Title
The Order Restored: A Study of Tom Jones
Author(s)
Kimura, Hidetoshi
Citation
沖縄短大論叢 = OKINAWA TANDAI RONSO, 4(1): 35-64
Issue Date
1989-03-31
URL
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12001/10626
The Order Restored: A Study of
Tom Jones
Hidetoshi Kimura
1
When Tobias George Smollett, who was regarded as Henry Fielding's great rival in the contemporary literary scene, wrote The Adventures of Roderick Random in 1748, he followed most intention-ally the picaresque tradition of Cervantes and Lesage. 1 Fielding also derived inspiration from Cervantes for his novels from Joseph Andrews ( 1742) onwards. Both writers used the picaresque form to realise their literary ambitions and thus further the possibility in the prose fiction. Although Smollett and Fielding were much different in their literary attitudes and views of the world, their common standpoint was laid on the negation of romance of chiv-alry and court romance. Here is an example of Fielding's ::severe criticisms at romance:
As truth distinguishes our writings from those idle ro-mances which are filled with monsters, the productions, not of nature, but of distempered brains; and which h!lve been therefore recommended by an eminent critic to the sole use of the pastry-cook: So, on the other hand, we would avoid any resemblance to that kind of history which a cel-ebrated poet seems to think is no less calculated for the emolument of the brewer, as the reading it should be always attended with a tankard of good ale. 2
Fielding's literary ambition, therefore, made him call The history of Tom Jones, a Foundling ( 1749) "a new province of writing "
( ll, 1), and his negation of romance made him call" a history," by which he means a realistic portrayal of human nature and con-temporary society at the time. To that purpose, at least in part, Fielding modelled his novel upon the tradition of Cervantes.
Whether Tom Jones is a picaresque novel or not has been
ar-gued by many critics. Frank Chandler, for example, remarks:" "Tom Jones "' indeed,/ though it could scarcely have come into being with-out picaresque predecessors, transcends them all, and cannot itself be ranked with the literature of , roguery· ... " 3 Those who take quite a strict view of the picaresque novel seem to be of the same opinion as Chandler, but we should note that the picaresque is a literary mode, whereby an author conveys his commentary on var-ious aspects of society, human nature, religion, philosophy or even on the novel proper, through the realistic and comic depiction of the protagonist's learning process, or education. Learning or educa-tion is one of the most essential factors and it is achieved by the hero's various experience. The form varies according to the authors design; though often it takes the form of the hero's adventures or wanderings on the road, the emphasis is laid upon his experience, and thus there is a wide variety of forms in delineating the hero's experiences. The service to various masters, which is one of Chan-dler's central definitions of the picaresque novel, is merely one form of the hero's learning process; and though the word "picaro" means a rogue in Spanish, the subject of experience need not necessarily be a rogue (of course, a rogue as the hero of a picaresque novel must learn various techniques of robbery or the use of the lie). The essential condition of the picaresque hero is his vitality and quick response to the outer world, which enable him to become a pow-erful vehicle of his creator's moral and satirical intention. In this
light, Tom Jones is righ~ly placed in the tradition of the picaresque noveL
My intention in this paper is to examine how Fielding con-tributed to the rise of the novel, through tracing char:ges and devel-opment of the picaresque form which he produced in the work of
Tom Jones.
2
The plot of Tom Jones has been highly praised almost
unani-mously. Here is the famous remark of Samuel Coleridge: "Upon my word I think the Oedipus Tyrannus, the Alchemist, and Tom Jones, the
three most perfect plots ever planned." 4 And Tom Jones has been-likened to the most complete architecture. It is certain that the novel's eighteen books are neatly divided into three groups of six books which deal with Tom's growth in the estate of All worthy in Somersetshire, Tom's wanderings in the low level of society, and the city life in London respectively. And almost all incidents in the novel are deliberately arranged leading to the denouement. In this point Tom Jones is largely different from the traditional picaresque
novel, which consists of various episodes, and in which the only element that unites its loose structure is the picaro's presence in all of the action.
As many critics have remarked,. the secret of the hero's birth is one of the controlling factors of the plot. Every major episode and incident is basically related to the secret. In his boyhood, Tom is a solitary figure because of his ignominious birth. Although All-worthy is his protector, his excessively virtuous figure makes him a somewhat difficult man to approach, and thus he cannot be a gen-uine substitute for Tom's father. Bridget All worthy, who turns out
to be Tom's true mother in the final book, must hide her most crucial secret and thus cannot show her affection fully to Tom; besides•; she gets married to Captain Blifil soon after her delivery of Tom and has another child, little Blifil, one year later. And as Captain Blifil sees every penny spent on. Tom as a decrease in his own wealth, his hatred towards Tom grows. Although after the discov-ery of Tom in Allworthy's room in the thind chapter of Book I we are not told anything about the course of his growth until the nar-rator reintroduces us to him at about fourteen years old, in the be-ginning of Book ill, we may surmise that though Toms surroundings as a child are materially comfortable, his psychological situation is a little complicated.
