Slipslop. As the story moves away from the voracious
London ladies to follow Joseph on his quest for home, Joseph's virtue will seem less absurd, in
part because Joseph will have less cause to be squeamish. Crucially, however, what will become
apparent is that Joseph's virtue, unlike that of Lady Booby, is in no way affected: he is motivated
not by a desire to appear virtuous to others but by a determination to remain loyal to his
beloved Fanny Goodwill.
Summary.
Chapter VII.

Fielding presents “the different Operations of this Passion of Love in the gentle and cultivated
Mind of the Lady Booby, from those which it effected in the less polished and coarser

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Disposition of Mrs. Slipslop.” Lady Booby, ashamed of her passion for Joseph Andrewsand
detesting Joseph for having aroused it, determines to dismiss him from her service. She rings for
Slipslop and confers with her regarding Joseph’s character. They both agree that he is “a wild
young Fellow,” with Slipslop accusing him of all the usual vices, including that of having
impregnated the chambermaid. Lady Booby sends Slipslop out of the room with an order to
dismiss Joseph; she quickly calls Slipslop back, however, and reverses the order, then changes
her mind a couple more times before finally resolving “to see the Boy, and examine him herself”
and then send him away for good. While Lady Booby prepares for “this last View of Joseph (for
that she was most certainly resolved it should be),” Fielding apostrophizes Love, complaining of
its power to make people deceive themselves.
Chapter VIII.

Fielding requests the reader’s sympathy on behalf of Lady Booby, pleading as an extenuating
circumstance the great physical beauty ofJoseph Andrews, which Fielding now describes in
some detail. Joseph is now twenty-one years old and possessed of “an Air, which to those who
have not seen many Noblemen, would give an Idea of Nobility.”
Joseph appears in all his splendor before Lady Booby, who accuses him of all the vices Mrs.
Slipslop attributed to him. Joseph is taken aback and insists that he has “never offended more
than Kissing.” Lady Booby, having observed that kissing often leads to other activities, asks him:
“[I]f I should admit you to such Freedom, what would you think of me?” When Joseph resists all
her insinuations, she demands to know what standing he has, as her social inferior, to insist upon
his own virtue when she has cast aside her own. Joseph replies that he cannot see “why, because
I am a Man, or because I am poor, my Virtue should be subservient to [a lady’s] Pleasure.” Lady
Booby finally loses all patience when Joseph makes reference to the virtuous example of his
sister, Pamela Andrews, who has endured the lascivious attentions of Sir Thomas’s nephew
while a maid-servant in his household. She dismisses Joseph in a rage and then rings for Mrs.
Slipslop.
Chapter IX.

Lady Booby orders Slipslop, who was listening at the door, to have the steward pay Joseph his
wages and send him away. Slipslop opines that if she had known how Lady Booby would react,
she would never have reported Joseph’s behavior. After sending Slipslop out of the room and

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then calling her back again, Lady Booby censures her for impertinence, whereupon Slipslop says
darkly, “I know what I know.” Lady Booby promptly fires her, and Slipslop departs the room,
slamming the door behind her. Lady Booby then begins to worry about her reputation, which she
perceives is in the hands of Slipslop, who no longer has any incentive to be discreet; after a time
she calls Slipslop back again and reinstates her. She still regrets, however, that “her dear
Reputation was in the power of her Servants,” both Slipslop and Joseph; worse still is the fact
that “in reality she had not so entirely conquered her Passion,” so that she still vacillates
regarding whether or not to reinstate Joseph.

Chapter X.

Joseph, who now understands “the Drift of his Mistress,” composes a letter to his sister Pamela.
In it he reflects on a lesson of Mr. Abraham Adams, “that Chastity is as great a Virtue in a Man
as in a Woman,” and attributes his own dedication to virtue to Mr. Adams’s guidance and
Pamela’s letters. He marvels, “What fine things are good Advice and good Examples!”
Before he has finished his letter, Lady Booby’s steward, Mr. Peter Pounce, summons him to
receive his wages. Pounce has made a lucrative racket out of holding back the servants’ wages,
advancing them the wages he has held back, and charging outrageous interest on the money he
has advanced. Joseph, in order to acquire musical instruments, has had to ask Pounce for
advances, and his wages are much diminished as a result. He borrows some clothes from another
servant, since he must leave his livery behind, and sets out at seven o’clock in the evening.
Chapter XI.

Joseph heads not to his parents’ home, nor even to his sister Pamela’s, but back to Lady Booby’s
country seat, where he will reunite with his sweetheart, Fanny Goodwill. Joseph and Fanny have
known each other since early life and have long desired to marry, though they have taken Mr.
Adams’s advice in putting off the day until “a few Years Service and Thrift” will have
augmented both their experience and their finances. In the past year they have not corresponded
with each other, for the very good reason that Fanny is illiterate.
A hailstorm forces Joseph to take shelter at an inn with a lion on its sign-post and a master
named Timotheus. While Joseph is waiting for the storm to pass, another traveller enters the inn,

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and Joseph recognizes him as the servant of a neighbor of Sir Thomas. Once the storm has
abated, Joseph and this traveller set out together.

Chapter XII.

Joseph and his companion reach another inn at about two o’clock in the morning; the other man
stays at the inn for the night, while Joseph proceeds on foot. Before long Two Ruffians confront
him in a narrow lane and demand his money. When Joseph asks to be able to keep a few
shillings, they demand his clothes as well; when he objects that the clothes belong to a friend of
his, they attack him with pistol and stick. Joseph takes care of the stick handily but receives a
blow on the head from the pistol. The Ruffians go on beating the senseless Joseph, strip him
naked, and leave him for dead.
Joseph regains consciousness just as a stage-coach approaches. The postillion hears Joseph’s
groans, and the coach stops, whereupon the passengers begin to debate whether or not to aid the
injured man. A young lawyer advises helping him in order that none of the passengers should be
liable for negligence. Other passengers resist this advice, but the lawyer eventually prevails.
Joseph, however, perceives that there are ladies in the coach and refuses to approach unless
someone gives him “sufficient Covering, to prevent giving the least Offense to Decency.” No
one wants to lend a garment to Joseph, until the Postilion finally volunteers his great-coat.
The Two Ruffians stop the coach and demand the passengers’ money, which they promptly
receive. As the coach moves on, one of the gentlemen lightens the mood by telling dirty jokes
that offend no one but Joseph. They arrive at an inn, where Betty the servant-maid prepares a bed
for him. The coachman fetches a Surgeon who, upon learning that Joseph is “a poor foot
Passenger” and not a gentleman, goes back to bed.
In the morning the master of the inn, Mr. Tow-wouse, orders Betty to give Joseph one of Mr.
Tow-wouse’s own shirts. Mrs. Tow-wouseobjects to this proceeding, however, and upbraids
both her husband and the servant-girl. While Mr. and Mrs. Tow-wouse are arguing, Betty give
Joseph a shirt belonging to the Hostler, who is one of her sweethearts. The Surgeon also visits
Joseph and pronounces his wounds likely mortal.
Analysis.
If Fielding’s universe is a providential one, the society that he depicts is incongruously violent.
Joseph’s journey out of London soon brings him into contact with two savage highwaymen, but

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ferocity exists even in the household of Lady Booby. Fielding suggests an element of violence in
Lady Booby’s feelings for Joseph: she flies “into a violent Passion” when ordering him to leave
her room, then wonders aloud, “Whither does this violent Passion hurry us?,” then rings the bell
for Slipslop “with infinite more Violence than was necessary.” She swerves between extremes of
emotion, and this emotional volatility arises, like other manifestations of violence, from her high
social status. As Hamilton Macallister observes, Lady Booby may do almost anything she wants
-- except marry Joseph, because to do so would be beneath her. Unable, therefore, to reconcile
what she wants with what she is, she experiences desire as degradation, with a consequent
impulse to punish both herself and the object of her desire. Thus follows, in Macallister’s words,
“the whole gamut of the passions: pride followed by contempt, disdain, hatred of Joseph,
revenge.” Lady Booby indeed endures more intense and protracted emotional pain than any other
character in the book, and Fielding presents her pain in detail; yet the novel does not encourage
sympathy for Lady Booby, and indeed virtually no readers feel any. She is a personality spoiled
by privilege: as her status is unconditional, her power is irresponsible; her inability (or refusal) to
control her emotions results from her exemption from accountability and, being a function of her
selfishness, does not call forth sympathy.

Mrs. Slipslop has violent hankerings as well, and they emerge most obviously in the famous
mock-epic simile in which Fielding compares her to “a hungry Tygress” craving the “Lamb”
Joseph. Fielding thus makes Slipslop’s violent tendencies more explicit than Lady Booby’s, but
interestingly, one of the effects of this explicitness is to make Slipslop seem less threatening than
her mistress. The mock-epic simile is inherently belittling, as the burlesque diction measures the
distance between the heroic subjects of true epic and the ignoble subjects of the present comedy.
This mockery is consistent with Fielding’s whole presentation of Slipslop, which is entirely
trivializing. His physical description of her sets the tone: she is a forty-five-year-old virgin, short
and corpulent, florid and pimply, with small eyes, a large nose, bovine breasts, and legs of
uneven length. Many readers have detected something cruel in the zest with which Fielding
enumerates the physical disadvantages of this middle-aged spinster, but such sympathy is
perhaps misplaced: in Fielding’s scheme of character, Mrs. Slipslop is simply not a feeling
subject. She is a character type rather than a naturalistic personality; she does not exist in
everyday life, rather she represents a category of women who do. With characters such as
Slipslop -- and the majority of Fielding’s characters exist on this plane of typicality -- Fielding
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imposes a distance between the reader on the one hand and the characters and their actions on the
other. Many modern readers, accustomed to considering psychological realism one of the great
virtues of the novel, will regret Fielding’s objectification of his characters, but as Macallister
observes, “if we lose by this, we also gain. We see the characters in their context; not only their
social context but their moral context.” By fixing characters by their eternal qualities in this way,
Fielding’s distant, omniscient, and judgmental narrator offers “a picture of society that is wider,
more comprehensive,” than that of the novelist who treats characters as realistic, developing, and
morally ambiguous subjects.

Two characters Joseph encounters on his journey appear to be types of the pursuit of violence for
its own sake. They are of course the Two Ruffians who beat and strip Joseph and steal his
money. In rendering this episode, Fielding again does not encourage the reader to identify with
any of its participants, not even with the victimized hero Joseph. The matter-of-fact way in
which he describes the violations does not focus our attention on Joseph’s experience of pain;
rather, its effect is much different: “[B]oth [Ruffians] together fell to be-labouring poor Joseph
with their Sticks, till they were convinced they had put an end to his miserable Being: They then
stript him entirely naked, threw him into a Ditch, and departed with their Booty.” By leaving
subjective experience entirely out of his account, Fielding heightens the absurdity of the incident
until the violence feels gratuitous: these violent acts are not motivated, they have no emotional
context or significance, they simply are. As Simon Varey comments, the scene depicts
“mindless, antisocial hostility”: the thieves’ “primary and ostensible purpose is to take money
and property,” but in their assault on Joseph they “display a level of violence that their situation
does not require or justify.” As Varey goes on to argue, Fielding sees violence as pervading
every level of society and existence, manifesting itself with varying degrees of explicitness: an
erratic Lady, a lecherous old maid, a pair of armed robbers. The Two Ruffians represent only one
of the most egregious outbreaks of a prevalent dynamic: “[a] violent Storm of Hail forced Joseph
to take Shelter in [an] Inn” in Chapter XI, and this same meteorological situation will recur
throughout the novel because in Fielding’s world, even the weather is violent.
If violence exists on many levels and in many degrees, crime does as well: when Fielding reveals
that the Postilion who has given Joseph his coat “hath since been transported for robbing a Hen-
roost,” the less-than-subtle message is that what is truly criminal in this scene is the indifference
displayed by the other, more genteel stage-coach passengers toward their fellow-man. The stage-
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coach scene is one of the most famous in the novel because it presents the complex interactions
of hypocrites: a Lady begins to take pity on Joseph but, on learning that he is naked, finds
propriety the more urgent principle, and a lawyer finally convinces the group to tend to Joseph
by appealing not to their humanity but to their self-interest. When Joseph refuses to approach in
a condition that would offend the ladies, none of the well-to-do passengers will risk soiling their
garments with his blood. In striving to isolate themselves from the wretched and the criminal,
then, the passengers reveal themselves to be the real malefactors.

Following Joseph’s encounters with the Ruffians and the hypocritical stage-coach passengers,
and indeed completing the experience, is the introduction of Mrs. Tow-wouse, wife of the keeper
of the inn where the coach eventually stops. As she rebukes her husband for having offered a
shirt to the naked Joseph, demanding, “[W]hat the devil have we to do with naked wretches?,”
she becomes, in the words of Richard J. Dircks, “a spokesman for the purely pragmatic,
unsympathetic, and uncharitable view of life” that is an attribute of all of the least appealing
characters in the novel. Fielding insinuates her basic affinity with the Ruffians, and her essential
difference from Joseph, through his representation of her voice: her aggressive use of such
epithets as “Slut” and “scabby Rascals,” her recourse to such threats as “I will throw the
Chamber-pot at your Head,” and, in a later chapter, her “loud and hoarse” voice, all are aural
manifestations of her harsh nature. As Varey notes, Fielding often uses voice quality to reflect
character, and Mrs. Tow-wouse contrasts strongly with Joseph, who once failed to frighten birds
and dogs because the animals heard only the sweetness that was in him both a vocal tone and a
moral one.

Joseph Andrews Summary and Analysis of Book I, Chapters XIII through XVIII.

Summary.
Chapter XIII.

Mr. Tow-wouse and the Surgeon visit Joseph Andrews, who tells them the story of his encounter
with the Two Ruffians. Joseph then asks the Surgeon about the prospects for his recovery, and
the Surgeon advises him to settle his worldly affairs. Mr. Tow-wouse accordingly sends for Mr.
Barnabas, the clergyman, who approaches Joseph’s room only after having taken Tea with the
landlady and Punch with the landlord. Mr. Barnabas then goes back for another drink and returns

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to find Joseph apostrophizing his sister, Pamela Andrews, and extolling the value of sexual
purity. The clergyman concludes that Joseph is delirious and excuses himself from further
interference.
The Surgeon returns and declares that Joseph is in fact not delirious but in command of his
senses. They send for Mr. Barnabas again, and the clergyman urges Joseph to repent of all his
sins and resign himself to leaving the world. Joseph is generally compliant but hedges when it
comes to Fanny Goodwill, saying that he will have difficulty resigning himself to the divine will
if the divine will proposes to separate him from his beloved. He agrees, however, to “divest
himself of all human Passion, and fix his Heart above,” if the clergyman will only help him to do
it. Mr. Barnabas recommends “Prayer and Faith.” He then urges Joseph to forgive the Two
Ruffians “as a Christian ought,” but he gives no further specifics as to what the Christian manner
of forgiveness entails. Mr. Barnabas soon wraps up the visit and returns to the parlor, where the
punch has been waiting for him. There he reports to Mrs. Tow-wouse that Joseph has expressed a
desire for tea; Mrs. Tow-wouse does not want to spare it, however, so Betty the chambermaid
goes out to buy some tea for Joseph herself.
Chapter XIV.

In the evening, “a grave Person” arrives at the inn and sits down by the kitchen fire. There he
hears Mrs. Tow-wouse and Betty discussing their injured guest, whom Betty now believes to be
a gentleman on the basis of his fine skin. The grave person feels compassion for the injured guest
and questions the Surgeon about him. The Surgeon uses medical jargon to rebuff the inquiries of
the grave person, who claims to have some little expertise in surgery and whom the Surgeon
seems to consider impudent.

Meanwhile, some young men from the neighborhood arrive at the inn with one of the Ruffians.
Betty informs Joseph, who asks her to look out for a token he received from Fanny, a piece of
gold with a ribbon. A search of the Ruffian reveals the gold piece, which Betty conveys to an
ecstatic Joseph. Some other young men recover a bundle of Joseph’s clothes in a ditch, and the
grave person, recognizing the livery as that of the Booby household, goes upstairs to meet the
injured guest. A happy reunion thus takes place between Joseph and Mr. Abraham Adams.
Back in the kitchen, the mob that apprehended the Ruffian finds that it has no real evidence to
prove his involvement in the robberies. Mr. Barnabas and the Surgeon argue over whether the

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recovered goods belong to the lord of the manor or to some other party. The Ruffian nearly
makes allies of Barnabas, the Surgeon, and Tow-wouse, but Betty intervenes to inform everyone
of the gold piece, which would seem to prove the Ruffian’s guilt. They resolve to keep the
Ruffian overnight and take him to the Justice in the morning.

