Chapter III - Joseph Andrews

The English playwright Henry Fielding was recognized as being a novelist of a

satirical power found in the novel Joseph Andrews, as well. These qualities were
inherited from his father and, later his younger sister carried on the pride and tradition of
the family, being herself a successful writer, too. After being disappointed in love, Henry
Fielding establishes in London where he continues his literary career.
One of Fieldings successful novels is Joseph Andrews, consisting of four
volumes of an intense and long action. The novel belongs to the epic genre which divides
into the tragic and comic one, just as in the case of the dramatic genre. The father of
poetic art, Homer, left us a model of each of the genres mentioned above. Due to the lack
of works belonging to the history of antiquity, the comic genre died out, even though it
was related to comedy as all Joseph Andrewss projects.
We can assert that the epic poem can be written in verse or in prose, being comic or
tragic. Thus, the comic novel is different from comedy, just like the epic poem is different
from tragedy.
Another characteristic of this style is that it is limited only to nature and endowing
ordinary people with certain habits and trying to shape their way of thinking and
behaviour.
In Henry Fieldings work the style is the garment of the work and the one which
gives it colour and outlines the whole action. Another characteristic of the style is
rendered by the types and feelings of the characters which are absolutely natural.
As we have asserted before, the most representative in Fieldings work is the
Ridicule. The first aspect characterising it would be the fact that it is rather difficult to
follow a series of human actions without witnessing unimaginable vices and pleasures.
The second aspect would be that the vices described in this work are effects of a human
weakness and not really existing causes.
The characters presented in the work represent different ranks and colours so that
we cannot discern their identity.

As far as the main character, Adams, is concerned, the most representative of all, he
is described as being of a rarely met simplicity and the kindness of his heart makes him
win the sympathy of those around him. In spite of the affairs at which he participates, he
is presented as a member of the clergy, which offers him numerous occasions to reveal
his virtues. We can assert as well the fact that the novel Joseph Andrews is considered
simply a novel in which Fielding let his imagination flow, having a benefic effect upon
the reader. If we take into consideration the diversity of the character types, we can assert
just like Aristotle did in chapter 24 of the novel in which the manners and habits of the
people and the way they spent their time are described to us.
Fielding presents London and its surroundings as being some kind of vice which
attracts young people and spoils their moral values, self-respect and respect towards the
others. Fieldings London refers to crimes, streets full of ragged fellows presented in the
novel Joseph Andrews as well, but also to pickpockets. The place where the main
character used to live, called Temple, (a quarter where students used to live during their
school period or some students of law) is one full of strange people and things.
Here we meet philosophers who used to drink with lords whom they had never met
before and got involved in love affairs with women of questionable morality whom they
had never talked to.
Fielding describes London schools as being the cradles of vice and immorality. All
his university colleagues he remembers as having a bad and ruffian behaviour, were
educated in public schools. He argues that school itself mostly influences the individual
in choosing the path in life and in taking the important decisions to build the future.
Schools are emphasized as being small societies where any student with any sense of
observation can see, on a smaller scale, what he will find later in the world and what he
will be confronted with.
If knowledge of the world makes man a rascal,
Let Juba live in ignorance.
In Fieldings work, London is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, one full
of history, which has impressed generations on end, from ancient times and up to present.
The emphasis on irony in Fieldings novel, Joseph Andrews, tells the adventures of a