Then we are told that Tom is far from good:
The lad ( Tom ) having, from his earliest years, discov-ered a propensity to many vices, and especially to one, which hath as direct tendency as any other to that fate (to be hanged), which we have just now observed to have been prophetically denounced against him. He had been already convicted of three robberies, viz. of robbing an orchard, of stealing a duck out of a farmers yard, and of picking Master Blifil 's pocket of a ball.
c
m,
2 )Tom is, therefore, " universally disliked " in Allworthy's home, and his only friend is the gamekeeper Black George (ill , 2 ) . Thus he is introduced as a wild boy, who ignores the notion of property and has an enthusiasm for hunting. The narrator tells us that "Jones had naturally violent animal spirits: ... " ( V, 9 ). In this light, as Arnold Kettle suggests, Tom has the image of " the
noble savage .•. a personage who becomes in time ... the
I'
natural man' of Rousseau and the Romantics." 5This tendency of Tom leads him to be victimized by two tu-tors, Thwackum and Square. While young Blifil is diligent in his lessons and shows his calculated respect for the tutors, Tom does not show his outward respect for them and is " altogether as un-mindful both of his master's precepts and example /" (
m,
5 ) . Be-sides, Tom's status· as a foundling does not restrain parson Thwackum from giving him floggings repeatedly.Another crucial point in the plot is also caused by the secret of Tom's parentage: Blifil 's carefully calculated intrigue for Toms expulsion from Allworthy's estate. While Allworthy is· seriously
ill_
with a fever, Blifil receives some urgent news from the attorney Dowling in place of him: the news that his .mother has died of gout on the road home from Salisbury. Though we are not told until the closing book that Blifil also receives his mothers letterto Allworthy, in which she has confessed that she is the real mother of Tom, he knows instantly the danger of losing his place as an heir to Allworthy's estate. He, therefore, not only hides the letter from Allworthy, but prepares a vicious plan. He cat"efully seeks an opportunity for Tom's ruin, :so that' lie at the most suitaple time informs All worthy of Tom's " drunkenness and debauchery " on the day when All worthy passed out of danger. of death from a fever, and of the fight between Tom and Thwackum and himself, which makes All worthy decide to banish Tom (VI, 10 ) .Finally, the key to the denouement is also the disclosure of the secret of Tom's birth. It is essential that Tom is really Bridget's child, i.e, Allworthy's nephew: otherwise, if Tom is vindicated from the imputation, he could never marry Sophia, due to Squire
Western's deep-rooted desire to marry his daughter to a man of the same class_ Although Tom is still a bastard. the fact that he is a squire's nephew is completely different from his former status as a fou·ndling under the protection of a squire.6 In this light. it can be said that the final resolution of the novel is made perfect. at least in Fielding's point of view. by Tom's real birth. We may see that here lies Fielding's strong sense of order. and his es-sentially conservative view of society and people. In this sense, Ian Watt's following remark is suggestive:
This class fixity is an essential part of Tom Jones. Tom
may think it unfortunate that, as a foundling of presumed low ancestry, he cannot marry Sophia; but he does not question the propriety of the assumption on which their
. . d d 7 separation Is ecree .
In this point. Arnold Kettle's following remark is somewhat mis-leading: " Tom and Sophia, like Clarissa. are rebels. revolting against the respectably accepted domestic standards of eighteenth-century society. " 8 It is against hypocricy and selfishness, not against squirarchy itself that Tom revolts. We are told that Tom "said. he believed there was no rule in the world capable of mak-ing such a man as his father, (for so Mr. Allworthy suffered himself to be called. )"'. refuting Square's " the rule of right " ( ill. 5 ) . Needless to say, Allworthy is the ideal man of squirarchy and the embodiment of Tom's ideal view of man. Though it is certain that Sophia revolts against the prevailing notion of mar-riage of the genteel society and paternal authority, her revolt is motivated by her love for Tom and her insight into Blifil's true
nature under his mask of virtue and gentility. She does not deny the basic motive of her father, and thus after ·the discovery of Tom's parentage, though she shows some hesitation about Tom's suit, Squire Western's intervention in their meeting instantly leads to their reconciliation ( X VJl, 12 ). 9
Another important factor in terms of the plot is misunderstand-ing among the characters, which sets the main elements of the plot in motion. The most important misunderstanding is that of Allworthy's about the natures of Blifil and Tom, which eventually causes Tom 's· expulsion from the Paradise, All worthy's estate. Soon after this Tom's misunderstanding of Black George does not allow him to suspect that the man has stolen the wallet Allworthy gave him. Thus he is forced to live on his own and wander in low life.