Chapter XV.

Betty tells Mrs. Tow-wouse that Joseph, who appears to be on familiar terms with Mr. Adams,
may be “a greater Man than they took him for”; as a result, Mrs. Tow-wouse begins to feel better
about having extended charity to him. Mr. Barnabas and the Surgeon approach Joseph, wanting
to use his gold piece as evidence against the Ruffian, but Joseph will not give it up and Mr.
Adams supports him.

Mr. Adams explains to Joseph that he is on his way to London to publish some volumes of
sermons. He encourages Joseph to take a light meal, which Joseph accordingly does. In the
morning Mr. Barnabas and the Surgeon come to the inn to help convey the Ruffian before the
Justice. They are both quite zealous in bringing the Ruffian to justice, and in order to account for
their zeal Fielding explains that these two gentlemen have long competed to perform the function
of lawyer in the parish, since there is no proper lawyer in it. Fielding concludes the chapter with
an apostrophe to vanity, eventually admitting that the reason for this passage is merely “to
lengthen out a short Chapter.”

Chapter XVI.

The Ruffian turns out to have escaped during the night. The Constable who was guarding him
comes under suspicion of having aided his escape, not so much because his name is Tom
Suckbribe as because, “not having been concerned in the taking of the Thief, he could not have
been entitled to any part of the Reward, if he had been convicted.”
Joseph rises but still is not well enough to travel. Mr. Adams, having bought meals for himself
and Joseph, is running low on money and attempts to borrow three guineas from Mr. Tow-
wouse, leaving as a pledge a volume of his sermons. The landlord declines this plan,
disappointing Mr. Adams, who has run out of ideas. Mr. Adams goes off to smoke his pipe, and
meanwhile a coach and six drives up, carrying a young fellow and a coachman named Jack, who

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insult each other lustily as they settle themselves in the inn. Meanwhile, the footmen from the
coach go to the kitchen, where they discuss having seen “Parson Adams smoaking his Pipe in the
Gallery.” Mr. Barnabas, overhearing them, decides to sit down Mr. Adams to a bowl of punch,
now that he knows him to be a fellow man of the cloth. Mr. Adams accepts the invitation, and
the conversation comes around to the volumes of sermons that he wishes to publish. Mr.
Barnabas warns him that he knows from experience that no one read sermons anymore.

When the punch is gone, Mr. Adams goes upstairs to check on Joseph, who is sitting down to a
loin of mutton. The Surgeon enters and attributes Joseph’s recovery to the powers of a medicine
that, as it happens, Joseph has not touched. Joseph takes another three days to recover from his
wounds, then resolves to set off again the next day, urging Mr. Adams to continue on to London.
Mr. Adams still expects great things of his sermons, so he agrees to Joseph’s plan. In the evening
they repair to Joseph’s room and spend “a considerable time in Prayer and Thanksgiving.”

Chapter XVII.

Mr. Barnabas sends for Mr. Adams so that he can meet a LondonBookseller who has recently
arrived. Mr. Adams is delighted with the opportunity to make some cash without leaving the inn.
The Bookseller does not indulge Mr. Adams for very long, explaining that most sermons do not
sell well and concluding, “I had rather be excused.” He offers, however, to take the manuscript to
London with him and send his opinion of it to Mr. Adams shortly. They go on to discuss the
publishing trade and which genres sell the best, and the Bookseller remarks that, far from
objecting to the publication of sermons per se, he is happy to publish the abnormally lucrative
sermons of the Methodist George Whitefield. Mr. Adams and Mr. Barnabas then argue over the
merits and demerits of Whitefield: Barnabas finds Whitefield’s advocacy of clerical poverty
offensive, whereas Adams shares Whitefield’s objection to “the Luxury and Splendour of the
Clergy” but cannot accept “the detestable Doctrine of Faith against Good Works.” Adams
imagines a soul in Whitefield’s scheme appearing before God on the last day and pleading,
“Lord, it is true I never obeyed one of thy Commandments, yet punish me not, for I believe them
all”; he even suggests that “a virtuous and good Turk, or Heathen, are more acceptable in the
sight of their Creator, than a vicious and wicked Christian, tho’ his Faith was as perfectly
orthodox as St. Paul’s himself.” The Bookseller, suspecting that Mr. Adams’s doctrines would

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not sit well with the bishops and thereby would suffer on the market, once again begs to be
excused from the project. Mr. Adams goes on to express further low-church opinions on the
nature and purpose of Sunday service, whereupon Mr. Barnabas rings for the bill, eager to flee
the company of such a heterodox clergyman.
A great commotion erupts somewhere else in the inn: “Mrs. Tow-wouse, Mr. Tow-wouse, and
Betty, all lifting up their Voices together.” The landlady is heard to accuse her husband of
“abus[ing] my Bed, my own Bed, with my own Servant”; she also threatens violence against
Betty and calls her a derogatory name that Fielding makes a great show of rendering, delicately,
as “She Dog.” Betty objects to the slur, and Mrs. Tow-wouse brandishes the spit; Mr. Adams,
however, intervenes and prevents the assault.

Chapter XVIII.

Fielding enumerates Betty’s personality attributes, which include “Good-nature, Generosity and
Compassion,” but also lasciviousness. He then summarizes her sexual history, which is less
promiscuous than it might have been. She has been attracted to Joseph since his arrival, but just
today she made a move, which Joseph rebuffed. Lustful and wrathful, Betty considered stabbing
Joseph, “devouring him with Kisses,” and committing suicide; without resolving these issues,
she went to her master’s room to make his bed and, finding him there, received his advances in
lieu of Joseph’s. Mrs. Tow-wouse walked in at the end of the encounter, and the uproar of the
last chapter ensued. Mrs. Tow-wouse discharges Betty and brings her husband back under her
thumb.

Analysis.
Fielding bestowed on his exemplary parson, Mr. Abraham Adams, a resoundingly biblical and
paternal name: the Adam of Genesis was the father of mankind, while Abraham was the father of
the people of Israel (and by extension, in the Christian tradition, of all the faithful). Nor does
Parson Adams fail to live up to his namesakes: as a dedicated clergyman and the spiritual advisor
of our young hero, he serves as the novel's moral touchstone, which is to say that other characters
reveal their own moral quality through their responses to him. The goodness of Joseph
Andrews shows through in his love and admiration of Adams, while the parson's endless
tribulations at the hands of others -- in the words of one critic, Adams "is laughed at, maligned,

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physically bruised, confined, dismissed, humiliated, and repeatedly made a butt for abuse" -- are
an index of society’s alienation from Christian values. Mr. Adams, of course, is not without his
own flaws, which include forgetfulness, naïveté, and mild vanity; all of these cause him to look
foolish from time to time, and Fielding does not shrink from joining in the laughter. The
novelist's leading idea, however, seems to be that anyone who exemplifies Adams's virtues of
poverty and charity will inevitably appear foolish by worldly standards.
Mr. Adams is, to begin with, physically eccentric: tall, thin, and strong, he is proud of his
athleticism but careless of his appearance, and Fielding never tires of recording his sartorial
lapses. Thus, in Chapter XVI, we learn: "He had on a Night-Cap drawn over his Wig, and a short
great Coat, which half covered his Cassock; a Dress which, added to something comical enough
in his Countenance, composed a Figure likely to attract the Eyes of those who were not over-
given to Observation." (This is in fact one of the less ridiculous chapters in Fielding’s chronicle
of Mr. Adams’s toilette.) Mr. Adams’s sartorial incompetence is only one aspect of his inability
to adapt himself to his surroundings: he is totally unworldly, constantly losing track of his money
or engaging to spend money he does not have; he is perfectly humorless, with no sense of how
others, such as the mocking Surgeon, perceive him; he is endlessly gullible; and he is optimistic
to a fault, as in his serene faith that his sermons will find a publisher and take London by storm.
All of these foibles have a common denominator, namely Mr. Adams’s childlike innocence; seen
in its proper context, then, Adams’s physical shabbiness should only enhance our sense of his
moral dignity.

All of Fielding's novels are crawling with clergyman characters, andJoseph Andrews presents
several who serve as contrasts to the paragon Mr. Adams. In these chapters, Mr. Barnabas shows
himself to be perfectly sociable and impeccably orthodox but not much interested in bettering the
lot of his fellow-man: refreshing himself first with tea and then with punch before approaching
the bedside of the injured Joseph, he is clearly one of those clergymen who looks on his vocation
more as a platform for socializing than as a sacrificial commitment. Barnabas's moral inadequacy
is further limned in the discussion of George Whitefield that emerges from Adams's fruitless
negotiations with the Bookseller. Mr. Barnabas's objection to Methodism has to do with its
emphasis on clerical poverty: Barnabas sees no reason why a clergyman in the Church of
England should not be able to amass as much luxury as anyone else, whereas both Adams and
Fielding consider poverty an ideal for the clergy, at least insofar as temporal concerns should not
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interfere with a clergyman's charitable ministrations. Mr. Adams's objection to Methodism,
which is also Fielding's objection, has to do with its emphasis on faith over charity or good
works: he gives his opinion "that a virtuous and good Turk, or Heathen, are more acceptable in
the sight of their Creator, than a vicious and wicked Christian, tho' his Faith was as perfectly
orthodox as St. Paul's himself." For Adams, a man's formal religious commitments matter far
less than his active benevolence. Hearing this moral scheme, Mr. Barnabas exits the scene and
the novel in a manner that confirms his moral worthlessness: ringing the bell "with all the
Violence imaginable" in order to make his escape from Mr. Adams, he exiles himself from the
circle of approved characters.
Fielding does not expect the clergy alone to practice charity; rather, it is a standard that he sets
for the citizenry at large. Betty the chamber-maid is an interesting case in point because
Fielding's presentation of her conduct reveals that, despite all the uproar in the novel over the
virtue of chastity, he in fact prizes charity much more highly. When Joseph arrives at the inn,
Betty distinguishes herself through her willingness to assist him in his need: when Mrs. Tow-
wouse refuses to supply Joseph with either a shirt or a cup of tea, Betty takes it upon herself to
procure these items for him. Her other distinguishing characteristic, however, is her sexual
promiscuity: she has been "not entirely constant to [her sweetheart] John, with whom she
permitted Tom Whipwell the Stage-Coachman, and now and then a handsome young Traveller,
to share her Favours"; she also has "a Flame in her," namely venereal disease, "which required
the Care of a Surgeon to cool." This sexual voracity aligns her with Lady Boobyand Mrs.
Slipslop, especially insofar as it prompts her to make an attempt on Joseph's purity, and yet
Fielding does not subject Betty to anything like the level of criticism that we have seen in the
previous two cases. As Simon Varey notes, the scene in which Betty throws herself at Joseph
perhaps makes Joseph look a bit ridiculous, as he leaps away "in great Confusion" and tells her
priggishly that "he was sorry to see a young Woman cast off all Regard to Modesty"; by contrast,
Betty's subsequent impulses toward recrimination, while they do not reflect well on her,
nevertheless do not encourage readers to laugh at her in the manner of Lady Booby's mood
swings or Mrs. Slipslop's satirical embodiment as the "hungry Tygress." In keeping with the
Preface's definition of "the true Ridiculous," Betty never seems ridiculous because she has no
affectation; unlike Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop, she never sets herself above other people or
pretends to be sexually virtuous. Moreover, "[s]he had Good-nature, Generosity and

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Compassion," as her previous behavior toward Joseph has demonstrated. Perfect sexual
continence outside marriage, then, appears in Fielding’s moral scheme to be similar to doctrinal
orthodoxy, laudable in a person who is otherwise benevolent but hardly the most important
moral quality.
Fielding even seems to suggest that there may be a connection, psychologically speaking,
between the disposition to perform acts of charity and the disposition to enjoy sex: anyone who
remembers that Mr. Tow-wouse dispatched Betty to give one of his own shirts to Joseph before
Mrs. Tow-wouse intervened should not be surprised, after the chambermaid's rejection by
Joseph, to find Betty and Mr. Tow-wouse once more in league together against his wife. Mrs.
Tow-wouse, too, occupies a familiar role, that of standing on the sidelines and carping at her
husband and the maid. Fielding's physical description of Mrs. Tow-wouse is revealing: it reads in
part, "Her Lips were two Bits of Skin, which, whenever she spoke, she drew together in a Purse.
Her Chin was peeked, and at the upper end of that Skin, which composed her Cheeks, stood two
Bones, that almost hid a Pair of small red Eyes." It is a withered, pinched, sour countenance, and
one may conjecture that Mrs. Tow-wouse is scarcely more pleasant as a bedmate than as a giver
of alms and succor. Fielding admires honesty, straightforwardness, and fellow-feeling, no less in
sexual relations than in normal social interactions. Unlike his literary foil Richardson, he is never
coy about sex, as will soon be evident in respect of Joseph and Fanny, who despite (or because
of) their goodness are hardly less frank about their mutual attraction than are Betty and her many
lovers.

Joseph Andrews Summary and Analysis of Book II, Chapters I through V.

Summary.
Chapter I.

At the start of Book II, Fielding addresses the authorly practice of dividing literary works into
books and chapters. He compares the chapters of a book to the stages of a physical journey, with
the white spaces between them standing for inns and resting-places. At the ends of chapters,
Fielding suggests, the reader should pause to consider what he has read, just as a traveler
considers the “curious Productions of Nature.” The “Contents prefixed to every Chapter” parallel
the inscriptions over the gates of inns indicating what entertainment the traveler can expect.

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Fielding goes on to claim Homer as a precedent in dividing a literary work into books, with
Virgil and Milton following him.

Chapter II.

Mr. Abraham Adams and Joseph Andrews are about to part ways, but the curate decides against
London when it appears that he has in fact left his manuscript sermons at home. Mr. Adams,
looking on the bright side, interprets the disappointment as a providence intended for his good.
When the inn bill comes, Mr. Adams has only a shilling to spare, and he would have been even
worse off if a servant belonging to the coach and six had not lent him a guinea. He and Joseph
set off together for the country seat of the Booby family, planning to take turns riding the horse.
While Mr. Adams starts on foot, however, the Hostler detains Joseph at the inn, demanding
payment for the horse’s board. Joseph refuses to pay with Fanny Goodwill’s gold piece, so the
dispute bogs down. Meanwhile, Mr. Adams has forgotten all about Joseph during a meditation
on Æschylus. After a time he remembers his companion and gradually begins to wonder what is
keeping him. He sits down to read some Æschylus, and when Joseph still does not appear, he
enters a nearby alehouse.
Chapter III.

In the alehouse, Mr. Adams overhears two travelers discussing Joseph’s quandary; he resolves to
return to the inn, though he has no real plan for making the payment. A rainstorm prevents him,
however, and he stays for a beer with the two travelers, who give him their separate opinions
about a neighboring gentleman landowner: one considers the gentleman a cruel tyrant and an
arbitrary Justice of the Peace, and the other considers him reasonable and just. Confused, Adams
applies to the Host, who explains to him that the two travelers were opposing parties in the only
cause the Justice has decided recently; the Host then gives his opinion that “neither of them
spoke a Syllable of Truth.” Mr. Adams expresses to the cynical Host his religious horror of
lying.

A stage coach arrives carrying Mrs. Slipslop, who has paid for Adams’s horse during a stopover
at the inn. Joseph then arrives on the horse, and he and Mr. Adams settle between them that the
curate should continue the journey in the stage coach while Joseph continues on horseback. In
the carriage, Mr. Adams and Mrs. Slipslop discuss the recent developments in the Booby family.

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Slipslop reports that Lady Booby has acted ”like a Madwoman” since the departure of Joseph,
and when Mr. Adams expresses his regret over her decline, Slipslop suggests that he knows less
about the family than he thinks: Lady Booby, she says, was the stingy one, and Sir Thomas
would have been more generous to the poor in the parish if his wife had let him. Mr. Adams
remarks that Mrs. Slipslop once took the opposite view of the Boobys. Soon another lady in the
carriage informs her fellow passengers that “yonder lives the unfortunate Leonora,” and their
entreaties soon induce her to relate the story of Leonora.
Chapter IV.