servant determined to defend his dignity. Irony is the subject of the novel which becomes
a pretext to render the English society right in the middle of creating a new social class.
In the present novel, both mild humour and Henry Jamess mercy for nature and
people can be noticed.
I will continue to ridicule vice and imposture, as long as the liberty of the press
exists any longer, that is as long as we have any liberty whatsoever.( H. F.)
Fieldings novel reveals the way in which Pamela is married to the noble Booby ,
and the formers sister makes advances to Joseph Andrews, thus rendering the emphasis
on sentimentalism. At the age of ten he started working as an apprentice in Sir Thomas
Boobys house. Sir Thomass wife, Lady Booby, was the one who hired him as her
servant. After Sir Thomas dies, Joseph notices she has some feelings for him, which he
discovers when she invites him into her room during a trip to London. Noticing all these,
he sends a letter to his sister telling her all that had happened and asks her to find him
some job to do in the same house where she worked: thus, Pamela phenomenon can be
seen as an example of the literary abuses in the 18th century.
In Fieldings work we can find features as stoicism and fatalism emphasized in the
sequence of Adams advising his friend to obey God and controlling passions and feelings.
After his fathers death, Wilson inherits a small fortune. He plays with destiny,
abandons school and goes to London where he starts drinking and the need for opulence
and socialization with as many women as possible become imperative. His life in the city
is a fake one, he writes love letters to himself, he gets nice clothes without paying any
money or becoming indebted in any way, he is very preoccupied that everybody sees him
participating in charity activities and plays. His story is similar to that of Fieldings. Thus,
after being disappointed in love two times, he gets attracted to gambling and becomes a
member of a group with such concerns.
In the second volume, the literary discussions are mostly about religion, philosophy
and commerce; thus, Fieldings novel is one of the few novels describing explicitly the
habits, the life and traditions in London. It is one of the best sources of inspiration
referring to the English life and customs in the 18th century.
In the novel the main characters are presented like this: Adams and Joseph are in a
violent world were the men have all the power, Pamela is like a virtue and has an

effective implication as a heroine but this thing doesnt help much. In Fieldings novel,
Fannys desire for Joseph is healthful and legal similar to Pamelas modesty. Joseph and
Fanny make a sexual union that is very quiet and important to reflection of range so
great and sweet, that I apprehend Joseph neither envied the noblest Duke nor Fanny the
finest Duchess that night. On the other hand the sexual action of this novel is very
comic and original. The chapter where Parson Adams wants to go in bed with both
Slipslop and Fanny constitutes the initiation in the subject of the novel. Fielding is very
mistrustful of private emotion and the central action with the principal protagonists
Joseph, Fanny and Slipslop describe his strongest sentiments in public. The principal
psychological procedure of the novel is centered in Ladys Boobys deceptions and her
state of indecision.
The sense of destination is very important for Fielding, because it reminds us
about another space of Fieldings fantasy. Fieldings fantasy looks more extensive at
social influence and situations and it does so partly in geographical means. An example is
in the first part of novel were the action begins in Lady Boobys house in London and
finishes in an area of England with lots of dangerous woods and obscure hamlets, the
house where she spent her holidays. The view of England is very separate here from the
point of moral geography self-interested: lawyer and servant.
The women are all very loyal to their interests and aspirations above everything.
Fieldings experiment is about discovering other characters, other world traditions and
describes in the same time the culture and customs of London. When we talk about
Fieldings London we refer to crimes, streets full of thieves and a lot of women who were
submitted to their husbands. Also in this novel the characters are submitted to a test and
when finally they pass the test they prove to be what they always were. And the second
thing about this is the worlds false estimation of them.
One of the most important few things that are presented in Joseph Andrews is the
familiar satiric point of Fielding that has no relation with moral quality. In many ways
Fielding was more authorial for social rank than Richardson. The text has an important
ideal subject, because Fielding mentioned it in the Preface and also he invokes a
Sophoclean tragic model, and this is the period during the crisis at the end of the book.