And Partridge, who is a Sancho-like companion in Toms k'av-el and who is a comic device, is also important in causing v&ri-ous misunderstandings: his garrulity is the main source of causing Sophia's misunderstanding of Tom. The narrator comments ironic-ally on the character of Partridge:
To give the best natured tum we can do to his ( Par-tridge's ) disposition, he was a very honest man; for as he was the most inquisitive of mortals, and eternally prying into the secrets of others; so he very faithfully paid them by communicating, in return, every thing within his knowl~dge. ( X , 5 )
This tendency of Partridge is fully displayed in the Upton episode. First, he misunderstands Tom's condition: he be lives that Tom's
real father is Allworthy, and Tom's journey is only a little whim. Thus he refers to Tom as " the heir to Allworthy " in the pres-ence of all at the inn ( lX, 5 ) . Therefore, when Sophia and her maid Honour arrive at the inn late that night, Honour is told by the landlady that Tom stays there ( X , 4 ) . Informed of this, So-phia orders her to call for Tom. But as Patridge does not recog-nize them, he refuses Honour's request to wake Tom, saying that he is in bed with a woman. Then, Sophia bribes Susan, a maid-servant of the inn, to learn the truth about Tom. Susan tells her:
" ' He ( Partridge ) told us, Madam, tho, to be sure it is all a lie, that your ladyship was dying for love of the young squire, and that he was going to the wars to get rid of you.'· . "1 ( X , 5 ) This information, of course, incences Sophia, and in revenge she lets Tom know that she has been there, ordering Susan to put h.er muff on his bed.
Thus, besides Tom's sexual digression, misunderstanding upon misunderstanding prevents him from meeting Sophia. This is of great moment in terms of the plot. First, it makes the deferment of accomplishment of their love, which has the effect of suspense on the reader who is told the truth of the whole course of the events. Secondly, this incident makes Tom pursue her, which leads him to London, and thus his former aimless wandering turns into a quest with a definite purpose. Furthermore, misundersanding and Tom's digression are some of the chief impediments to their love. We are told that Sophia is " much more offended at the freedoms which she thought ... he ( Tom ) had taken with her name and character, than at any freedoms, in which ... he had indulged himself with the person of another woman; ... " ( X ll, 8 ). And at their meeting after Tom's parentage is disclosed, she accuses
him of his inconstancy: " 'After what past at Upton, so soon to engage in a new armour with another woman·, while I fancied, and you pretended. your heart was bleeding for me ! ... Can I be-live the passion you have profest to me to be sincere ? ' " ( X 'WI, 12) Moreover, as we shall see later, in terms ·of his moral development, the affair with Mrs. Waters (Jenny Jones) Is of cru-cial importance.
Hence, misundersanding, which is one of effective devises in comedy, serves for advancing the plot. Furthermore, we see that it is deliberately incorporated into Fielding's whole design of the novel's moral theme.
3
In terms of the plot, on the other hand, money 1s not a deci-sive element. We see Black George steal 500 pounds in bank notes which Allworthy has given Tom at his expulsion, and we see Tom buy a book from an illiterate beggar which Sophia has dropped on the road and contains a 100-pound note; in both cases the money is to be restored to its proper owner in the end. But we hardly see the characters buy anything, or earn money for their living; instead, money is paid for service: for a mistress, a guide, an inn-keeper, and so on (Tom thinks of Lady Bellaston 's money as his " wages " (X V , 9 ) ) . Moreover, almost all the sources of money in the novel is restricted to the characters of the upper class: Squires Allworthy and Western, and Lady Bellaston. This means that money is something given or inherited, which leads to the crucial importance of inheritance of an estate, one of the most important matters of squirarchy.
for money, unlike Moll Flanders or Roderick Raridom. Tom's wan-derings are not for money, but for his moral development. Field-ing's use of the picaresque form is intended for presenting the portrayal of society at large, like Smollett, but his emphasis is laid upon the hero's encounters with people, each of which has a didactic value and satirical purpose. Freed from the burden of earning money for his survival, . Tom can fully appreciate the moral meaning of the encounters, among which three are highly important.
Firstly, the interpolated story of the Man of the Hill and his way of life have a constant thematic parallelism. Although some critics have denounced it as superfluous, we find that the re-cluse's way of life makes an important point in the context of the constant flow of moral judgement throughout the novel. He is, to be sure, a genuine repentant and has profound knowledge about philosophy, and besides, he is a pious Christian. And yet he lacks true sympathy for his fellow-sufferers. Unlike Matthew Bramble in Smollett 's Humphry Clinker, who is allegedly a misanthrope, but, in reality, is always doing good and is willingly helping people in need, the Man of the Hill is a genuine misanthrope. Tom, after having listened to his story, mildly criticizes him:
"If there was indeed much more wickedness in the world than there is, it would not prove such general assertions against human nature, since much of this arrives by mere accident, and many a man who commits evil, is not totally bad and corrupt in his heart. In truth, none seems to have any title to assert human nature to be necessarily and universally evil, but those whose
own minds afford them one instance of this natural de-pravity; which is not; I am convinced, you·r case.