Leonora was the daughter of a wealthy gentleman and the possessor of many superficial charms.
At eighteen, while she was living with an aunt in the north of England, she began a flirtation with
a sardonic young lawyer named Horatio. Horatio soon conceived “the most violent Passion for
Leonora” and proposed marriage to her, which proposal Leonora initially resisted but ultimately
accepted. The lovers then exchanged some letters and set the date for the wedding. When the
happy day was two weeks off, Horatio had to attend the sessions for their county, leaving
Leonora alone to gawk at a passing coach and six and exclaim, “O, I am in love with that
Equipage!” The owner of the coach and six, a Frenchified cavalier named Bellarmine, admired
Leonora conspicuously at that evening’s assembly. Leonora found herself the happy target of
every woman’s hatred: “She had before known what it was to torment a single Woman; but to be
hated and secretly cursed by a whole Assembly, was a Joy reserved for this blessed Moment.”
Leonora danced the night away with Bellarmine, despite her earlier resolution not to dance while
Horatio was away.
The next day Bellarmine proposed to Leonora, who referred him to her father and then worried,
though briefly, that she had wronged Horatio. Her primary motive in changing fiancées was
financial: “How vast is the difference between being the Wife of a poor Counsellor, and the Wife
of one of Bellarmine’s Fortune!” She further rationalized the action by reasoning that if Horatio
mourned the loss of his beloved, “Bellarmine may be as miserable for me too.” The next
morning her Aunt advised her to accept Bellarmine, arguing that “there is not any thing worth
our Regard besides Money.” Leonora accepted this reasoning, and she and Bellarmine settled it
between them that he would seek her father’s consent soon. After supper the lovers sat chatting
about French and English clothing when Horatio appeared unexpectedly, triggering “a long
Silence.” Horatio finally broke the ice, whereupon Leonora played dumb about their
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engagement. Staggered, Horatio exclaimed, “I am in a Dream; for it is impossible I should be
really esteemed a common Acquaintance by Leonora, after what has passed between us!” Some
sparring ensued between Horatio and Bellarmine concerning the role each occupied with respect
to Leonora, but the lady’s Aunt soon entered and updated Horatio about “a small Alteration in
the Affections of Leonora.” The lawyer would have dueled the cavalier then and there, had not
the ladies prevented it. Horatio soon took his leave.

Leonora awoke the next morning to the news that “Bellarmine was run through the Body by
Horatio, . . . and the Surgeons had declared the Wound mortal.” The Aunt advised Leonora to go
back to Horatio, but Leonora claimed that she must have time to grieve before strategizing; she
then argued that Horatio would never forgive her and that it was all the fault of the Aunt. A
cheerful note from Bellarmine, however, reconciled the ladies to each other and dispelled all
thoughts of returning to Horatio. Leonora’s passion for Horatio revived “with greater Force after
its small Relaxation than ever,” and she planned, against the advice of her Aunt, to visit
Bellarmine during his recovery.

Before the lady in the coach can finish her story, however, the coach arrives at an inn for dinner,
“sorely to the dissatisfaction of Mr. Adams,” who has been listening avidly.

Chapter V.

At the inn, Mr. Adams encounters Joseph, who is in the kitchen recovering from a riding
accident with the aid of the Hostess. The surly Host enters and, finding his wife tending to a
mere footman, curses at her and directs her to attend the more genteel guests. Mr. Adams has
sharp words with the Host, and Joseph intervenes to advise the Host to have more respect for the
socially superior Mr. Adams. A brawl ensues, and when the Host goes down for the count, the
Hostess dashes a pan of hog’s blood in Mr. Adams’s face. Mrs. Slipslop arrives and assaults the
Hostess, whose cries bring three more guests to the kitchen. The Host, recovering, reproaches his
wife for having wasted the hog’s blood and says that she deserved the beating she received at the
hands of Mrs. Slipslop. One of the other guests, who happens to be one of the litigious gentlemen
who gave an opinion of the Justice of the Peace in Chapter III, urges the Host to bring legal
action against Mr. Adams; the Host, however, has seen neighbors ruin themselves through
frivolous lawsuits. The other litigious gentleman, meanwhile, urges Mr. Adams to bring legal

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action against the Host; Mr. Adams, however, admits to having struck the first blow, and he
recoils from the suggestion that Joseph, being the only bystander, could support him in lying on
this point. Mr. Adams asserts with some dignity the integrity of his character and his office, and
the two litigious gentlemen cease meddling to congratulate themselves on having effected a
reconciliation between the two parties.

As the coach is preparing to leave again, Mrs. Grave-airs snobbishly resists admitting Joseph, a

mere footman but too injured to go on horseback, into the coach. Mrs. Slipslop advocates for
Joseph, and the argument continues until Mrs. Grave-airs notices her father, who has just arrived
and who invites her to ride on with him. The Coachman then reveals to Mr. Adams that Mrs.
Grave-airs’s father is now the steward in a prominent household and has servants himself, but
that he is low-born and once worked as a postilion. Mr. Adams passes this information along to
Mrs. Slipslop, expecting that it will please her, but she regrets having antagonized a family of
upper servants in the neighborhood and fears that the story might get back to Lady Booby. Once
the coach has departed, all the female passengers begin to disparage Mrs. Grave-airs for trying to
act above her station. Mrs. Slipslop speaks feelingly on behalf of Joseph, wondering aloud how
any “Christian Woman” could object to the sight of Joseph. The other ladies grow anxious about
the turn Slipslop’s conversation seems to be taking, so one of them suggests that they hear the
end of the story of Leonora.
Analysis.
The action of Book II starts with Mr. Adams finding himself in what will become a highly
characteristic predicament: he lacks the funds to pay the bill he has racked up at the inn. Mr.
Adams, like Fielding himself at the time of composing the novel, is constantly in debt;
fortunately, however, the same unworldliness that leads to these bouts of insolvency prevents
him from despairing. Instead, he asks trustingly for help, for as he himself would never refuse a
request for financial assistance, he always expects that others will lend him the money he needs.
In this particular instance, the people around him reward his faith: a servant from the coach and
six springs Adams and Joseph from the inn, and later Mrs. Slipslop (albeit with a less than
virtuous motive) releases the parson's horse and Joseph along with it.

No less characteristic of Adams is his having forgotten his manuscripts at home; as the episode
of his wading needlessly through a stream suggests, Mr. Adams is prone to these errors because

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he is both literally and figuratively short-sighted. The detail of his sitting down to read the works
of the classical tragedian Æschylus gives a clue as to the literary influences behind Fielding's
characterizing him in this way. Mr. Adams resembles Cervantes's Don Quixote in having a
vision that is naïve in a peculiarly bookish way: as Homer Goldberg observes, Adams's continual
horror at the wickedness of others arises not only from his own natural goodness, which he tends
to project onto others, but also from his assumption that "the noble sentiments of the ancient
poets and philosophers . . . delineate human nature as it is, rather than as it might or ought to be."
Thus, the story moves from examples of Adams's absent-mindedness (with respect to money,
manuscripts, and moving water) straight to an incident in which a couple of worldlings display a
less exalted side of human nature: while stopping at the next inn, Adams is shocked to learn that
two litigious gentlemen would allow self-interest to guide their moral judgments of others. Mr.
Adams errs in confusing erudition with practical wisdom and insight into the minds and actions
of everyday human beings; this lack of emphasis on the practical side of things manifests itself in
his forgetfulness, his accumulation of debt, and his idealistic expectation of good faith in others.

The first chapter of Book II, like that of Book I, contains Fielding's commentary on his
procedure as a novelist; here, he addresses his division of the novel into books and chapters that
allow the reader to pause for reflection. Fielding claims once again to be taking his cues from
classical writers such as Homer, and indeed the use of numbered books is an organizational
technique typical of the epic. Another structural inheritance from the epic, one that Fielding does
not discuss, is the interpolation of digressive tales such as that of Leonora, which begins in
Chapter IV. Readers who are inclined to criticize the weakness of Fielding's plot structure, with
its many improbable occurrences and flat characters popping in and out, often disapprove of
these digressions as distractions from the main story. Nevertheless, the tales do serve the main
narrative, as the telling of Leonora's demonstrates: not only does the characterization of Mr.
Adams gather an amusing new wrinkle (as the upright clergyman turns out to be an avid
consumer of gossipy stories), but Leonora's biography underscores important themes as well.

Some critics have called the digressive tales "negative analogues," meaning that they express
negatively the positive moral themes of the main story. Thus, while Joseph and Fanny embody
everything that young lovers ought to be and do, Leonora manages to get everything wrong. The
fact that she begins with every earthly advantage makes her folly all the less forgivable: she is

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wealthy, attractive, popular, and shrewd; her only weakness is a moral one, as she brings to her
selection of husbands a form of pragmatism that is really just applied selfishness. This
pragmatism misfires when Leonora abandons the man she really loves for a wealthier man who,
as will be seen in the conclusion of her story, is no less self-interested than she is. For being too
clever by half, the novel punishes Leonora, rewarding instead the dogged loyalty of Joseph and
Fanny; the contrast between her sophistication and their straightforwardness implies that
Fielding's providence favors simplicity, which Fielding considers an attribute of goodness.

Fielding's classical influences manifest themselves also in the farcical battle scene of Chapter V:
serious epics are full of lavishly detailed scenes of combat that substantiate the heroic qualities of
the participants, but in Fielding the narrative specificity serves, of course, not to glorify the
action but to underscore its ludicrousness. Naturally, Mr. Adams epitomizes this ludicrousness:
the Hostess dashes the hog's blood into his face "with so good an Aim, that much the greater part
first saluting his Countenance, trickled thence in so large a current down his Beard, and over his
Garments, that a more horrible Spectacle was hardly to be seen or even imagined"; when the
smoke has cleared, "[t]he principal Figure, and which engaged the Eyes of all, was Adams,"
who, as usual, looks the silliest. He does not, however, descend to the level of the guiltiest: the
hog's blood battle provides a useful window into Fielding's ethics, and the fact that neither
Adams nor Joseph thinks of turning the other cheek indicates that Fielding does not use violence
and nonviolence as a basis on which to distinguish the wicked characters from the virtuous.
Whether a particular violent act is ethical or not turns out to be a question of motive: the Host
has threatened the two travelers because he is irritated with Adams and Joseph for requesting
charity from his wife and because he resents Joseph's suggestion that Adams is his social
superior; by contrast, the violence of Adams and Joseph is simply reactive, part self-defense and
part retaliation against the Host's gratuitous aggression. In Fielding's world, where where
violence is normative, even the best Christians cannot be pacifists.

Joseph Andrews Summary and Analysis of Book II, Chapters VI through XII.

Summary.
Chapter VI.

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Leonora acted as Bellarmine’s nurse, and her almost constant presence in his apartment became
a subject for gossip among the ladies of the town. After his recovery, Bellarmine finally set out
to seek the approval of Leonora’s father. The miserly old gentleman had no objection to his
daughter’s making such an advantageous match, but he also had no intention of providing her
with a dowry. When Bellarmine clarified that he would not take Leonora without a dowry, the
old gentleman expressed his regret that Leonora should lose such an eligible match. Failing to
persuade his would-be father-in-law, Bellarmine left the house and the country, returning to
France without seeing Leonora, and sent from Paris a note explaining to her why they could not
marry after all. After receiving the bad news, Leonora returned to the house that occasioned the
telling of her story, where she has “led a disconsolate Life.” Horatio, meanwhile, has worked
hard and acquired “a very considerable Fortune,” and he has never spoken an ill word of
Leonora.
Chapter VII.

Mr. Abraham Adams has forgotten all about his horse and has been walking ahead of the coach
all this time. When the passengers notice him and try to overtake him, he treats it as a game and
outruns the coach. Once he has gotten three miles ahead, he sits down with his Æschylus to wait
for the coach to catch up. A Sportsman hunting partridge soon comes upon him, and they start a
conversation about the scarcity of game in the area, which the Sportsman blames on the soldiers
who are quartered in the neighborhood. When Adams remarks that shooting is a soldier’s line of
work, the Sportsman wishes that the soldiers were “so forward to shoot our Enemies.” He
expresses his admiration for men who are willing to die for their country, which sentiment
favorably impresses Mr. Adams, who is eager to continue the discussion in this vein.
Chapter VIII.

Mr. Adams says that though he has never made “so noble a Sacrifice” as soldiers make,
nevertheless he too has suffered, in his own small way, “for the sake of [his] Conscience.” He
once had a nephew who kept a shop and was an Alderman of a Corporation, and he more than
once missed out on opportunities of employment within the church when he refused to sell his
influence over his nephew’s vote. Eventually he encouraged the nephew to vote for Sir Thomas
Booby, having been impressed with Sir Thomas’s command of “Affairs.” Sir Thomas won the
election and became a classically verbose Member of Parliament, but Adams never received the

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living Sir Thomas had promised him, as Lady Booby preferred to bestow it elsewhere. Nor has
Mr. Adams ever had much access to the Booby family, presumably because Lady Booby “did
not think [his] Dress good enough for the Gentry at her Table.” Adams remembers Sir Thomas
fondly, however, as Sir Thomas always allowed him to take a glass of ale from his cellar on
Sundays. Mr. Adams no longer has much political clout since the death of his Alderman nephew,
though he does take advantage of his pulpit to advocate certain causes during election season,
hoping thereby to gain the support of the local gentry in getting an ordination for his son, who is
at a disadvantage because he has not been to university. Like his father before him, the Mr.
Adams the Younger strives to serve God and country.
Chapter IX.

The Sportsman expresses his opinion that any man not willing to die for his country is not
willing to live in it, and he says that he disinherited a nephew who joined the army but refused to
be stationed in the West Indies. Mr. Adams counsels greater patience, arguing that “if Fear had
too much Ascendance in the Mind, the Man was rather to be pitied than abhorred.” The
Sportsman repeats his conviction of the transcendent importance of courage and country and
then, upon hearing Adams mention the stage-coach, tells him that the last coach is three miles
ahead of them and invites the curate to stay the night at his house. Mr. Adams accepts, and they
begin the walk to the Sportsman’s house, with the Sportsman “renewing his Discourse on
Courage, and the Infamy of not being ready at all times to sacrifice our Lives to our Country.”

While they are walking, they hear a woman’s screams. Mr. Adams, armed with a stick, hastens
to the spot, while “the Man of Courage made as much Expedition towards his own House,
whither he escaped in a very short time without once looking behind him: where we will leave
him, to contemplate his own Bravery, and to censure the Want of it in others.” Mr. Adams finds
the screaming woman fending off a sexual assault; he bludgeons the attacker with the stick and
then endures a “drubbing” from him, playing rope-a-dope until the attacker tires himself and Mr.
Adams can deliver a series of punches, including a well-placed blow to the chin, which succeeds
so well that Mr. Adams fears he may have killed his opponent. He and the woman discuss the
circumstances of the attack, and he learns that she is on her way to London. Mr. Adams, who
believes that he has killed the attacker, then begins to consider whether the woman’s testimony

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will be sufficient to acquit him of murder, and “whether it would be properer to make his Escape,
or to deliver himself into the hands of Justice.”

Chapter X.

The woman Adams has rescued does not entirely trust him, worrying that he may be no better a
companion than was her attacker. While Adams stands considering whether to run or turn
himself in, a group of young men comes by, looking for birds to catch; Adams asks them to hold
their lantern over the felled attacker to determine whether he is alive or not. He is alive, in fact,
and he extemporizes a story for the young men, claiming to be “a poor Traveller, who would
otherwise have been robbed and murdered by this vile Man and Woman.” The young men lay
hold of Mr. Adams and the woman to carry them before the Justice. As they all walk along, Mr.
Adams tries to comfort and encourage the woman he has rescued while the young men argue
about how they will split their reward. When Mr. Adams mentions Joseph Andrews, the woman
realizes who her rescuer is and introduces herself as Joseph’s beloved, Fanny Goodwill. In the
ensuing discussion, Fanny feigns a lack of interest in Joseph but then asks “a thousand
Questions, which would have assured any one but Adams, who never saw farther into People
than they desired to let him, of the Truth of a Passion she endeavoured to conceal.” Word had
reached her about the attack on Joseph by the Two Ruffians, and she immediately set out to find
the man “whom, notwithstanding her Shyness to the Parson, she loved with inexpressible
Violence, though with the purest and most delicate Passion.”
Chapter XI.