When the family of histories of Joseph and Fanny remain to be sorted out, they proposed
a marriage that is incestuous or not, and the lovers have an anxiety feelings.
These negotiations in Adams official production have a sort of counterpart
around the images of classical texts. Adams journey in London is seen as an optimistic
thing and he believes that he can write all manuscript sermons for publication, variously
enumerated in three or nine volumes.
In the same way, Lady Boobys sexual advances to Joseph are very different to the
biblical Josephs rejection of Photiphars wife, even though the abuse of power is
comically and Josephs naively has a puzzled response. But Adams has a process with the
secular and modern texts where he protects himself as well as his money and his horse,
and he always discusses with the characters of the book, but those are not only
discussions about work, chastity and faith, most of all are about keepers of alehouses,
with Wilson and Andrews. In my opinion Im very interested in the texts he knows he has
written than in the text that he marks unconsciously in the novel that produces him.
Joseph Andrews in the London literature is more known as a continual reminder of the
processes of literary production and he also associated the literary with the rise of novel.
All of these ideas are very authentic and we can find a realistic sense of detail in all of his
novels, especially in areas of description such as the open road, stables, kitchens and pigs.
Drama was an important moment for Fielding when he was effectively forced to
abandon his obvious profession of writing. The poet and the player who assist in the
abduction of Fanny discuss about the comically success of drama lies because their
failures and vanities are captured in the genre of the novel. This is the part of Wilsons
progress written in economic desperation, a play in which he did not acted.
Joseph Andrews was published in 1742, a few weeks after Richardson published
Pamela and he try to refund the novel on traditional lines: not just Homer, but also
Cervantes represented the prose fiction by European tradition. In Fielding type there are
no illusions of the Pamela character, and the reader is also the narrator with the direct
addresses and construction of readers high, law, female, moralistic or bored feelings.
This is not a private experience with the sufferings of a single person, but is also a public
implication of more variants of readers with an opened material book. We have four
books very good structured; we have chapters with a big and ample action, headings,

prefaces, and essays on biography and also the narrator want to protect us from the
seduction of an individual subjectivity. The last line of the novel is about Joseph when he
is very categorical to imitate his parents in their Retirement.
The relationship between Joseph and Pamela is very attacked because it is
considered a little irritant. This relation is further expressed in Shamela- a parody
where Fielding found himself accidentally writing a novel. Fielding would make an
experiment and he novelized Richardsons character intro his own novel and this was
done purely parodist in Shamela. Joseph Andrew tries to make something more
difficult and complex: an overwriting, and put the prior text which shows Pamelas
character in a more negative light, but also tries to make a fictional combination of a new
classical form. Richardsons novel is concentrated on a single sexual-politic subject: the
problems caused by high class desire and ambition are resolved by reform, love, marriage
and consummation. Fielding did not want to concentrate on the success of one single
novel, and that is one reason to insert many narratives and marriage from what looks like
other universes.
We can make a parallel between Cinderella and Joseph Andrews and we found
different genres. We can also find a colorful film which had suddenly changed into
monochrome, where characters had started talking in Italian, and the sense of destination
remind us of another way in which Fieldings fiction contrasts with his precursors.
Physically Joseph is robbed, abandoned, he is kicked out and his uniform is removed.
One of the most important things that Fielding describes in his novel is the
familiar satiric point and this thing has no visible connection with moral quality. Fielding,
one of the distant cousins of more than one aristocrat, has a more authoritative contempt
social rank than Richardson, that was the first novelist and one of the most important.
Another very important thing in this novel is the abuse of power, and for everyone who
participates here who has the spiritual power is corrupted by it. The first thing for Lady
Booby is not only to seduce Joseph and to turn him out after a mock trial but she also
uses tricks to obscure the marriage of Fanny and Joseph. We can learn to expect
something about regulatory power of the law, which is always in defense of power,
interest and ignorance. Adams is in the center of these problems, because although he is
innocent and has a moral energy, he is not a pure figure. As a clergyman, like a