(WI ,14)
Thus, Tom learns in the course of. his listening to the recluse's story that knowledge and religion without sympathy for fellow-sufferers are indeed ineffectual. His hatred and contempt for Par-son Thwackum 's hypocritical preaching and education in his boyhood was instinctive, but he can now partly theorize his way of Christian faith by way of the precious encounter with the recluse.
The next important encounter is the one with the gypsy king .. Tom discusses various things with him, which are especially con-cerned with the concept of rule and justice. And Tom witnesses a fine example of the king's justice, when Partridge is caught seduced by one of the gypsy women by her husband; the king's sentence is just to all the persons concerned. Here is the ending of their conversation:
'Me vil tell you.' said the king,' how the difference is between you and us. My people rob your people, and your people rob one another.'
Jones afterwards proceeded very gravely to sing forth the happiness of those subjects who live under such a magistrate. ( XII, 12 )
The king's word of " rob one another" is highly suggestive to Tom, for he has learned that the concept of .right and justice based on selfishness is hypocritical and thus useless. While Tom
as a boy defied Square's " the rule of right," penetrating instinc-tively his selfish motive, he now learns more.
Finally, Tom's encounter with a would-be robber is also sig-nificant in that this time he practices what he has learned on the road, especially from the two people above mentioned_ The robber is so weak that Tom can wrest the gun from him, but when he finds that the man has attempted robbery because his family is atarving, Tom forgives him and gives him two guineas (XII, 14 ). Later as he discovers that this man is a relative of Mrs. Miller, he is convinced that his act was right:
( Tom ) greatly ( exulted ) in the happiness which he had procured to this poor family ( of the robber); nor could he forbear reflecting without horror on the dreadful consequences which must have attended them, had he listened rather to the voice of strict justice than to that of mercy, when he was attacked on the high road. ( X Ill, 1 0 )
As we have seen, Fielding deliberately arranges Tom's various experiences on the road according to his plan of Tom's moral de· velopment, though at first glance this chain of episodes seems to be random. And yet Tom's experiences on the road are not suf-ficient for his moral perfection; he must experience further hard-ships and learn more from them.
In terms of Tom's moral development, we also notice that Fielding's use of the technique of contrast is highly effective. He writes of his theory of contrast:
... we shall of necessity be led to open a new vein of knowledge ... This vein is no other than that of contrast, which runs through all the works of the creation, and may, probably, have a large share in constituting in us the idea of all beauty, as well natural as artificial: For what demonstrates the beauty and excellence of anything, but its reverse ? ( V, 1 )
Hence, we see the novel filled with antithetical pairs, who are al-ways competing with each other. The central pair is Tom and Master Blifil. As I have partly mentioned, they are contrastive in every respect from status to personality; they have nothing in com-mon except their mother. One of the most conspicuous differences is that while Tom is spontaneous and thus thinks of nothing but the present, Blifil is " thoughtful " and thus always calculates the future. In other words, Tom is a man of instinct, which leads him to various imprudent acts, whereas Blifil is' too "prudent," but his prudence is only motivated by self-centered interest. Fielding deliberately presents their differences since their boyhoods: at first he makes it appear that Tom is a rogue and Blifil is toughtful and obedient, then, as he presents various episodes, he unmasks Blifil 's innermost motives by way of contrasting their attitudes in a given episode . And this process of unmasking Blifil 's true na-ture corresponds to the course of Tom's moral development. It may well be that Blifil is a consummate villain, who is the em-bodiment of selfishness and false respectability, and thus is quite the same in his character throughout the novel, whereas Tom al-ways learns from his experiences to finally become a victor. Thus, in terms both of the plot and of the moral conflict the contrast
and conflict between this pair must continue to the very end of the novel.
Another important pair is Allworthy and Western. Allworthy is wise, virtuous, benevolent, and strict to justice, as his name sug-gests. Nevertheless, one suspects that he may have a decisive flaw: his lack of insight into people's true nature. He cannot see the true motive of Captain Blifil 's courtship of his sister Bridget, or the selfishness of both tutors, Square and Thwackum. Above all, ·his misunderstanding of the true nature of Tom and Blifil is of great moment, and it causes him to banish Tom from his estate. In this light, as William Empson suggests, " Allworthy is something less than all-wise ...