They reach the Justice’s house, where the Justice does not wish to interrupt his dinner and so
orders that the prisoners should be detained in the stable, where they soon attract a crowd.
Eventually the Justice, “being now in the height of his Mirth and his Cups,” sends for the
prisoners, thinking to “have good Sport in their Examination.” He makes several lewd jokes
about Fanny while his clerk takes down the depositions. The assembled company also ridicule
Mr. Adams’s clerical dress, assuming that he has stolen it. They play along with his clergyman
persona by addressing him in Latin, prompting him to criticize their pronunciation; when he
disputes a quotation and agrees to bet a guinea on it, he finds he lacks the requisite funds and the

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retraction of his bet allows the company to award the distinction in Latin expertise to his
opponent.

The Justice declines to read the clerk’s depositions and skips right to the mittimus (a warrant to
commit the accused to prison). When Mr. Adams objects to being sent to prison without having
been able to speak in his own defense, the Justice explains that there will be time for that at his
trial at the Assizes in several months. The clerk also presents to the Justice Mr. Adams’s volume
of Æschylus, which is “written, as he apprehended it, in Ciphers.” The company eventually
recognize the characters as Greek, and the Parson of the Parish, who is in attendance, pronounces
the volume “a Greek Manuscript, a very fine piece of Antiquity,” which Adams has undoubtedly
stolen.
Luckily, a Squire in the crowd has recognized Mr. Adams and vouches for his being a real
clergyman “and a Gentleman of a very good Character.” The Justice immediately agrees not to
commit Mr. Adams, though he still plans to commit Fanny Goodwill. He agrees, however, to
hear Adams’s version of events, which he then believes entirely on the strength of Adams’s
social status. Fanny’s attacker makes his escape during this tale, angering the Justice, but
eventually things settle down and the Justice and Mr. Adams have a drink together while Fanny
goes off in the care of a maid-servant. Soon a quarrel erupts outside among the young men, who
are drunk now and still contesting who would have received the greatest share of the reward if
Adams had been convicted. Mr. Adams regrets “to see so litigious a Temper in Men” and tells a
story about three candidates for a clerkship in one of his parishes, the moral of which is “the
Folly of growing warm in Disputes, in which neither Party is interested.” The Justice then begins
to “sing forth his own Praises,” but a dispute arises between the Justice and the clergyman
regarding the former’s handling of the recent case, with Mr. Adams actually arguing that the
Justice ought, “in strictness of Law, to have committed him, the said Adams,” to prison. They
might have quarreled, had not Fanny interrupted with the news that a young man is about to
depart for the very inn where Joseph has stopped. Mr. Adams, seeing that Fanny is eager to go,
agrees to accompany her.

Chapter XII.

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Mr. Adams, Fanny, and their young Guide set out for the inn in the middle of the night. A violent
storm forces them to shelter in an alehouse, where Fanny impresses everyone with her
appearance. Fielding gives a complimentary description of her as a type of unpretentious rural
beauty, possessing “a natural Gentility, superior to the Acquisition of Art, which surprised all
who beheld her.” While Fanny and Adams are sitting by the fire, she hears a voice singing and
recognizes it as Joseph’s. Her shocked reaction alarms Mr. Adams, who throws his Æschylus
into the fire and calls for assistance. Joseph arrives to revive Fanny from her swoon, and the
lovers have an ecstatic reunion. Mr. Adams is delighted, until the sight of his smoldering
Æschylus ruins his mood. He rescues Æschylus while Fanny recovers herself and becomes
suddenly self-conscious. She curtsies to Mrs. Slipslop, who scornfully refuses to return the
gesture and withdraws from the room.
Analysis.
The conclusion of "The Unfortunate Jilt" winds up Leonora's biography in a manner consistent
with Fielding's vigorous ethics. Leonora and Bellarmine are, in a sense, made for each other. The
lady has a "greedy Appetite of Vanity," and the cavalier has not only a coach and six to gratify
that appetite but also a wardrobe that is "as remarkably fine as his Equipage could be": "he had
on a Cut-Velvet Coat of a Cinnamon Colour, lined with a Pink Satten," and so on, "all in the
French Fashion." Their union cannot last, however, despite (or because of) the complementarity
of their affectations: Leonora and Bellarmine lack the one thing needful, not love in their case
but money. In this they represent the negative converse of Joseph and Fanny, but other
correspondences with the main story exist as well. For instance, Leonora provides a variation on
the conduct of Lady Booby, particularly in how her swerving between suitors echoes Lady
Booby's mood swings. Leonora's volatility, however, is both less dramatic than Lady Booby’s
and more reprehensible because its outcome is preordained: her decision-making process is not
genuine psychological turmoil but is itself an affectation designed to foist responsibility onto her
Aunt, whom she can and does blame when eventually the scheme blows up. By contrast, Horatio
shares characteristics with the virtuous characters of the main plot: like Mr. Adams and Joseph,
Horatio is a straight shooter who is not averse to fighting any man who has wronged him, and
accordingly Fielding's comic providence looks out for him and brings about his ultimate triumph.
Not only does Horatio get the better of his duel with Bellarmine, but he goes on to prosper in his

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law practice (differing in this, one might add, from Fielding himself) and is, one imagines,
probably better off without Leonora, notwithstanding his nostalgia for her name and memory.

The long-awaited introduction of Fanny Goodwill occurs in these chapters, and Fielding’s
detailed physical description of her in Chapter XII contrasts her strongly with Lady Booby by
emphasizing her rural origins and unaffected simplicity. Her arms are “a little redden’d by her
Labour,” and her figure is robust and “plump” rather than fashionably delicate: she is “not one of
those slender young Women, who seem rather intended to hang up in the Hall of an Anatomist,
than for any other Purpose.” Fielding is careful also to note physical imperfections, such as the
slight unevenness of her teeth and a pox-mark on her chin, details that paradoxically heighten her
beauty by rendering it natural and credible.

The “natural Gentility, superior to the Acquisition of Art,” which Fielding notes at the end of the
description, is justified thematically; in his opposition to affectation, Fielding inevitably
propounds a sense in which straightforwardness substitutes for the social graces of the
sophisticated upper classes. In suggesting, however, that this “natural Gentility” is Fanny’s most
striking attribute, such that it “surprised all who beheld her,” Fielding betrays the basic gist of the
whole description and indeed of his presentation of Fanny throughout the novel. Again and again
he will draw the attention of his both his characters and his readers not to any abstract quality of
“Gentility” in Fanny’s bearing but rather, as here, to her luscious physical presence. The fact that
he does so, moreover, seems important to his presentation of the relation between sex and virtue.
As Richard J. Dircks observes, Joseph and Fanny complement each other because both are
vibrant natural creatures who embody the reality of sex “without the suggestion of the lustful
extravagance of Slipslop and Lady Booby, who appear in marked contrast to” Fanny. The mutual
attraction of Joseph and Fanny is full of “attractive innocence” rather than “pretense and
hypocrisy”; the novelist’s frank acknowledgment of Fanny’s sexual appeal, which does not
require the certification of gentility in order to be legitimately attractive, is crucial to the
presentation of a love that is both virtuous and robustly physical.

The scene of Adams and Fanny’s trial before the negligent Justice is an excellent and sinister
example of those minor vices, “the accidental Consequences of some human Frailty, or Foible,”
which the Preface indicated would be the main object of Fielding’s satire. As Hamilton

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Macallister observes, Fielding’s “satire is usually directed against some form of the arrogant
abuse of power: the petty power of innkeepers, or the greater power of squires and justices.”
Here, the Justice who very nearly sends Adams and Fanny to prison for the very crime of which
they themselves were nearly victims (namely assault and robbery) is not actively and deliberately
malevolent; he merely wants to finish his dinner and afterward is in no mood to give the case
careful attention. His lack of seriousness is deplorable, but it is not malicious. Further diffusing
the Justice’s culpability are the young men who apprehended Adams and Fanny and presented
the Justice with a skewed case. No more than the Justice are these young men actively wicked:
they simply believed the convincing performance of Fanny’s assailant and hoped to get a reward
out of it. As a crowd gathers at the Justice’s home and the bystanders begin throwing in their two
cents, the situation grows increasingly confused: “chaotic as the situation is,” remarks
Macallister, “nobody is particularly responsible, and it is just this that gives a nightmare quality
to the scene.” The episode is perhaps too mundane even to merit the phrase “banality of evil,” as
human nature reveals itself in the psychology of the crowd and the nonchalance of the Justice.

At length, of course, providence intervenes in the form of an anonymous gentleman who

recognizes Adams from across the room. The readiness and even politeness with which the
Justice backs away from his resolution to send Adams and Fanny before the Assizes is both
uncanny and naturalistic: once his mistake is clear to him he becomes what he has always been,
namely a very average man, conscious now of his inadequacies and rather conciliatory. At this
point even the lying assailant simply melts into the night as if he had never been. Fielding’s
world, then, is on the one hand reassuringly providential, as there is no disaster that the benign
hand of the omnipotent novelist cannot avert. On the other hand, however, Fielding’s world has a
dimension that is quite dark, for when deliberate malice is not operative in the story, “the
accidental Consequences of some human Frailty, or Foible” can always pick up its slack.

Chapter XIII.

Fielding clarifies that Mrs. Slipslop has not forgotten her old coworker Fanny Goodwill but has
merely asserted her social prerogative in cutting her. He goes on to explain, with a facetious
display of logic, the social gradations separating High People from Low People, or People of
Fashion from People of No Fashion. Mrs. Slipslop, being near the top of the servant class, has

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adopted many of the attitudes of Lady Booby, who is near the bottom of the gentry class. Those
who have any kind of status in this scheme will “think the least Familiarity with the Persons
below them a Condescension, and if they were to go one Step farther, a Degradation.” Mr.
Abraham Adams, who has no conception of these prejudices, believes that Mrs. Slipslop has
actually forgotten Fanny and seeks to jog her memory, whereupon Mrs. Slipslop utters a slur on
Fanny’s virtue. Adams defends Fanny, expressing his wish “that all her Betters were as good,”
and tells the story of his rescuing her from the rape attempt. Slipslop disparages the unclerical
behavior Adams displayed during that episode and then, hearing that the storm has passed, sends
for Joseph Andrews, with whom she intends to proceed. He will not leave without Fanny,
however, and eventually Slipslop goes on without him. She bitterly regrets the presence of
Fanny, and Fielding slyly remarks that Joseph, no less than Fanny, has been in the presence of a
would-be rapist this evening.
Adams, Fanny, and Joseph sit all night by the fire, where Fanny finally confesses her love for
Joseph, prompting him to wake the curate and ask to be married on the spot. Mr. Adams refuses,
however, on the grounds that they have not published the banns, as the forms of the church
require. Fanny, blushing at Joseph’s haste, backs up the clergyman. When the sun has been up
for several hours, they all prepare to set out but are thwarted by a seven-shilling bill that they
cannot come close to paying. After a few minutes Adams comes up with the idea to seek the
wealthy clergyman of the parish and borrow the funds from him.

Chapter XIV.

Parson Trulliber is a parson only on Sundays and a farmer on the other six days of the week, and
he is as fat as the hogs he tends. Mrs. Trulliber mistakenly introduces Mr. Adams as a
prospective buyer of hogs, and Adams’s “natural Complacence” forces him to go through the
motions of inspecting the livestock before purchasing. One unruly hog throws him in the mire,
however, whereupon Mr. Adams declares in Latin that he has no interest in pigs. Parson
Trulliber blames his wife for the confusion and disparages her as a fool. While Mr. Adams is
washing up, Trulliber insults his wife again and invites Adams into the kitchen for refreshment,
telling Mrs. Trulliber under his breath to bring “a little of the worst Ale.” The two clergymen sit
down to eat breakfast, with Mrs. Trulliber serving and Parson Trulliber criticizing her cookery.
After breakfast, Adams gets down to business, explaining his need for a loan of seven shillings

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for the current bill plus seven shillings more for the road. Trulliber recoils from this request,
pretending to take offense at the suggestion that he has amassed any worldly wealth, as if a
Christian’s treasure were of this world. Mr. Adams is delighted with Trulliber’s otherworldly
virtue but persists in his request for the sake of his friends. Parson Trulliber then accuses him of
impersonating a clergyman in order to beg for money. Mr. Adams suggests, “[S]uppose I am not
a Clergyman, I am nevertheless thy Brother, and thou, as a Christian, much more as a
Clergyman, art obliged to relieve my Distress.” He warns that faith is nothing without good
works and declares, “Whoever therefore is void of Charity, I make no scruple of pronouncing
that he is no Christian.” Parson Trulliber threatens him with his fist, but Mr. Adams departs with
a smile.
Chapter XV.

Mr. Adams returns to Joseph and Fanny, where Joseph suggests as a last resort that they ask the
Hostess, a sour-faced old woman, to trust them to pay their bill later. The Hostess surprises them
by complying. Fielding attributes this kindness to the Hostess’s confusion over the relation
between Adams and Parson Trulliber: as she believes them to be not “brothers” in the cloth but
biological brothers, she does not wish to affront the fearsome Parson by insisting on an upfront
payment of the bill. When a servant of hers goes to fetch the greatcoat and hat Adams has left at
the Trullibers’, however, the illusion is shattered and the Hostess retracts her offer of credit. Mr.
Adams thus has to canvass the parish for charity, but in vain; he returns disillusioned with the
lack of Christian charity in the country.

A poor Pedlar, meanwhile, has been listening to the Hostess’s remarks on her unfortunate guests,
and he loans Mr. Adams enough money to cover what he cannot pay. The three companions
thank him profusely, tell him where he can call for repayment, and depart: “And thus these poor
People, who could not engage the Compassion of Riches and Piety, were at length delivered out
of their Distress by the Charity of a poor Pedlar.”
Chapter XVI.

After walking for about two miles, the companions reach another inn, where a courteous and
gregarious Squire sits smoking by the door. This Squire, who says that he owns the large house
nearby, invites the travelers into the inn for refreshment. During the meal, he applauds Mr.

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Adams’s affection for his two parishioners, contrasting him favorably with his own parson, who
tends to view the less wealthy among his parishioners as members of another species. He then
claims to have the living “in [his] Gift” (that is, to have the prerogative of conferring it), and as
the incumbent is old and ailing, the gentleman promises to award the living to Adams. When
Adams expresses amazement at this generosity, the Squire replies, “I esteem Riches only as they
give me an opportunity of doing Good.” He then invites the travelers to stay the night in his
mansion, adding that he will be able to furnish them with a coach and six. Mr. Adams accepts
these offers ecstatically, but while they are all preparing to leave the inn, the talkative Squire
recalls that his housekeeper is abroad, so that all the rooms are locked up; he therefore
recommends that the travelers stay in the inn after all. He then leaves them at the inn, promising
to send the coach and horses in the morning.

In the morning, however, a servant arrives with the information that his master’s horses are
temporarily out of commission because the groom has administered to them a course of physic.
Mr. Adams regrets that this Squire’s staff should inconvenience him so frequently. Joseph raises
the issue of their bill, which again they cannot pay, and suggests that Mr. Adams write to their
new acquaintance requesting funds. The answer they receive, however, is that their acquaintance
has departed on a long journey. Mr. Adams is shocked, but Joseph says that he had suspicions
from the beginning, since there is a saying among footmen that “those Masters who promise the
most perform the least.” The Host then enters and chaffs the travelers for having been duped. Mr.
Adams frets about their bill and says that even if the Host trusts them to pay it later, they live at
such a distance that they might never find an opportunity to send the money; paradoxically, the
Host says that Adams’s admission that they might never pay has made him trust them more,
since every failure to pay a debt has so far been preceded by an ironclad guarantee. The Host
therefore waives the bill and sits down for a drink with Mr. Adams while the lovers go off into
the garden.

Chapter XVII.