gentleman, he always has an uncharitable suspicion of those around him. His confidence
in the interpretation of Christianity is complete and probably in line with Fieldings views
His early history is concentrated in a single chapter and has some accommodations
problems with political and clergy hierarchies.
Joseph Andrews was the first book in which Fielding developed the voice of
pragmatic control and can distinguish the narration of Tom Jones, and also was the only
authority figure of criticism. Quiet, lovely and cajoling he reminds us of where we are in
the chapter, and telling the weather or what happened in the next one, the voice is as a
gentleman, and he always sympathize with the emotional states of the characters.
Fieldings style is very conservative, and sometimes is dependent on low comedy and
many novelists first readers think that is about classicism intro quotidian details. The
description of Fielding is as a mock-heroic figure invocating literary muses, and a
classical authority such as Adams authority. Fieldings intervention in the history of the
novel appears also in Richardsons heroine and rebuilds her subjectivity, her style, and
her social mobility. In this novel Fielding is not very interested in psychology, but in
Jonathan Wild the frames of psychology is like as an instrument of ethics or like a
portrait-painting. Fieldings narrative is more satirical than the emphasis on exemplary
morality would suggest, and the book Joseph Andrew is more realistic in its frame of
people in their each day life.
Adams is very promoted of his poverty, and Joseph and Fanny take up their rules
within the minor gentry. Joseph is seen as dispossessed heroes of Defoes fiction, but has
nothing of his ability and desire to remake through exertion, and imagination. He is very
happy being a footman and he is already reformed and educated by his father. Again this
illustrates the character at a moment of loss, explaining the significance for the progress
of the narrative. One of the most important things that Fielding shares with the earlier
novelists is the familiar satiric point that has no visible connection with the moral quality.
The family relationships of these losses and discoveries are also a final of the relationship
with the earlier novel. The innocence of Joseph adores Pamela, but the reader sees this
sentiment like a snobbish and thinks that is a payment of Richardsons literary quality.
Fielding established himself as a write before he finished his legal studies, and after this
he became a magistrate. In addition Fielding, did more than serve as a proactive Justice

of the Peace in the capital. He wrote a lot of interesting and powerful novels, and on the
other hand he wrote a lot about the matters of public policy, because they were very
affected by the law and institutions which supported these implementations. Or course his
novels are centered with some of the same problems, as they had done from the start.
Like in Joseph Andrew, Squire Booby himself exerts a certain piece of helpful
authority, rescuing Joseph and Fanny from a magistrate he happens to know. But his
views are essentially limited to private comfort, which features here as compulsion.
Joseph as social superior to Fanny and the Squire refuses to accord their marriage, and
this is a clear sign of hypocrisy, given his own marriage. As soon as Fielding was
appointed to magistracy, he naturally took a central role in the national discourse about
legal and social problems.
The most comic masterpiece of Fielding was Jonathan Wild, who has authentic
issues about crime in London which had not disappeared since the real-life. Most of
Fieldings novels relate topical circumstances about violent robberies, affluence in the
streets, or a controversial of missing persons case. Even if he had never written his plays
or his fiction, he has big interest about students of early Hanoverian England, and also he
discusses the controversies about society and well-stocked mind. This chapter explores
many of the topics just mentioned above about of what Fielding wrote and of what he did
as a serving magistrate, and about the experience that he has after he wrote Joseph
Andrew. In the first hand it is very necessary to understand the problems of the
historical context of crime, and the area of study revolutionized in the past twenty-first
years. In the second hand we must look in detail at Fieldings contribution to penology,
that is the non-fictional texts produced by him as a Justice of the Peace for Westminster
and Middlesex, and this discussion also has a good and big advantage because should
help us to illuminate his practice in major literary work.
The crucial exchange comes when a neighbor sees Adams favorite son Dicky, fall
in a river and also this represent the typical close instance of low level malignity. He has
lost five of his eleven children, and advises Wilson, expressing ailment for the loss of his
son. When the report of his own favorite sons death comes, Adams has been lecturing
Joseph on absolute submission to the will of God. But the modern Abraham became
patriarch who is not willing to sacrifice his child. The only authority figure who might be