~.o
"This is, of course, necessary in terms of the plot, but in point of looking through a person we see that Western is sometimes superior to Allworthy. Western, though he is uncultured, insensitive, and sometimes a tyrannical figure, is fundamentally good-natured and h~s something of natural insight, which he is not capable of putting into persuasive words. We see this in the episode in which Blifil, at the age of thirteen, mali-ciously releases the bird Tom gave 'Sophia. Allworthy believes Blifil 's plausible excuse, but Western sees the malice of his act and says in the presence of Allworthy, Thwackum and Square:Pox of your laws of nature. I don't know what you mean either of you (Square and Thwackum), by right or wrong. To take away my girl's bird was wrong in my opinion; and my: neighbour Allworthy may do as he ·pleases; but to encourage boys in such practices is to
This allusion to the gallows corresponds to the narrator's descrip-tion of Blifil's psychology after his intrigue has been disclosed: " No, these tears
C of Blifil ) were such as the frighted thief
sheds in his cartC
that goes to the gallows ) ··· " { X 'WI.ll ) . Thus, Western's intuition proves to be right, though later he is also duped by Blifil 's appearances. Thus, Fielding's contrast be-tween Allworthy and Western makes it dear that his ideal is somewhere between them.Furthermore, as we see Fielding's explicitly satirical depiction of the pair of pedagogues, Square and Thwackum, and of Sophia and Mrs. Western, as well as Sophia and her cousin Mrs. Fitz-patrick, it may be concluded that Fielding does not believe that book knowledge is a match for intuition and wisdom acquired by experience. Both Square and Thwackum have great knowledge about philosophy and religion, but their knowledge is mainly used to show how they are superior to others; their knowledge does not make them better themselves. Moreover, 1their greediness shown in their response to Allworthy's will, in which each of them is to be given
£
1000, is a high mark of satire on ped-agogues who lack love and benevolence ( V, 8 ) . Similarly, Mrs. Western, who is a good reader of literature, has great knowledge in politics, and is familiar with the manner of the fashionable society in Lon·don, cannot be happy due to her being haunted by the notion of false respectability ( in Book X VH she endeav-ours to marry Sophia to Lord Fellamar instead of Blifil, with " the view of aggrandizing C her ) family " ) . Likewise, Mrs. Fitzpatrick is a great reader, but because of her lack of In-sight and prudence she is duped by a fortune hunter, and lives in an unfortunate marriage. On the other hand, Sophia isthe embodiment of true wisdom, as her name indicates; though we see her reading a book only once in the novel, her intui-tion shown in her judgement of Blifil's true nature and thus her
flight from the forced marriage to him eventually proves to be right.
Hence, Tom's pursuit of Sophia has a thematic· import: it is essential for Tom's moral achievement to acquire Sophia (wisdom): As has been mentioned, Tom learns lessons through his various experiences on the road, but he lacks one important virtue: as the narrator repeatedly tells us, he lacks prudence and circum-spection, which brings about his various misfortunes. Therefore, only Sophia can consummate Tom's moral development, which means that he gets rid of the vicious circle of cause and effect into which he is always trapped owing to his lack of prudence.
And, as we have seen that Tom has " naturally violent ani-mal spirits" and he is learning empirically, it can be said that Fielding's emphasis is laid not so much on knowledge without deep human feelings as on empirical kn~wledge; moreover, if we can say that Tom Jones, as his name suggests, is an everyman figure, we may see in his characterization of Tom Fielding's re-liance on healthy human instincts.
4
Fielding's technique of contrast is firmly linked with his satirical intentions. The first target of his satire is the notion of marriage of his time. First, we are told about Bridget's unhappy marriage with Captain Blifil, who pretends to be virtuous but in reality courts her only for money. Here the contrast between Allworthy and Captain Blifil establishes Fielding's basic notion
of marriage which runs through the novel. This IS expressed in the following words of Allworthy:
'I have always thought love the only foundation of happiness in a married state; as it can only . ;produce that high and tender friendship which should always be the cement of this union; and, in my opinion, all those marriages which are contracted from other motives, are greatly criminal; they are a profanation of a most holy ceremony, and generally end in disquiet and misery ... .' .(I ' 12 )
This foreshadows what will happn in the marital life of Captain Blifil and Bridget, and all the other marriages and courtships in the novel. At the same time, this is the criterion by which the author rewards or punishes the personages in the novel. In the case of Captain Blifil, the punishment is immediately done. At the end of Book I Dr Blifil, who has acted as a go- between in Captain Blifil's courtship of Bridget, is now discarded by him and soon dies in London. Captain Blifil also dies towards the end of Book II; this case is depicted with full irony:
But while the Captain was one day busied in deep con-templations of this kind, one of the most unlucky, as well as unseasonable accidents, happened to him. The utmost malice of Fortune could, indeed, have contrived nothing so cruel, so mal-a-propos, so absolutely destruc-tive to all his schemes. In short, not to keep the read-er in long suspense, just at the vread-ery instant when his
heart was exulting in meditations on the happiness which could accrue to him by Mr. Allworthy's death, he himself-died of a apoplexy. ( II, 9 )
And the second book ends with the captain's epitaph, which per· fectly contradicts the facts of his character and. his marriage with Bridget. In the same book another unhappy marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Partridge is added to this (this ma·rriage also ends with the death of Mrs. Partidge, whose groundless jealousy in-curs a grave misfortune on both of them). Although Fielding's style in handling these marriages is comic and full of irony, his conclusion that those who have caused an unfortunate marriage must die gives a grave tone to his comic touch. Conversely
speak-ing, as Andrew Wright suggests, Tom Jones is "a comedy in which sombreness of tone, though pervasive, is very far from preventing h 'l . "11
1 anous response.