The Host tells several stories of the false-promising Squire’s promising more than he meant to
deliver and gouging his victims as a result. The final story tells of the Host’s own career as
master of a ship and the false-promising Squire’s bogus promise to procure him an elevation to

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the lieutenancy of a man of war. Mr. Adams regrets these evidences of the man’s bad character
but holds out hope for his redemption, especially given the signs that his face bears of “that
Sweetness of Disposition which furnishes out a good Christian.” The Host, with his wide
experience of the world, counsels against inferring a man’s character from his countenance. Mr.
Adams indignantly argues for his own wide reading as a form of worldliness and invokes
Socrates in behalf of his theory of moral physiognomy. This argument leads to a debate about the
relative merits of trade and the learned professions, but Joseph and Fanny soon interrupt, and
Adams and the Host part with less good humor than prevailed between them formerly.

Analysis.
Starting in Chapter XIII, when Joseph assents to Adams’s requirement that the marriage be
delayed until the formal pronouncement of the wedding banns, Fielding puts the Joseph-Fanny
romance plot on hold and focuses on Adams and the comedy of his innocence; that comedy
reaches a climax in the final chapters of Book II. Homer Goldberg points out how Fielding
designed the events of Book II to exhibit a progression from examples Adams’s everyday absent-
mindedness to increasingly dramatic evidence of his benevolent naïveté regarding human nature.
The ever-more-despicable behavior of those around him fails to dispel his generous illusions
until finally “the display of his essential simplicity culminates in his vain defense of classical
learning as the essential source of the knowledge of men.” When in Chapter XVII Adams sits
down with the Host and argues that the only knowledge worth having is found in books, he
finally states explicitly the unworldly attitudes that have been determining his outlook all along.

Adams’s run-ins with Parson Trulliber and the false-promising Squire are each exemplary
instances of his innocent dealings with the world of affectation. In the case of Trulliber, Adams
encounters the epitome of the type of selfish clergyman to whom he has stood in contrast since
his discussion with Barnabas about the doctrines of Methodism. Trulliber would rather tend his
hogs than care for souls (indeed, he is better suited to the former task), and he treats Adams to
some truly wretched hospitality, gorging himself while giving Adams “a little of the worst Ale.”
Eventually the two parsons engage in a debate about the true nature of Christianity and the
relationship between faith and works, and it emerges that Trulliber believes that his duty as as
clergyman and a Christian is simply to believe certain religious tenets, not to conduct himself
according to the behaviors enjoined by those tenets. In professing immaculate Christian

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principles but abstaining from the performance of charity toward his fellow-man, Trulliber
shows himself to be the quintessential hypocrite, a devotee of self-interest masquerading as a
paragon of virtue. Nor is Trulliber merely a corrupt clergyman; he is also a bully, a lover of
power who is given to brutal intimidation of his wife. His authority within the parish derives in
large part from his ability to lord it over his parishioners, all of whom “lived in the utmost Fear
and Apprehension of him.”

Trulliber’s vices, then, are reprehensible, but what should be noted is that they are, as one may
say, natural -- they are extensions of the ordinary human desire to acquire things, such as money
or power, for oneself. With the false-promising Squire the case is different and rather bizarre: if
Trulliber responds too negatively when Adams approaches him for aid, the false-promising
Squire approaches Adams on his own initiative and deceives him with a gratuitous display of
sham generosity. His sadistic foible is to counterfeit that quality of spontaneous benevolence
which is the substance of Adams’s ethics and which Adams so constantly expects to find in those
around him. The false-promising Squire is, then, as exemplary a hypocrite as Trulliber, though in
a stranger way. As Goldberg puts it, he engages in “motiveless mischief”; his wickedness is
unconventional in that it confers no obvious benefit on him, and as a result, Adams takes a while
to recognize and condemn it.

Only after the Host’s lengthy account of the Squire’s past wrongdoing does Adams concede that
“he is indeed a wicked Man,” though even then he protests that the Squire “hath in his
Countenance sufficient Symptoms of . . . that Sweetness of Disposition which furnishes out a
good Christian.” The Host’s rather worldly response, that to take people at face value in this way
is to invite deception, strikes Adams as too cynical, and it is telling that when the Host invokes
his world travels in support of his argument from experience, Adams counters by invoking his
own wide reading. Adams insists that his knowledge of books helps him to see the world clearly,
but when he cites Socrates on behalf of the false-promising Squire it becomes clear to the reader
that Adams’s literacy also has the potential to confirm the parson in his chosen vision of reality.

We have now reached the midpoint of the novel, and it would appear that, in a sense, Mr. Adams
is incapable of learning: his adventures have not served to make him any more realistic about the
world, and experience washes off him like the pig-slop from Trulliber’s sty. In another sense, of

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course, there is nothing that Adams needs to learn, as he already embodies Fielding’s definition
of goodness as active charity. Perhaps, however, Mr. Adams’s goodness would be more effectual
if he could incorporate some of the Host’s practical wisdom; after all, the Host is no covetous
misanthrope in spite of his sober realism, for he has just taken a risk on Adams by extending
credit to him when Adams has admitted how difficult it will be for him to pay it back.
Fortunately, Joseph, as Adams’s protégé, seems to be incorporating experience into his parson’s
Christian teaching rather effectively: he has suspected the Squire as a phony from the start, and
eventually he passes judgment on him with a maxim that is the fruit of the accumulated wisdom
of generations of footmen. Whereas at the beginning of the novel Joseph could not believe that
Lady Booby, being socially so superior, could ever condescend to proposition her own servant,
by now he has begun to look on the upper classes and the world with an eye not cynical but
definitely more experienced.

Joseph Andrews Summary and Analysis of Book III, Chapters I through III.

Summary.
Chapter I.

Fielding again takes up issues of genre and begins by elevating biography over history.
Historians are always accurate in reporting circumstantial detail, but they are careless in their
evaluations of persons; thus, “Some represent[] the same Man as a Rogue, while others give him
a great and honest Character, yet all agree in the Scene where the Fact is supposed to have
happened; and where the Person, who is both a Rogue, and an honest Man, lived.” Biographers
have exactly the opposite priorities, presenting persons faithfully while occasionally mistaking
the where and the when. Fielding clearly sides with the biographers in this scenario, but he
reserves his highest praise for the authors of romances and novels, “who without any Assistance
from Nature or History, record Persons who never were, or will be, and Facts which never did
nor possibly can happen: Whose Heroes are of their own Creation, and their Brains the Chaos
whence all their Materials are collected.” These imaginative works are not bound to the
particulars of history, and they can be “Histor[ies] of the World in general,” expressing its
eternal truths. Accordingly, Fielding’s novel includes many instances of eternally recurring
human types: the Lawyer, the Wit, the Prude; and Fielding clarifies that none of these figures
corresponds to any one individual in real life. As he says, “I describe Men, not Manners; not an
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Individual, but a Species.” Fielding’s goal is “not to expose one pitiful Wretch” in real life but
“to hold the Glass to thousands,” criticizing the common flaws of human nature. This distinction,
says Fielding, makes the difference between the libeler and the satirist.

Chapter II.

The companions, who are nearing their destination, walk until nightfall and then sit down to
rest. Mr. Abraham Adams notices a light, which he takes to be a ghost. When they hear voices
“agree[ing] on the Murder of anyone they met,” Adams brandishes his stick and advances on the
menacing lights until Joseph Andrews pulls him back and convinces him that they should flee.
During their flight Mr. Adams trips and rolls down a hill, luckily to no ill effect. After they have
crossed a great deal of countryside they arrive at a house, where a Man and his Wife offer shelter
and refreshments. Mr. Adams tells the story of his confrontation with the “evil Spirits,” but he is
interrupted by a knock at the door. During a tense interval, while the Man goes to answer the
door, Mr. Adams worries that an exorcism might be in order; the Man returns, however, to
inform them that Mr. Adams’s murderous ghosts are actually sheep-stealers, two of whom the
shepherds have apprehended, and the murder victims are sheep. Everyone then settles down
cheerfully before the fire, and the Man begins to probe his guests regarding their status. Mr.
Adams clarifies that Joseph is not his footman but his parishioner, and the Man puts to Mr.
Adams some literary questions designed to verify whether he is a real clergyman or not. Adams
holds forth at length on Æschylus and Homer, finally concluding, “The Heavens open’d, and the
Deities all seated on their Thrones. This is Sublime! This is Poetry!” The Man is by now more
than convinced of Mr. Adams’s authenticity as a clergyman and even wonders “whether he had
not a Bishop in his House.” Soon the women go off to bed, with the men planning to sit up all
night by the fire. In response to a request by the Man, Mr. Adams tells the story of Joseph’s life,
then asks the Man to tell the story of his own.
Chapter III.

The Man, who has introduced himself as Mr. Wilson, was born and educated as a gentleman. At
sixteen, following the death of his father, he took his inheritance and went to London, “impatient
to be in the World” and attain the character of “a fine Gentleman.” He learned how to dress,
dance, ride, fence, and so forth, before embarking on trumped-up “Intrigue[s]” with several of

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“the finest Women in Town.” Mr. Adams condemns this “Course of Life” as “below the Life of
an Animal, hardly above Vegetation.” After two years, a confrontation with an Officer of the
Guards led Wilson to retreat to the Temple, where he lived among people who pursued the
frivolous life less convincingly than had his former companions: “the Beaus of the Temple . . .
are the Affectation of Affectation.” Wilson’s base new pleasures eventually brought him a
venereal disease, which in turn brought him a resolution of amendment. His swearing-off of
prostitutes soon compelled him, however, to satisfy his passion for women by keeping a
mistress, from whom however he soon parted upon discovering her inconstancy. After another
round of venereal disease, he debauched the daughter of a military gentleman; the young lady
soon began a moral and psychological decline that ended with her miserable death in Newgate
Prison.
After another disease and a couple more mistresses, Wilson joined a club of Freethinkers but left
in disgust after finding that the members’ conduct belied their own rationalistic ethical code. He
began instead to frequent playhouses, in which context he found the occasion to remark that
“Vanity is the worst of Passions, and more apt to contaminate the Mind than any other.” He
attempted to become a playwright, seeking aristocratic patronage in vain, and his play was never
performed. In need of money to pay his debts, he took a job doing translations for a bookseller
and in this line of work did so much reading and writing that he nearly went blind and
temporarily lost the use of his writing hand. He consequently lost this job and, after using his
earnings to buy a lottery ticket, was arrested by his tailor for debt. The lottery ticket then
returned £3,000, which Wilson however did not receive because he had sold the ticket to a
relative who now refused to share the prize with him. One day, while in prison, he received a
note from a lady named Harriet Hearty, the daughter of the man to whom he had sold the ticket;
Harriet informed him that her father had died, leaving her all his fortune, and that she thought it
right to send Wilson £200, which sum she had enclosed with the note. Wilson was delighted not
only to receive the money but especially to receive it from Harriet Hearty, for whom he had long
cherished a secret love. In their first meeting after his release from prison, he professed his love,
which he found the lady reciprocated, and they married shortly thereafter. Wilson took her
father’s place in the wine trade but soon began losing money at it due to his refusal to adulterate
his wine. Around this time he concluded that “the Pleasures of the World are chiefly Folly, and
the Business of it mostly Knavery; and both, nothing better than Vanity: The Men of Pleasure

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tearing one another to Pieces, from the Emulation of spending Money, and the Men of Business
from Envy in getting it.” He then retired with his wife and their two children to the countryside,
where they have lived happily, except for the abduction of their eldest son by gypsies.

Analysis.
Continuing a trend that began in the episode of the false-promising Squire, the character of
Joseph deepens and matures in the course of Book III. Rather than passively absorb the buffets
of fortune, as he largely did throughout the first two books, Joseph now asserts himself more
readily, both dissenting from Mr. Adams's plans when appropriate and springing into physical
action against beatable adversaries. Thus, in the "ghost" sequence of Chapter II, the steady and
sensible Joseph checks Adams's impulse to charge the sheep-stealers, carries Fanny safely down
the slope that tumbled Adams, and guides his companions to a bridge when Adams would have
waded through the river. Joseph, then, has emerged as a prudent foil for his dreamy and
impetuous pastor.

The character of Mr. Adams likewise undergoes a shift of sorts during the transition between
Books II and III, but in his case the change occurs not so much in his personality per se as in
Fielding's presentation of it. Whereas previously Fielding has focused on the contrast between
Adams and the world, thereby endorsing his innocence over others' affectations, now he begins
to measure Adams against other men who are just as virtuous but more prudent, thereby
highlighting Adams's weaknesses and vanity. The first of these other virtuous men is of course
Joseph; the second is Mr. Wilson.
The story of Mr. Wilson's reformation after a misspent youth occupies the center of the novel for
good reason. As one critic has said, "the mature Wilson functions as the novel's central norm of
sensible humanity," and his fitness for this role is apparent in his conduct toward the three
strangers who show up on his doorstep after their encounter with the "ghosts": charitable yet
wary, Wilson welcomes the trio into his home but seeks a way of verifying that they are who
they say they are, and even then he only gradually warms to them as their good nature becomes
increasingly evident. He has seen "too much of the World to give a hasty Belief to Professions";
unlike Mr. Adams, Mr. Wilson has learned something from his experiences of the world. As
Homer Goldberg observes, Wilson's "satiric exposure of the moral state of the world as it
isforcibly points up the error of Adams's persistent naïve vision of it as it ought to be."

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Wilson's biography presents "the World" with a capital "W": it is a survey of the classic vices
that characterize the urban lifestyle of affectation, sophistication, and sensuality. (This
Hogarthian "rake's progress" may also contain an autobiographical element, as the young
Fielding was himself a dissolute Londoner for several years before eloping with his beloved
wife.) Physical lust would appear to be the leading vice among these cosmopolitan types, if
Wilson's recurrent spells of venereal disease are any indication. Wilson's London career of
course contrasts with Joseph's in this regard, and Fielding indicates that this moral degradation
had its origins in Wilson's "early Introduction into Life, without a Guide," as he had no Parson
Adams to mentor him. Religious heterodoxy then compounded this faulty education, with the
young Wilson joining a club of freethinking deists and atheists. Like many frivolous young men,
Wilson kept expecting "Fortune" to smile on him, hence his purchase of the lottery ticket; his
long acquaintance with adversity, however, would teach him that redemption comes not through
luck but through charity, which Harriet Hearty helpfully embodied.

Wilson's journey, like Joseph's, takes him from town to country, from the life of folly and vice to
the life of chaste love and cheerful industry. The geographical symbolism is deliberate, for as
Martin C. Battestin remarks, "in a book whose satiric subject is vanity, provision had to be made
for a long look at London, always for Fielding the symbol of vanitas vanitatum." In their rural
life, it is true, the Wilsons can temper the classical ideal of detachment and solitude with the
Christian ethic of active benevolence, living out of "the World" and yet not abstaining
misanthropically from charitable deeds; their way of life provides Joseph and Fanny with an
example of how to settle down after marriage. Nevertheless, the abduction of the Wilsons' eldest
son demonstrates that vice knows no geographical boundaries: the country may be the georgic
site of contented retirement, but even here sin and sadness can intrude.
Summary.
Chapter IV.

Mr. Abraham Adams speculates about the fate and identity of Mr. Wilson’s abducted son,
suggesting that he might now be a German adventurer or a Duke. Wilson replies that he would
know his son among ten thousand, due to the distinctive mark on the left side of his chest. Soon
the sun comes up, and Adams and Wilson rouseJoseph Andrews for a walk in the garden. The
garden, which Wilson tends himself, is functional rather than ornamental. Wilson explains the

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family’s daily schedule and expresses his respect and affection for his wife and his devotion to
their children. Soon they go in to breakfast, where the Wilsons admire Fanny Goodwill’s beauty
and the guests commend the Wilsons’ charity toward their neighbors. Soon, however, a dog
belonging to the Wilsons’ eleven-year-old daughter comes limping in mortally wounded, having
been shot by the young Squire from the nearby manor. The Squire, apparently, is a petty tyrant
who routinely kills dogs, confiscates guns, and tramples crops and hedges.
Joseph and Fanny are eager to return home and have their wedding, so the travelers decline the
Wilsons’ dinner invitation and continue on their way. As they leave, Mr. Adams declares “that
this was the Manner in which the People had lived in the Golden Age.”

Chapter V.