attention to criticism is the narrator, Joseph Andrews and this was the first book in which
Fielding describe the voice of programmatic control to distinguish the narration of Tom
Jones.
In the early Hanoverian age crimes had reached a new energy of intensity and
people in most ages have felt same thing. Even if the crime waves Fielding wrote about
the matter of perception rather than objective reality, there was enough reality in them to
decay serious concern. Fieldings view as a magistrate incorporated one of the most
affection in some important regions in the country, even if it covered only a matter of a
few square miles. It excluded the historic city within the walls, as well as the city around
Fleet Street, who is the district of Farringdon Ward Without, which had its own abundant
share of crime. For Westminster, this thing contained just nine rectories, but the areas are
growing with a high crime rate. If we refer just to Joseph Andrews we can affirm that
Joseph is not the simply projection of his mentors teaching, but in some ways supplies
some of the alley and blunder that Adams demonstrate. Some readers say about Fieldings
novel : Then Joseph made a Speech on Charity, which the Reader, if he is so disposed,
may see the next Chapter; for we scorn to betray him into any such Reading, without first
giving him Warning(Baines, 1992:63). The mock-heroic description of Joseph, is an
ancestral cudgel, and also he make a lot of invocations of literary muses, modern
geniuses, and classical authorities and with all these characteristics he announce a supereducated narrator, and give a comic edge to the narrative mastery. The Patrician narrator
likes to play very much at insufficiency and in a proto-Sternean manner: As we cannot
therefore at present get Mr. Joseph out of the Inn, we shall leave him in it, and carry out
Reader on after Parson Adams (Baines, 1992:63).
Conservative as the literary style is, condescends with gladness, making
dependency on low comedy, to the distress or scorn of many of the novels first readers,
and blocking its classicism into quotidian detail:
Now the Rake Hesperus had called for his Breeches and, having well rubbed his drowsy
Eyes, prepared to dress himself for all Night; by whose Example his Brother Rakes on
Earth Likewise leave those Beds, in which they had slept away the Day. Now Thetis the
good House wife began to put on the Pot in order to regale the Good Man Phoebus after
daily Labours were over. In vulgar Language, it was in the Evening (Baines, 1993:65).

But the unnamed narrator, our guide reminds us that power, is the best when it allows
itself to include, or capably highlight, complication, imperfection, and self-mockery.
Some important stylized vignettes of low life in the red-light district appear in Fieldings
mock-heroic play The Covent-Garden Tragedy, set in the brothel of Mother
Punchbowl. The authors, his second cousin and in the same time one collaborator on a
mock-Dunciad, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, had these groups of the town in mind when
she wrote of his lived in his days. Before the Industrial Revolution, the growth of urban
community posed a lot of problems to London, and here the problems are about the tenth
of the national population, and after this the city became where it was very easy to aspire
to riches and powerful things. Even if the principal characters of narration, performed by
a narrator and he not involved in the action the position of authority, and also is comically
limited by moments which reset the frame:
Indeed, I have often been assured by [Joseph and Fanny], that they spent these Hours in
a most delightful Conversation; but as I never could prevail on either to relate it, so I
cannot communicate it to the Reader (Baines, 1993:52).

Even Fielding, not contrast to the attention of pleasure, was sucked into this favorite are
of sermon, and unlike his contemporary Samuel Johnson he gave credit to the notion that
was to sensible the public policy that should be designed to support. In its public
compulsion and blink to the reader, the gesture communicates more than the supposed
private conversation. Fieldings intervention in the history of the novel has a big impact
and in the same time he appears to abstract Richardsons heroine and make over her
subjectivity, her style and her social mobility in an authoritative novel of classic literary.
Like a conclusion of this chapter in Joseph Andrews, Fielding try to make a
realistic description of character and human psychology and he also think that the
psychology is an instrument of ethics to help us to make a portrait-painting. Fieldings
narrative is very hard and more satirical than the emphasis on exemplary morality would
suggest, but the book is undoubtedly far less realistic in its frame of people in their days.