The way in which these unhappy marriages end, then, is a prelude to the conflict between Tom and Blifil over Sophia. The marriage scheme which Squire Western and his sister prepare for Sophia is doubly contrasted: the notion of marriage of them is contrasted with that of Allworthy, and also the selfish and malicious motive of Blifil is contrasted with the genuine love
be-tween Tom and Sophia. Western and his sister's notion of mar-riage is based not on love but on the honour of the family. Mrs. Western gives a lecture to Sophia on matrimony
which she treated not as a romantic scheme of happi-ness arising from love ··· she considered it rather as a fund in which prudent women deposit their fortunes
to the best advantage, in order to receive a larger in-terest for them than they could have elsewhere. ( W, 3 )
As I cited above, Allworthy's notion 1s quite the opposite to theirs. As for Blifil, he inherits from his father the same pecu-niary motive for marriage, which makes the reader expect that the same punishment will befall him.
The next major targets of satire are Square and Thwackum. The contrast between them hightens Fielding's aim for ridicule on both of them. They are what Sheldon Sacks calls "the walking concepts. " 12 The philosopher Square is depicted as a parody of a deist, whereas Parson Thwackum is presented as " the divine " whose too rigid theory dose not tolerate any human beings ex-cept himself and those who give him material profit. Though Fielding's presentation of them, filled with comic irony and ex-aggeration, excites mirth, it seems that he does not intend to mitigate his scourge of their pedantic egoism. Fielding explicitly explains his creation of the two characters:
... it is with a view to their ( Virtue and Religion's ) service that I have take upon me to record the lives and actions of two of their false and pretended cham-pions. A treacherous friend is the most dangerous enemy; and I will say boldly, that both religion and virtue have received more real discredit from hypo-crites, than the wittiest profligates or infidels could ever cast upon them: Nay farther, as these two, in their pu-rity, are rightly called the bands of civil society, and are indeed the greatest of blessings; so when poisoned
and corrupted with fraud, pretense and affectation, they have become the worst of civil curses, and have en-abled men to perpetrate the most cruel mischiefs to their own species. (
m ,
4 )Thus, we see that though their extremely opposite arguments often contain a part .of truth, their selfish motives and the dis-crepancy between their arguments and actual behaviour are 1m-mediately revealed. This juxtaposition of an ideal theory with a corrupt action highten!! the effect of unmasking their hypocrisy. And it is Allworthy who, when a moral question is raised, often about Tom's imprudent actions, "settles the matter by rejecting both men's statements and providing the true solution, based on
13 true benevolence; " as Sean Shesgreen remarks.
Fielding, ho~ever, does not treat equally Thwackum and Square. It is Thwackum who always flogs Tom mercilessly, and, what is worse, he does so out of his design to gain the favour of Widow Blifil, whereas Square is portrayed as having some comic trait, as is shown in the scene in which Tom discovers him in Moll 's bedroom. Thwackum's more malicious and violent nature is seen symbolically in the scene in which he and Blifil, the chief villain, have a fight with Tom ( V, 11) . And the letters to Allworthy from Square and Thwackum in the eighteenth book make a complete contrast. In his letter, Square, who is now on his deathbed, repents sincerely for his sin, and vindicates Tom from the guilt which has been laid against him. On the other hand, Thwackum, in his letter, abuses Tom and has the impu-dence to request the post of a vicar who he hears is dying. Be-cause of this explicit expression of his egoism he utterly loses
All worthy's. favour; he is punished together .with Blifil. It seems that Fielding considers a hypocritical and greedy parson· more sinful because even such a .parson has an authority over inno-cent people and thus he is more harmful to Christian faith and society.