As the travelers walk along, Mr. Adams and Joseph discuss the first part of Wilson’s story,
which Joseph heard before falling asleep. Adams designates Wilson’s public school education as
the source of all his youthful unhappiness: “Public Schools are the Nurseries of all Vice and
Immorality.” Joseph, says Adams, may attribute the preservation of his virtue to the fact that he
never attended a public school. Joseph protests, however, that Sir Thomas Booby attended a
public school and became “the finest Gentleman in all the Neighborhood.” No amount or kind of
training will alter a person’s basic nature, argues Joseph: “[I]f a Boy be of a mischievous wicked
Inclination, no School, tho’ ever so private, will ever make him good; on the contrary, if he be of
a righteous Temper, you may trust him to London, or wherever else you please, he will be in no
danger of being corrupted.” Mr. Adams continues to argue rather petulantly for the superiority of
private education, and Fielding attributes his zeal in this cause to something that might be called
vanity: “He thought a Schoolmaster the greatest Character in the World, and himself the greatest
of all Schoolmasters.”
Around noon they rest in a beautiful spot and unpack the provisionsMrs. Wilson gave them.
Among the food and wine they discover a gold piece, which Wilson evidently intended should
prevent their getting trapped in any more inns along their way. Mr. Adams, however, plans to
repay Mr. Wilson when the latter passes through Adams’s parish within the week.
Chapter VI.

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Joseph discourses on the virtue of charity, which he says contributes infinitely more to a man’s
honor than does the acquisition of money or fine articles. In viewing an expensive painting, for
example, no one bears in mind the painting’s owner; when, by contrast, people discuss a good
deed such as redeeming a debtor from prison, they always emphasize the author of the deed.
Moreover, people often disparage others’ possessions out of envy, but “I defy the wisest Man in
the World to turn a true good Action into Ridicule.” Eventually Joseph looks up to see Mr.
Adams asleep and accordingly turns to canoodling with Fanny, albeit in a manner “consistent
with the purest Innocence and Decency.” Soon they hear a pack of hounds approaching, and a
hare, the dogs’ quarry, appears beside them. Fanny wants to catch the hare and protect it, but the
hare does not recognize her as an ally and goes on its way. Soon the hounds catch it and tear it
“to pieces before Fanny’s face, who was unable to assist it with any Aid more powerful than
Pity.” The capture happens to occur within two yards of Mr. Adams, with the result that some of
the dogs end up attacking the clergyman’s clothes and wig. Mr. Adams awakes and flees before
the dogs can taste his flesh, but the Master of the Pack sends the dogs after him. Joseph, seeing
his companion in distress, takes up his cudgel, an heirloom which Fielding describes minutely in
a mock-heroic passage, and hastens, “swift of foot,” to Adams’s assistance. Fielding declines to
characterize Joseph with an epic simile because no simile could be aequate to “the Idea of
Friendship, Courage, Youth, Beauty, Strength, and Swiftness; all which blazed in the Person
of Joseph Andrews.”
The hounds catch up with Mr. Adams, and Joseph beats them off one at a time until the Squire,
whom Fielding calls a “Hunter of Men,” finally calls them off. Fielding acknowledges the
humorously elevated diction in which he has related this incident when he concludes: “Thus far
the Muse hath with her usual Dignity related this prodigious Battle, a Battle we apprehend never
equalled by any Poet, Romance or Life-writer whatever, and having brought it into a Conclusion
she ceased; we shall therefore proceed in our ordinary Style with the Continuation of this
History.” The hunters, formerly amused by the spectacle of Joseph and Mr. Adams contending
with the hounds, now begin to worry about the injuries the hounds have sustained in the combat.
The Hunter of Men demands what Joseph meant by assaulting the dogs. Joseph defends his
actions, but all arguments cease when Fanny approaches and staggers the hunters with her
beauty. Soon it becomes apparent that only two dogs have sustained mortal wounds, so the
hunters’ anger subsides and the Hunter of Men invites the travelers to dinner.

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Analysis.
Wilson's biography prompts Mr. Adams and Joseph to have a nature-versus-nurture debate about
how men acquire moral insight; the ensuing exchange provides further evidence both of Adams's
faulty ideas about human nature and of Joseph's increasing shrewdness and confidence. Adams,
it appears, has some unsound notions regarding the origins of virtue and vice: in declaring public
schools "the Nurseries of all Vice and Immorality," he implies that moral character, for good or
ill, derives from external conditioning, so that a proper moral education entails sheltering boys
from depravity and keeping them forever "in Innocence and Ignorance." Such a theory hardly has
room for the doctrine of Original Sin; one thing it can accommodate, however, is Mr. Adams's
high opinion of his own skill and importance as a pedagogue: as Fielding observes, Adams's
emphasis on the moral significance of education owes much to his belief in the schoolmaster as
"the greatest Character in the World, and himself as the greatest of Schoolmasters." As if this
reference to the parson's vanity were not enough to render his arguments suspect, Homer
Goldberg points out a discrepancy between Adams's theory and his practice: whereas Adams
here professes to consider the world at large to be corrupt in the main, when he himself is abroad
in the world he demonstrably expects that its inhabitants will be as innocent and ignorant as the
most sheltered private-school boy or as Adams himself.

Joseph propounds a more cogent theory of moral education and in the process shows himself to
have a better command than his mentor of some of the most important themes of the novel.
Fundamentally, Joseph rejects Adams's premise of the universality of original innocence,
suggesting instead that while some boys are born with basically virtuous natures, others are
naturally vicious. External factors, including education, exert only limited influence on the
development of moral character, for "if a Boy be of a mischievous wicked inclination, no School,
tho' ever so private, will ever make him good; on the contrary, if he be of a righteous Temper,
you may trust him to London, or wherever else you please, he will be in no danger of being
corrupted." Joseph himself, having emerged immaculate from the cesspool of London, is Exhibit
A in support of this argument; nor does the case of Wilson, who eventually transcended his
corrupt environment (and after all had left his public school early), at all disprove it. Thus,
having previously excelled only in commonsensical matters, Joseph suddenly evinces superior
insight into human nature; his ability to overshadow the parson in the parson's own specialty,

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namely education and moral philosophy, suggests that Fielding may be priming him to retake
center stage, which Adams has occupied since his entrance late in Book I.

Joseph is not infallible, however, and ensuing events belie his assertion that a good action defies
ridicule: the bizarre Squire whose hunting dogs harass Adams so relishes "everything ridiculous,
odious, and absurd in his own Species" that he does not hesitate to "turn even Virtue and
Wisdom themselves to Ridicule." Readers have often criticized the scene in which the pack of
hounds dismantles the "poor innocent" hare and then turns its attentions to the poor innocent
parson, on the grounds that the slapstick action goes beyond comedy to cruelty. Certainly the
Hunter of Men is barbaric in his valuation of dogs above humans and, later, in his pleasure in
subjecting Adams to a series of nasty practical jokes, and it may be tempting to conclude that
Fielding, insofar as he expects the reader to laugh along with the Hunter of Men, has descended
to barbarism as well. What seems more likely, however, is that Fielding did not in fact intend for
the dogs' attack on Adams to be humorous in itself (though whether it is humorous in the manner
of its telling is a separate issue, on which see more below); rather, the episode allows Adams to
recover some of the sympathy that he forfeited during the recent exposures of his vanity and
naïveté. If Adams's characteristic foible, usually endearing but recently exasperating, has been
his willingness to become a dupe and victim of the vicious world, here the vicious world
victimizes him so cruelly that the reader's sympathies cannot help but return to him. As Goldberg
puts it, "Here the world's baiting of Adams, which began with his entrance into the Dragon Inn,
is carried to its savage extreme." The Hunter of Men exemplifies the vices of the world because,
unlike most of the people who have victimized Adams and his companions, he is not self-
interested in the ordinary way; his pleasure, like that of the false-promising Squire (only more
darkly and violently), is to perpetrate mischief for its own sake.

Fielding tempers the unpleasantness of the incident, however, by rendering it in humorous or

burlesque diction. The battle with the hounds, in fact, constitutes the lengthiest application of
mock-epic diction in the entire novel; it spoofs elaborately a number of conventions of epic
combat, including the invocation of the Muse ("who presidest over Biography"), the Homeric
epithet ("the Plain, the young, the gay, the brave Joseph Andrews"), the minute description of the
hero's weapon ("It was a Cudgel of mighty Strength and wonderful Art," etc.), the brief
biographies of fallen warriors ("Ringwood the best Hound that ever pursued a Hare, . . .

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Fairmaid, a Bitch which Mr. John Temple had bred up in his House," etc.), and, almost, the epic
simile ("Reader, we would make a Simile on this Occasion, but for two Reasons . . ."). All of this
ironical classicism exemplifies the Preface's definition of "burlesque" as "appropriating the
Manners of the highest to the lowest," and it does so more dramatically than does any other
burlesque passage in the novel. Whereas a more conventional burlesque passage would describe
a lowly human brawl in terms appropriate to heroic combatants (the hog's-blood battle is a good
example of this approach), the battle with the hounds takes burlesque to another level by using
the same heroic terms to describe sub-human combatants, a pack of dogs.

One of the effects of this verbal humor is to impart a sense of narratorial oversight: the
counterintuitively funny presentation of violent actions calls attention to Fielding's ability to
frame his tale, modulating his own and the reader's reactions to it, and thereby reminds us that all
events are under the novelist's control. In turn, the use of mock-epic diction implies the presence
of a benevolent designer, with Fielding functioning as a substitute deity who watches over his
characters even when they seem to be in the most danger. Aside from being funny, then,
Fielding's burlesque diction fits violent events into a comic frame and reassures the reader that,
notwithstanding the shocking depravity on display in this scene, providence has not ceased to
operate.

Book III, Chapters VII through XIII.

Summary.
Chapter VII.

Mr. Abraham Adams sits down to dinner with the Hunter of Menwhile Joseph

Andrews and Fanny Goodwill dine in the kitchen. The Hunter's has plan is to get both Adams
and Joseph drunk so that he can have his way with Fanny. Fielding summarizes the Hunter’s
biography. He received his education at home, where his tutor “had Orders never to correct him
nor to compel him to learn more than he liked”; at twenty he embarked on his grand tour of
Europe, which he treated less as an educational trip than as an opportunity to acquire French
manners, clothes, and servants. As an adult he has been distinguished by “a strange Delight
which he took in every thing which is ridiculous, odious, and absurd” in human beings, and he

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has collected around him an entourage of misfits; visiting him now are “an old Half-pay Officer,
a Player, a dull Poet, a Quack-Doctor, a Scraping-Fiddler, and a lame German Dancing-Master.”
The Hunter’s odd guests perpetrate a number of cruel jests against Mr. Adams, until the
clergyman scolds the Hunter for violating the laws of hospitality in failing to protect his guest.
The Quack-Doctor is the last to take a shot at Adams, and he does so by giving pompous
speeches in mock-approbation of everything that Mr. Adams has said in defense of civility and
the clerical state. He then describes what he claims was “a favourite Diversion of Socrates,” a
ceremony in which Socrates would approach a throne that was flanked by a King and Queen,
deliver “a grave Speech, full of Virtue and Goodness, and Morality, and such like,” and seat
himself on the throne to enjoy a royal entertainment. The assembled company agrees to duplicate
the ceremony, with Mr. Adams playing the role of Socrates. The “throne” turns out to be a tub of
water covered by a blanket, and Adams gets soaked. Adams manages to dunk the Hunter of Men
several times by way of revenge before finding Joseph and Fanny and exiting the house.

Chapter VIII.

The Hunter of Men sends his entourage in pursuit of the three travelers, primarily because of his
plans for Fanny, which he has so far failed to enact. The travelers reach an inn, where they meet
a Catholic Priest who discourses on the vanity of riches, concluding, “I have a Contempt for
nothing so much as for Gold.” The Priest then asks Mr. Adams for eighteen pence to pay his
reckoning; Adams is happy to oblige, but upon searching his pockets he finds that the Hunter and
his friends have stolen Wilson’s gold piece. The Priest, seeing that he will be unable to pay his
bill, decides not to stay the night; Adams and his companions, though no more able than the
Priest to pay their bill, decide to stay the night anyway.
Chapter IX.

The next morning Joseph awakes to hear the servants of the Hunter of Men knocking on the door
of the inn and inquiring after “two Men and a young Woman.” Joseph suspects what is going on
and denies that anyone answering that description is in the building. The Host, however, answers
in the affirmative, prompting the three travelers to throw on their clothes and prepare to flee. In
the standoff between the travelers and the servants, Joseph empties the chamber-pot in the face
of the Half-pay Captain, and the battle seems to be turning in the travelers’ favor; the Host

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intervenes, however, and distracts Joseph while one of the servants strikes him unconscious. The
servants take advantage of this development to abduct Fanny and tie Joseph and Mr. Adams to
the bedposts.
Chapter X.

While conveying Fanny back to the Hunter of Men, the Poet and the Player each lavish
compliments on each other. The Poet says to the Player, among other things, “[E]very time I
have seen you lately, you have constantly acquired some new Excellence, like a Snowball.” Each
derogates his own profession, gallantly taking the blame for the mediocrity of the contemporary
theater, prompting the other to object that present company is a rare exception. The cooperative
flattery ends when the Player confesses that he cannot recite from memory one of his own
speeches from one of the Poet’s plays. The Player defends himself by noting that the play was
such a failure with the audience that its run only lasted one night.

Chapter XI.

Joseph despairs over the loss of Fanny, prompting Mr. Adams to lecture him on the reasonable
response to grief, which involves patience and submission. In order to demonstrate that he
sympathizes with Joseph, Adams enumerates Fanny’s good qualities and sketches a vision of
their happy life together, then observes, “You have not only lost her, but have reason to fear the
utmost Violence which Lust and Power can inflict upon her.” Joseph must bear in mind, Adams
continues, that “no Accident happens to us without the Divine Permission, and that it is the Duty
of a Man and a Christian to submit.” Understandably, Joseph protests that Adams has failed to
comfort him.

Chapter XII.

On the way back to the Hunter’s house, the Captain and Fanny argue about whether the
corrupted luxury that awaits her is a superior or inferior fate to her prospective life with Joseph.
The Captain then advises Fanny to cooperate with the Hunter, who will treat her better if he does
not have to deflower her by force. When a horseman approaches, Fanny begs for assistance but
the Captain convinces him that she is not a victim but an adulterous wife. Soon two more
horsemen, armed with pistols, approach, and one of them recognizes Fanny. The horsemen stop

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to confront the servants, and while they are arguing the carriage arrives that the horsemen are
escorting. The gentleman in the carriage, who turns out to be Peter Pounce on his way back to
the Booby country seat, takes Fanny into the carriage and officiously orders the Captain to be
conveyed as a prisoner behind. The carriage continues to the inn, where Fanny has a joyful
reunion with Joseph. Peter Pounce greets Mr. Adams, who naïvely holds the hypocrite in high
esteem, and thus has occasion to observe the clergyman’s spectacularly disordered appearance:
not only is he half-dressed, but he is showing the effects of having been in the line of fire when
Joseph threw the chamber-pot.
Upon seeing the Captain a prisoner, the Player and the Poet make their exit, fleeing on the Poet’s
horse. Joseph gives the Captain “a most severe drubbing,” after which the servants allow the
Captain to go free, thwarting Peter Pounce’s intention of conveying the prisoner imperiously to
the local Justice of the Peace. The servants have brought with them the horse that Mr. Adams left
behind him at the inn, and Adams insists that Joseph and Fanny ride the horse for the rest of the
journey. Joseph, however, insists that Adams ride the horse, and they reach a stalemate that Peter
Pounce breaks by inviting Adams into the carriage. Joseph and Fanny find Adams’s horse too
refractory, so they switch horses with someone else, whereupon the group departs.

Chapter XIII.

Mr. Adams and Peter Pounce observe the landscape, with Adams valuing it for its natural beauty
and Pounce calculating its monetary value. They then move on to the subject of charity, which
Pounce considers “a mean and Parson-like Quality”; “the Distresses of Mankind,” he claims,
“are mostly imaginary.” He claims that he is not as wealthy as people take him to be, that he is
barely solvent, because “I have been too liberal of my Money.” He then asks Mr. Adams what
other people have said that he his worth, and Adams replies, “I have heard some aver you are not
worth less than twenty thousand Pounds.” Without confirming or denying this estimate, Pounce
declares that he does not care what the world thinks of him and his fortune. He boasts that he has
acquired all his wealth on his own, inheriting none of it, and remarks that many heirs of estates
fail to manage their money properly and might end up in situations as pitiful as that of Mr.
Adams, “glad to accept of a pitiful Curacy for what I know.” When Pounce congratulates himself
for his generosity in sharing a carriage with “as shabby Fellows as yourself,” Mr. Adams exits

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the carriage with as much dignity as he can muster, though he forgets his hat, and walks beside
Joseph and Fanny for the final mile to Booby Hall.

Analysis.
The Quack-Doctor turns out to be devilishly insightful when he designs his Socratic prank to
appeal to Adams's moral gravity, his devotion to Greek literature and philosophy, and of course
his vanity; as critic Homer Goldberg remarks, "An invitation to present one of his treasured
sermons would be welcome in any circumstance; to do so in the role of Socrates before an
imaginary royal court . . . is irresistible." Much as the prank exposes the parson's familiar foibles,
however, it is one part of a long episode, the general effect of which is surely to increase the
reader's protective sympathy for Adams and indignation for his tormentors.

Following the scene of Adams's "roasting," however, Joseph continues his return to the spotlight.
The abduction of Fanny is the first time the young couple have been menaced since they reunited
in Book II, and it is a more serious and frightening attack than was the attempted rape that
heralded Fanny's entrance into the story. In the earlier incident, the danger to Fanny (still
unnamed at that point) came to the reader's attention only as Mr. Adams and his crabstick were
about to spring into action; here we learn of the Hunter's criminal designs long before he enacts
them and long before Joseph and Adams have caught on, and we are aware of the great
importance of Fanny's welfare to Joseph's strand of the plot. The shift toward greater suspense
regarding the fate of Fanny is consistent with the general raising of the stakes in regard to the
lovers' plot and with the refocusing of the narrative onto the lovers.

In terms of characterization, though, more remains to be said about Fanny as a magnet for
attempted sexual assaults, of which the current episode is the second of three. Unlike Joseph
when he is under assault from Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop, Fanny never even attempts to
extricate herself from these encounters on her own; instead, she awaits the intervention of
various male protectors, at least one of whom will always be providentially on hand. The
thematic point of these episodes of near-rape would seem to involve the distinction Fielding
would like to draw between lust on the one hand and virtuous physical love on the other. Only
the violent characters ever try to force Fanny to gratify their desires, and forcible gratification
appears to be the only kind of sexual gratification these characters can imagine.

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Many readers have considered Fanny a less than satisfactory character; her passivity and
attractiveness to sexual predators may appear to serve the plot rather too conveniently. At best,
her psychology must be said to be uncomplicated. Fielding seems to have designed her to be a
perpetual victim, for she not only outdoes Mr. Adams in naïveté but adds an element of chronic
passivity as well. To the former point, she made herself vulnerable to the first assault when she
accepted a strange man’s offer to accompany her on a country road at night; it was a rather
stunning error that emphasized her compliant nature. She is, as Fielding said in Book II, Chapter
XII, “extremely bashful.” Individual readers may decide whether her thoroughgoing docility
makes Fanny too simply a damsel in distress or whether, on the contrary, the flatness of her
characterization arises realistically from the simplicity that Fielding suggests is an attribute of
true goodness.

Peter Pounce, whose welcoming Adams into his coach leads to a comical exchange between
innocence and hypocrisy, is more sharply characterized, and he provides a vital contrast to Mr.
Adams. Peter has a dilemma: fearing the schemes and envy of others, he feels compelled to
downplay his own fortune; simultaneously, however, he is proud of his success as a part-time
finance capitalist and likes to hear people marvel at how well he has done for himself. His
default pretense, in which he begins the scene, is a show of contentment with his "little" fortune.
As the discussion proceeds, however, Adams's mention of charity triggers Peter's defensive
mode, and he begins to rail against charity and wonder aloud where people imagine he can have
gotten all the money they seem to think he has. Adams, characteristically, assumes that Peter is
complaining in good faith and, thinking to commiserate with him, confides that he never found
the reports of the steward's wealth credible, given that "your Wealth is your own Acquisition."
The parson has blundered into a sore spot by reminding Peter that his wealth is new rather than
inherited, deriving from business rather than from land, and thereby not especially prestigious. It
only gets worse from there, as Adams sees Peter frown over the estimate of his fortune at
£20,000, construes Peter's unhappiness as arising from modesty (in fact, Peter is worth well over
£20,000), and assures him that he personally never thought him worth half that much. The
exasperated hypocrite then casts off his pretense of contented poverty and derides both Mr.
Adams and the decadent gentry class, revealing his true nature in the process. Peter's attitude to
money is dehumanizing: it causes him to be savage toward the poor and prompts him to speak in
such locutions as "how much I am worth," as if the value of a man's life could be measured in
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monetary units. Mr. Adams, by contrast, shows that he has no clue of the value of money; it is a
form of ignorance that he has displayed on many previous occasions but perhaps never so
appealingly as here. In the presence of his polar opposite, a hypocritical miser, Adams stands out
in his most essential qualities and we are reminded that, for all its drawbacks, his unworldliness
remains a positive value and a moral touchstone.

Joseph Andrews Summary and Analysis of Book IV, Chapters I through VIII.

Summary.
Chapter I.

Lady Booby returns to Booby Hall, to the relief of the parish poor who depend on her
charity. Mr. Abraham Adams receives a more heartfelt welcome, however, and Joseph
Andrews and Fanny Goodwill enjoy a similarly kind reception. Adams takes his two companions
to his home, where Mrs. Adams provides for them.
Fielding gives a record of the emotional turbulence Lady Booby has endured since the departure
of Joseph from London. She eventually resolved to retire to the country, on the theory that this
change of scene would help her to conquer her passion for Joseph. On her first Sunday in the
country, however, she goes to church and spends more time leering at Joseph than attending to
Parson Adams. During the service, Adams announces the wedding banns of Joseph and Fanny,
and later in the day Lady Booby summons the clergyman for a chat.

Chapter II.

Lady Booby criticizes Mr. Adams for associating with a footman whom Lady Booby dismissed
from her service and for “run[ning] “about the Country with an idle Fellow and Wench.” She
rebukes him for “endeavouring to procure a Match between these two People, which will be to
the Ruin of them both.” Mr. Adams defends the couple, but Lady Booby takes offense at his
emphasize on Fanny’s beauty and orders Adams to cease publishing their banns. (A couple’s
wedding banns must be published three times before a marriage can take place.) When Adams
demands a reason for this action, Lady Booby denounces Joseph as a “Vagabond” whom she will
not allow to “settle” in her parish and “bring a Nest of Beggars” into it. Adams advises her,
however, of what he has learned from Lawyer Scout, “that any Person who serves a Year, gains a

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Settlement [i.e. legal residence] in the Parish where he serves.” The clergyman indicates that he
will marry the hopeful couple, in spite of Lady Booby’s threat to have him dismissed from his
curacy, and that their “being poor is no Reason against their marrying.” Lady Booby tells him
that she will never allow him in her house again, which punishment Mr. Adams accepts with
relative calm.
Chapter III.

Lady Booby summons Lawyer Scout and demands that he supply the legal justification for her
resolution “to have no discarded Servants of mine settled here.” In order to oblige her, Scout
makes a hair-splitting distinction between settlement in law and settlement in fact, saying that if
they can demonstrate that Joseph is not settled in fact, then Mr. Adams will have no standing to
publish Joseph’s wedding banns. If, however, Joseph manages to get married, the situation
would change: “When a Man is married, he is settled in Fact; and then he is not removable.”
Scout promises to persuade Mr. Adams not to publish the banns, so that Lady Booby will, with
the help of the obliging Justice Frolick, be able to remove both Joseph and Fanny from the
parish. Fielding then reveals that Scout acts as a lawyer without having the proper qualifications.
Chapter IV.

Lady Booby endures further emotional turbulence, and on Tuesday she goes to church and hears
Mr. Adams publishing the second of Joseph and Fanny’s wedding banns. Upon returning home
she learns from Mrs. Slipslop that Joseph and Fanny have been brought before the Justice. Lady
Booby is not entirely pleased with this news, because “tho’ she wished Fanny far enough, she did
not desire the Removal of Joseph, especially with her.” While Lady Booby is considering how to
act, a coach and six drives up containing her nephew, Mr. Booby, and his wife, Pamela. Lady
Booby is hearing of Mr. Booby’s marriage for the first time. The new-minted Mrs. Pamela
Booby is, of course, the former Pamela Andrews.
Chapter V.

Mr. Booby’s servants soon begin to ask after Joseph, who has not corresponded with Pamela
since his dismissal from Lady Booby’s. The servants soon apprise Mr. Booby of Joseph’s
situation, and Mr. Booby resolves to intervene and liberate Joseph before Pamela finds out what
has happened. He arrives on the scene just as Justice Frolick, an acquaintance of his, is about to

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send Joseph and Fanny to Bridewell Prison. Mr. Booby demands to know what crime they have
committed; he reads the deposition and finds that Joseph and Fanny stand accused of having
stolen a twig from Lawyer Scout’s property. When Mr. Booby objects, Justice Frolick takes him
aside and explains that the Constable will probably let the prisoners escape but that the
accusation of theft is the only way that Lady Booby can “prevent their bringing an Incumbrance
on her own Parish.” Mr. Booby gives his word that Joseph and Fanny will never encumber the
parish, and the Justice delivers the couple into Mr. Booby’s custody, burning the mittimus. While
Joseph gets dressed in a suit of Mr. Booby’s clothes, the Justice invites Fanny to settle with
Joseph in the Justice’s own parish. Mr. Booby then takes Joseph and Fanny in his own coach,
and they drive back to Lady Booby’s; on the way they pick up Mr. Adams when they meet him
walking in a field. Mr. Booby reveals that he has married Pamela, and everyone rejoices. Upon
their arrival back at Booby Hall, Mr. Booby reintroduces Joseph to Lady Booby, explaining that
he expects her to receive Joseph and treat him with respect as a member of the family. Lady
Booby complies delightedly, but she refuses to receive Fanny. Joseph prepares to meet Pamela
and Lady Booby, and Fanny goes with Mr. Adams to the latter’s home.

Chapter VI.

Joseph and Pamela have a tearful reunion, and Joseph recounts all the adventures he had after
leaving London. In the evening he reluctantly agrees to stay the night in Booby Hall rather than
joining Fanny and Mr. Adams. Lady Booby retires to her room and, with help from Mrs.
Slipslop, defames both Pamela and Fanny. They then discuss Joseph and whether Lady Booby
degrades herself in being attracted to him. Slipslop defends Joseph passionately against the
charge of being “coarse” and avers that she wishes she herself were a great lady so that she could
make a gentleman of him and marry him. Lady Booby tells Mrs. Slipslop that she is “a comical
Creature” and bids her good-night. In the morning Joseph visits Fanny at the Adams household,
and they settle on Monday as their wedding date.

Chapter VII.

Fielding explains why it is that women often discover in love “a small Inclination to Deceit”:
from childhood, women are taught to fear and avoid the opposite sex, so that when as adults they
begin to find him agreeable, they compensate by “counterfeit[ing] the Antipathy,” as Lady

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Booby has done with respect to Joseph. She “love[s] him much more than she suspect[s],”
especially now that she has seen him “in the Dress and Character of a Gentleman,” and she has
formed a plan to separate him from Fanny. She convinces Mr. Booby to dissuade Joseph from
marrying Fanny on the grounds that the alliance would make it impossible for the Boobys to
gentrify the Andrews family. Mr. Booby assents to this plan and approaches Joseph, who resists
his brother-in-law’s suggestions even when Pamela joins the argument.

Fanny walks in an avenue near Booby Hall and meets a Gentleman with his servants. The
Gentleman attempts to force himself on Fanny and, when he fails, continues on to Booby Hall
while leaving a Servant behind to persuade Fanny to go home with the Gentleman. This Pimp,
failing in his office, makes an attempt on Fanny himself. Fortunately, Joseph intervenes before
the Pimp can get very far and eventually beats him off. During the scuffle the Pimp tore at
Fanny’s clothing, uncovering her “snowy” bosom, which entrances Joseph once he has time to
notice it. He averts his eyes, however, once he perceives her embarrassment, and together they
proceed to the Adams household.
Chapter VIII.

Just before the arrival of Joseph and Fanny, Mr. and Mrs. Adams conclude an argument about
whether Mr. Adams should, for the sake of the family, have avoided offending Lady Booby. In
Mrs. Adams’s opinion, the clergyman should oblige the Lady by ceasing to publish the banns;
Adams, however, “persist[s] in doing his Duty without regarding the Consequence it might have
on his worldly Interest.” Joseph and Fanny enter and sit down to breakfast. Joseph expresses his
eagerness to be married, and Adams warns him to keep his intentions in marriage pure and not
value Fanny above the divine will: “[N]o Christian ought so to set his Heart on any Person or
Thing in this World, but that whenever it shall be required or taken from him in any manner by
Divine Providence, he may be able, peaceably, quietly, and contentedly to resign it.” Just as
Adams has finished saying this, someone enters and tells him that his youngest son has drowned.
Joseph attempts to comfort Adams by employing many of the clergyman’s own arguments about
the conquering of the passions by reason and grace, but Adams is in no mood to listen. Before
long, however, the weeping Mr. Adams meets his young son running up to the house, not
drowned after all. As it turns out, the child was rescued from the river by the same Pedlar who
delivered the travelers from one of the inns where they could not pay their bill. Mr. Adams

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rejoices to have his son again and greets the Pedlar with genuine gratitude. Once things have
calmed down, Adams takes Joseph aside to repeat his advice not to “give too much way to thy
Passions, if thou dost expect Happiness,” but after all this Joseph has lost patience and objects
that “it was easier to give Advice than to take it.” An argument ensues as to whether Joseph’s
love for Fanny is of the same pure and elevating sort as Mr. Adams’s parental love for his son, or
whether intense marital love “savours too much of the Flesh.” Mrs. Adams interrupts this
conversation, objecting that Mr. Adams does not enact his own disparagement of marital love:
not only has he been a loving husband, but “I declare if I had not been convinced you had loved
me as well as you could, I can answer for myself I should have hated and despised you.” She
concludes, “Don’t hearken to him, Mr. Joseph, be as good a Husband as you are able, and love
your Wife with all your Body and Soul too.”
Analysis.
The opening chapters of Book IV lay the groundwork for the novel’s final conflict and eventual
resolution: the principal “good” characters have returned to the place of their origin, and their
primary adversary, Lady Booby, arrives back on the scene as well (along with Slipslop, her
subaltern and imitator). Book IV will turn out to be a more unified book than the preceding three,
in terms of both the place and the time of the action, as Fielding confines the events to the
Boobys’ parish and specifies the passage of a discrete number of days. The overall effect gives a
sense of coherent dramatic conflict, rather different from the diffuse picaresque plotting of Books
I through III.

A burgeoning cast of secondary characters also lends heft to the building action: the family of
Mr. Adams enters the story for the first time, as do the newly married Mr. Booby and Pamela.
The Pedlar turns up again, a Lawyer and Justice materialize, and an embodiment of the vacuous
fashionable world appears in the person of a would-be Bellarmine (whose name will turn out to
be Beau Didapper). These secondary characters, whose ranks will swell in succeeding chapters,
do more than fill out the stage; they also increase the tension between Lady Booby and the
lovers, as Lady Booby schemes to get all of these originally neutral players on her side: Mr.
Booby’s amiability, Pamela’s snobbery, Lawyer Scout’s unscrupulousness, and Mrs. Adams’s
fear of poverty all present her with opportunities for driving apart the lovers and neutralizing
their advocate, Mr. Adams; she even has plans for the selfish lust of Didapper. The Pedlar, of

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course, remains an instrument of providence, and he will continue to perform this role in the
coming chapters.
The episode in which Mr. Adams again counsels Joseph against passionate attachments and then,
hearing of his own son’s supposed drowning, fails to practice what he has preached reveals
another dimension of Adams’s fallibility, though whether his weakness makes him more or less
sympathetic will be up to the eye of the beholder. This scene has had a precursor in Book III,
Chapter XI, when Adams, bound with Joseph to a bedpost, “comforted” his young friend by
urging him to give up the “Folly of Grief” and resign himself contentedly to the cosmic plan that
is about to subject “the prettiest, kindest, loveliest, sweetest” Fanny to “the utmost Violence
which Lust and Power can inflict”; the parson even construed the impending rape of Fanny as an
act of divine justice, a punishment of Joseph for the sin of repining. The scene at the bedpost,
then, revealed Adams as an inhuman sermonizer, failing to enact the spontaneous, sympathetic
good nature that has generally distinguished him. He has a rationalistic side to his personality; it
is the part of him that responds to the literature of classical stoicism with its injunction to
transcend all human feelings and attachments.