Another. target of satire is the fashionable society in London. In the world of Tom Jones the ideal of pastoral life is con-trasted with the corrupt city life. In the city setting .the relation-ship between characters becomes more complicated, and dramatic event is piled upon dramatic event; conspiracy against Tom is redoubled and finally leads hi~ to his nadir in prison. The most symbolical scene in the city life is the masquerade to which . Tom is invited by Mrs. Bellaston ( X ill , 7 ) . In the masquerade everyone puts on his mask and speaks polite but hollow words; though everyone can identify everyone in his or her disguise. be-cause " the· people of fashion " know one another well, the formal convention of disguise is important,. as their daily life is. But it is an essent~ally empty society which bears nothing practically good. Fielding ridicules . the folly of polite society sweepingly:
I will .venture to say the highest Jife is much the dullest, and affords very little humour Of ,entertainment. The various callings in lower spher~s produce the great variety of humorous characters; whereas here, except among the few who have a relish for pleasure, all is vanity and servile imitation. Dressing and cards, e!lting and drinking, bowing and cour.tesying, make up the business of their lives. (X IV, 1 )
The masquerade is the symbol of such a life. Thus the chapter heading of Chapter seven of the thirteenth book, " Containing the Whole Humours of a Masquerade" is a bitter irony. In the epi-sode we must also note that Tom, once he has put on his mask, begins to respond to Lady Bellaston's challenge to love in a so-phisticated way, though he has "never less inclination to an amour. " We are toli:l that this caused by the need to be acquainted with her in order to meet Sophia and also by his sense of honour, . but to think that Tom soon becomes her man, this is the
begin-ning of Tom's depravity in his city life.
Here, in terms of the moral theme, we strike the central par-adox of the novel: Tom's depravity in doing a kind of prostitu-tion coincides with the phase in which he does practical good after having learned much on the road. Tom's relationship with Lady Bellaston has often been furnished as evidence of his deg-radation. Samuel Richardson, for example, called Tom "a kept follow, the lowest of all fellows." 14 But it seems that Fielding judges Tom's lapse necessary for his learning a further lesson. In fact, Tom is growing virtuous and generous as he is being "a kept fellow. " First, he offers £50, which Lady Bellaston has given him, to the starving family of Anderson, who attempted to rob him and who is a relative of Mrs. Miller. Secondly, he acts as a go-between for Nightingale and Mrs. Miller's daughter, Nancy, who without Tom's good offices would commit suicide. The lesson Tom must learn is the causal relationship that his imprudent act necessarily incurs bad results. Though when he learns from Nightingale that Lady Bellaston has had amorous dealings with a lot of young men, with Nightingale's advice he can get rid of her by his letter of proposal of marriage to her,
which is the effective means to quit her, it later makes Sophia doubt his constancy to her.
Earlier, Tom experienced serious trouble because of his im-prudent affair with Molly Seagrim, but at that time he did not learn a lesson. Thus, at the Upton Inn he incorrigibly succumbed to temptation and went to bed with Mrs. Waters. This case brings about a much direr result; when he is in prison, she sudden-ly visits him, but Partridge, who sees her, tells him that she is the former Jenny Jones, who is allegedly Tom's mother. To be convinced of his having committed the sin of incest, therefore, reduces him to the uttermost depth and makes him truly repent of his imprudence.
' Sure,' cries Jones,' Fortune will never have done with me, 'till she hath driven me to destruction. But why do I blame Fortune ? I am myself the cause of all my misery. All the dreadful mischiefs which have befallen me, are the consequences only of my own folly and vice:
(XWI, 2)
Hence the lesson of the cause-effect relationship stings Tom to the quick. And to think that Tom's misfortune is mainly caused by his imprudence, Fielding wants him to learn the virtue of pru-dence, the necessity of which he recurrently speaks. Here is an example:
Prudence and circumspection are necessary even to the best of men. They are indeed as it were a guard to virtue, without which she can never be safe. It is not
enough that your designs, nay that. your actions, are intrinsically good, you must take care they shall appeaF
so.
<
m, s )
And in the nadir of his fortune Tom finally learns this lesson, and thus Fielding put an end to Tom's quest for his moral devel-opment. This is, it seems to me, the meaning of the paradox.
Having glanced at three major targets of satire, we see that Fielding's satire is closely connected with the moral theme and the development of the plot m a complicated and subtle way. Furthermore, his unmasking of the affectation and hypocrisy of the persons at which satire is directed is essentially comic, mainly due to his style of juxtaposition of seeming praise for the person with exposure of his true, dirty motives. And we also see that juxtaposition between stylistic comic effect and serious subject matter gives depth to the novel.