In the opposition between the sternly sententious clergyman and the warm and disconsolate
lover, the former surely forfeits a great deal of the reader’s sympathy. In Book IV, Chapter VIII,
however, Fielding revisits this opposition and may qualify it somewhat, depending on one’s
interpretation. Here, Adams again admonishes his parishioner to “divest himself of all human
Passion”; this time he is concerned that Joseph is too eager to get married, and he warns that if
sexual avidity is the motivation then Joseph is sinning, while if anxiety for Fanny’s welfare is the
motivation then Joseph ought to be putting his trust in providence. Adams instructs Joseph to
prepare himself to accept even the loss of his beloved Fanny “peaceably, quietly, and
contentedly,” “[a]t which Words one came hastily in, and acquainted Mr. Adams that his
youngest Son was drowned.” Suddenly, the preacher who insisted that anyone who indulges in
exorbitant grief is “not worthy the Name of a Christian” begins lamenting his own personal loss.
Like the biblical Abraham, Mr. Abraham Adams has to confront the idea that the divine will has
demanded the death of his beloved son; in both cases, the apparent necessity of the son’s death is
a test of the father’s faith and resignation. Joseph urges the parson to follow his own advice,
resign himself, and look forward to a reunion in heaven; Adams, with unconscious irony, refuses
this counsel, so it is doubly fortunate that Dick eventually turns out not to have drowned at all.
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As usual, however, Adams fails to see when his weaknesses have been exposed, and he quickly
snaps back to his formal sermonizing mode.

Mr. Adams’s conspicuous failure by the lights of his own code has emboldened Joseph: the
young man points out his mentor’s inconsistency and observes that it is “easier to give Advice
than to take it.” Adams’s rather petulant response to this challenge of his authority sharpens the
issue for the reader, who must decide whether the parson has revealed that all his supposed virtue
is in fact just a hypocritical penchant for arrogating a position of moral authority. Despite how
neatly this scene seems to fit into Fielding’s dominant theme of the exposure of pretense,
however, few readers are likely to take the condemnation of Adams as far as this; Homer
Goldberg articulates a sensible position when he observes that "[a]lthough the incident is similar
in structure to Fielding's unmaskings of hypocrisy, the paradox of Adams's behavior is not that
he is worse than he pretends to be but that he is better than he knows." Indeed, the passive-
resignation brand of Christianity that Adams has recommended in his stoical sermonizing is by
no means identical with the active charitable love of neighbor that he elsewhere advocates and
consistently enacts; his extraordinary goodness takes its distinctive character not from his
erudition or from his reason but rather from his natural and spontaneous affections, of the sort
that he keeps censuring in Joseph. The proper attitude toward Mr. Adams is probably the one that
Mrs. Adams espouses near the end of the scene when, after expressing at length her affection for
the husband who is more generous that he will admit, she undercuts his teaching authority by
saying, “Don’t hearken to him, Mr. Joseph.” As Maurice Johnson suggests, Fielding likely
means for readers to follow Mrs. Adams in regarding the parson as thoroughly lovable but not
always a reliable moral philosopher.

Joseph Andrews Summary and Analysis of Book IV, Chapters IX through XVI.

Summary.
Chapter IX.

Lady Booby meets the Gentleman who assaulted Fanny Goodwill and immediately conceives

plans of using him to get Joseph Andrewsaway from Fanny. In order to give this
Gentleman, Beau Didapper, access to his intended victim, Lady Booby takes her guests to see the
Adams household, promising the amusing spectacle of a large family subsisting on a meager

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income. Mrs. Adams is embarrassed to receive her upper-class visitors without having tidied up
the house for them. The Beau flirts with Fanny, and Lady Booby compliments the young
son, Dick Adams, on his appearance. When she asks to hear him read, Mr. Abraham
Adams issues the command in Latin, confusing Dick, but eventually they understand each other
and Dick consents to read.
Chapter X.

Dick reads the story of Leonard, a married man, and Paul, his unmarried friend. Paul pays a
lengthy visit to Leonard and his wife and discovers that the couple are prone to have vigorous
disputes, often concerning the most trivial matters. Paul always maintains neutrality during these
disputes, but one day in private talks he tells each spouse that he or she may be right on the
merits of the argument but ought to yield the point anyway, “for can any thing be a greater
Object of our Compassion than a Person we love, in the wrong?” This Doctrine of Submission
has such good effects on the couple that they begin separately to appeal to Paul for advice during
every disagreement. One day, however, they have an argument in his absence and begin to
compare notes regarding the counsel he has given each of them; soon they discover numberless
“Instances, in all which Paul had, on Vows of Secrecy, given his Opinion on both sides.” The
couple are now united in their anger toward the two-faced Paul, who returns to find both husband
and wife suddenly cold toward him. Paul figures out quickly what has happened, and he and
Leonard have a confrontation, the conclusion of which is preempted by an event that interrupts
Dick’s reading of the story.
Chapter XI.

Beau Didapper makes a move on Fanny, prompting Joseph to box him on the ear. A melee
ensues, which Mr. Booby finally breaks up. In the aftermath, Lady Booby, Mr. Booby,
and Pamela Andrews Booby all suggest that Fanny’s virtue was hardly worth defending and that
Joseph’s marriage to her would shame the family. Joseph leaves with Fanny, “swearing he would
own no Relation to any one who was an Enemy to her he loved more than all the World.” After
all the visitors have left, Mrs. Adams and their eldest daughter scold the clergyman for
advocating for the young couple. Suddenly Joseph and Fanny return with the Pedlar to invite the
Adamses to dine at a nearby alehouse.
Chapter XII.

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The Pedlar has been researching the Booby family and has discovered that Sir Thomas bought
Fanny from a traveling woman when Fanny was three or four. After the dinner at the alehouse,
he offers to reveal to Fanny who her parents are. He tells a story of having been a drummer with
an Irish regiment and coming upon a woman who thereafter lived with him as his mistress.
Eventually she died of a fever, but on her deathbed she confessed having stolen and sold a child
during a time when she was traveling with a band of gypsies. The buyer was Sir Thomas, and the
original parents were a couple named Andrews who lived about thirty miles from the Squire.
Everyone reacts strongly to this information; Mr. Adams falls on his knees and gives thanks “that
this Discovery had been made before the dreadful Sin of Incest was committed.”

Chapter XIII.

Lady Booby retires to her room early, throws herself on her bed, and endures “Agonies of Love,
Rage, and Despair.” Mrs. Slipslop arrives and commiserates her, informing her of Beau
Didapper’s plan to abduct Fanny. Lady Booby dismisses Slipslop with an order to report back
when the abduction of Fanny has been executed. Alone, Lady Booby goes back to talking to
herself about her degrading passion for Joseph and the absurdity of his preference for Fanny.
Soon, however, Slipslop returns with the news that Joseph and Fanny have been revealed to be
siblings. Lady Booby rushes off to tell Pamela, who disbelieves the report because she has never
heard that her parents had any children other than herself and Joseph. Lady Booby summons
Joseph, Fanny, and the Pedlar to the Hall, where the Pedlar repeats his tale. Mr. Booby persuades
everyone to withhold judgment on the story until the next day, when Mr. and Mrs. Andrews will
arrive to meet their daughter and son-in-law.
Chapter XIV.

Late at night, Beau Didapper goes off in search of the sleeping Fanny and accidentally jumps
into bed with Slipslop, who takes the Beau to be Joseph. Once the participants discover their
mistakes, Slipslop decides to pretend that Didapper has scandalized her by making this attempt,
hoping thereby to “restore her Lady’s Opinion of her impregnable Chastity.” Her cry of
“Murther! Murther! Rape! Robbery! Ruin!” brings the barely clad Adams to the rescue, but in
the dark he takes the soft-skinned Didapper to be the woman and the bearded Slipslop to be the
man, so he attacks Slipslop and allows Didapper to make his escape. He scuffles with Slipslop,

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and when Lady Booby arrives to find them together in bed and in states of undress, she naturally
misinterprets the situation. She soon spots Didapper’s laced shirt and diamond buttons, however,
and together they sort out what has happened. Lady Booby laughs and departs, and Mr. Adams
soon follows suit, but instead of returning to his own bed, he accidentally enters Fanny’s room.
Fanny is sleeping so deeply that she does not wake up, so she and the clergymen share the bed
innocently until morning. Joseph enters the chamber at dawn, whereupon the two bedfellows
awake and are surprised to see each other. Joseph is briefly angry at the clergyman, but Adams
explains the events of the night before, and Joseph concludes that Adams simply “turned right
instead of left.” He then leads Mr. Adams back to his room.

Chapter XV.

Joseph returns to Fanny’s room after she has dressed, and they vow that in case they should turn
out really to be siblings, they will both remain perpetually celibate. Mr. and Mrs. Andrews arrive
after breakfast, and when Mr. Booby broaches the topic of the stolen child, Mr. Andrews denies
that he and his wife ever lost a child in that manner. Lady Booby calls the Pedlar to repeat his
story, however, and it prompts Mrs. Andrews to claim Fanny as her child. Mrs. Andrews then
explains to her husband that she bore him a daughter when he was a soldier away in Gibraltar
and that the gypsies stole the child and replaced it with a sickly boy, whom she soon named
Joseph. The Pedlar asks Mrs. Andrews whether the boy had a distinctive mark on his chest; she
answers in the affirmative, and Joseph unbuttons his coat to show the evidence. At the mention
of the birthmark Mr. Adams begins to remember his conversation with Wilson, but the Pedlar
makes the crucial connection, assuring Joseph “that his Parents were Persons of much greater
Circumstances than those he had hitherto mistaken for such.” It so happens that Wilson has just
arrived at the gates of Booby Hall for his promised visit to the parish. A servant apprises him of
the connection that has just been discovered, and Wilson hastens to the room to embrace Joseph
as his long-lost son. Joseph, after things have been explained to him, falls at the feet of his new
father and begs his blessing.
Chapter XVI.

Mr. Booby invites everyone to accompany him and Pamela to their country home, since Lady
Booby is now too bitter over the loss of Joseph to entertain any company. They all comply, and

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during the ride Joseph arranges with Wilson that he and Fanny will marry afterMrs. Wilson is
with them. Everyone arrives safely, and Saturday night brings Mrs. Wilson. Soon the happy day
arrives, and Fielding describes the wardrobe and wedding arrangements in some detail. The
events of the wedding night he leaves to the reader’s imagination, though he makes clear in
general terms that it is a rousing success.
Soon the Wilsons return home with the newlyweds in tow. Mr. Booby awards Fanny a fortune of
£2,000, with which Joseph purchases a small estate near his father’s; Fanny manages the dairy
and is soon on her way to producing their first child. Mr. Booby also awards Mr. Adams a living
of £130 per year and makes the Pedlar an excise-man. Lady Booby soon returns to London,
where card games and a young soldier allow her to forget Joseph.

Analysis.
Fielding’s great theme of appearance versus reality dominates the last chapters of the novel,
obtruding itself in a couple of spectacular plot developments. The climactic sequence in which
both Joseph and Fanny turn out to have been involved in separate but linked gypsy-changeling
incidents is of course the most consequential deployment of the theme in the entire novel; by far
the funniest, however, is the episode in which a number of the overnight guests at Booby Hall
find themselves in the wrong beds.

In addition to being good screwball comedy, the nocturnal confusion sequence epitomizes the
entire story and culminates the novel’s pervasive sexual comedy. As Hamilton Macallister
remarks, “Each character re-enacts the role he plays in the novel. It is Didapper’s fate not to get
his woman, Mrs. Slipslop’s to lust unsatisfied. . . . It is the fate of Lady Booby to come too late
and misunderstand, Adams to rush to the help of a woman in distress and cause worse confusion,
Fanny to see her virtue in apparent extreme danger. The humor is not mere slapstick, as it is
sometimes elsewhere in the novel; always it is true to character.” One may add that it is Adams’s
fate to endure humiliations: as with his fall into Trulliber’s sty and his run-ins with hog’s blood
and a chamber pot, the parson here endures severe humiliations but, as ever, he successfully
washes off the sordidness of the ordeal. Detected in the beds of two women who are not his wife,
Adams earns the condemnation of Mrs. Slipslop (of all people), who hypocritically calls him
“the wickedest of all Men,” and the laughter of Lady Booby; he even endures the suspicions of
Joseph and Fanny, whose virtue he has cultivated and defended but who in the harsh light of

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morning wonder whether he has not finally joined the long line of Fanny’s would-be debauchers.
Through it all Parson Adams remains, in the words of Homer Goldberg, “transcendentally
comic,” though as Goldberg further observes, the scene of Joseph momentarily sitting in
judgment of his mentor and then “mellow[ing] into indulgent superiority” continues the process
of the younger man’s asserting himself against Adams and supplanting him as protagonist.

Beau Didapper, whose mistaking of Slipslop’s chamber for Fanny’s initiates the hi-jinx, plays an
interesting role in dramatizing the theme of pretense. In his repulsive effeminacy he exemplifies
the vanity of fashionable society, its essential hollowness and enervation: likeBellarmine but
with less success, he attempts to lure a woman with the enticements of wealth and social
elevation. In his physical person he is dandyish and diminutive, so little threatening that when he
attempts to force himself on Fanny she manages, for once, to fight off her attacker on her own.
Her resistance forces him to assign the work of her seduction to a servant -- an abject admission
of weakness, not at all the same thing as the Hunter of Men’s sending his servants to bring Fanny
where he himself plans to assault her. Only Didapper’s extreme conceit allows him to believe
that he could successfully impersonate Joseph and seduce Fanny; to the reader, who appreciates
the gulf between Joseph’s masculinity and Didapper’s effeminacy, the notion is risible. For all
the Beau’s ludicrousness and corruption, however, he is consummately acceptable to polite
society. Simon Varey points out the euphemistic delicacy with which Didapper leaves his servant
to “make [Fanny] any Offers whatever”; whatever else he is, Didapper is Lady Booby’s “polite
Friend,” an emissary from fashionable or “polite” society.
The comedy of appearance and reality reaches its climax with the revelations of the respective
origins of Joseph and Fanny; not only do the two lovers turn out to be other than they were
thought to be, but in plot terms the main structure is a reversal of perceptions and expectations.
To the former point, it is interesting to re-read the novel in the knowledge of Joseph’s real
parentage: such details as the precise wording of Fielding’s introduction of the hero (“Joseph
Andrews . . . was esteemed to be the only son of Gaffar and Gammer Andrews”) show the
novelist keeping up the fiction but being careful to say nothing he will have to contradict later.
For readers who have some familiarity with romance conventions, of course, Fielding may
effectively have given the game away when Wilson mentions (with Joseph conveniently asleep)
the kidnapping of his eldest son and the son’s convenient identifying birthmark. Other markers
have been present all along; as in fairy tales, a fair complexion is an index of gentility,
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and Betty the chamber-maid once argued for Joseph’s high birth on the basis of his white skin. If
Joseph is a gentleman in disguise, then, he has certainly been hiding in plain sight.
With respect to the final movement of the plot, the revelation of Fanny’s having been born to Mr.
and Mrs. Andrews initially makes it seem that, in addition to battling Lady Booby, the lovers
have lost the support of providence and their friends; as Goldberg points out, “even Adams
rejoices at the prevention of their marriage.” Their predicament, which seems to be growing
more dire, is in truth progressively ameliorating, as the discovery of Fanny’s parentage leads to
the discovery of Joseph’s parentage, and both these discoveries ultimately contribute to the
happiness and prosperity of the lovers. This drastic reversal, which owes much to the plots of
such classical dramatists as Mr. Adams’s beloved Æschylus, enhances the impact of the lovers’
eventual bliss by making it seem fortuitous despite the fact that most readers will have been
confident of the happy outcome from the first news of Joseph’s marital aspirations.

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