At the end of the novel, everyone returns to the country and the paradise of Allwothy's estate is restored. And yet the re-stored paradise is not the same as before; it is much bettered since there are no more villains nor intrigue. It may well be that the process of restoring it, which is to say, Tom's moral de-velopment hightens the value of it. And we see that reward and punishment are offered to each character in proportion to his virtur or vice. In this light, we may conclude that Tom Jones
is the world where retributive justice reigns over all the charac-ters in it. In the words of Douglas Brooks, it is "the formal real-ization of a mathematically conceived poetic justice~ 15 This is the
manifestation of Fielding's mechanic view of the world. He says of it in the novel:.._ The world may indeed be considered as a vast machine, in which the great wheels are originally set in motion by those· which are very minute, and almost imperceptible to any but the strongest eyes. " ( V, 4 ) He thus creates the world of a prose fiction in which every incident or action is a part of the interplay of cause and effect, and is led to a final order. To put it another way, it is a world of literary laissez-faire in which the character's instinctive and imprudent actions are led to harmony by " the invisible hand. " This is related to Fielding's fundamen-tal reliance on natural instincts, to which· I referred before.
It is, then, easy to perceive that it is Fielding as the om-niscient narrator who rules this world. He directly talks to the reader in the introductory chapter of each book, and guides him throughout the novel by innumerable explanations of his characters' motives and feelings in each episod.e. Indeed, he is an excellent guide, who not only amuses the reader by the comic style of his narrative, consisting of a rhetorical unmasking of the affectations of the characters, ironical juxtaposition between seem-ing praise for a character and immediate exposure of his true motives, mock-heroic style and so on, but also makes the reader fully appreciate his moral intention and various notions. The nar-rator's existence in the novel is so overwhelming and fascinating that we may feel as if he is also one of the characters. In this light, we can not agree with Ian Watt's argument: the au-thor's commentary makes no secret of the fact that his aim is
16
not to immerse us wholly in his fictional world ... " Rather, the narrator's omnipresence is, it seems to me, in its particular way an indispensable factor of the tight-knit structure of Tom Jones.
Hence. we share the feelings which are expressed in Wayne Booth's suggestive remark on the first chapter of the eighteenth book, whose heading is " A Farewell to the Reader":
When he ( the narrator ) draws to the end of his fare· well, then, at a time wheq we know we are to lose
him, and uses terms which inevitably move us .across the barrier to death itself, we find, lying beneath our amusement at his playful mode of farewell, something of the same feeling we have when we lose a close friend, a friend who has given us a gift which we can
17 never repay.
6
As we have already seen, the starting point of Fielding was his literary aim to destroy chivalry romance; the first picaresque novel, Lazarillo de Tormes, was the first attemgt at it and upon the flourish of the picaresque novel in Spain Cervantes created his monumental work of Don Quixote. And yet it does not fol-low that Fielding remained in the state of imitation of the mas-terpiece of Cervantes. In Joseph Anbrews Fielding puts Parson Adams, a most Quixotic figure, in the center of the novel: As Quixote is a corrective to various corrupt aspects of society by his madness, and a fascinating vehicle for satire, Parson Adams is a touchstone by which to test various characters he meets on the road through his other-worldly good nature and innocence. And the structure 'of "the novel is loose and rough-and-tumble. But in Tom Jones Fielding created a much more sophisticated and original world, having assimilated his predecessors.
From what we have seen in Tom Jones, . it could be said that
Fielding used the picaresque form and at the same time he de-stroyed some of the essential characteristics of the from, which is to say, he re-created the form. Firstly, he abandons the epi-sodic and loose structure of the traditional picaresque novel, and creates an architechtonic and tightly knit structure, in which eve-ry character or incident has some relationship' in a most subtle and complicated way. And main secrets in the plot, including Tom's parentage, Jenny Jones's disappearance, the conspiracy of Blifil and the attorney Dowling, and so forth, which are also effec-tive in creating suspense, are deliberately arranged towards the denouement. Besides, Fielding's use of antithetical pairs of char-acters has the effect of creating aesthetic symmetry in the plot. Even the various episodes and incidents in the course of Tom's wanderings after his banishment from Allworthy's estate, which part is most close to the· traditional picare!)que novel, have a def-initely thematic meaning; as I have tried to show, they are delib-erately arranged for the purpose of Tom's moral development.
Secondly, Fielding does not create Tom as the traditional picaro. Although Tom as a foundling is at first an outcast fig-ure, which is one of the fundamental traits of the picaro, he . has a great protector, unlike Lazarillo or Moll Franders, so that he is not forced to struggle for survival. Freed from the burden of earning his bread, Tom's task on the road and in London is to learn from the people he encounters and achieve his moral growth. In the traditional picaresque novel the picaro's growth to maturity is one of the themes; but it is inseparably connected to the picaro's hardships or individualistic struggle in the lower world. But in this novel the emphasis is laid upon Tom's
learn-ing process or moral growth in the course of his various actions and his relationship with other characters. In this sense, Tom Jones could be regarded as a bildungsroman in its tentative way. Thirdly, the existence of the omnipresent narrator is highly important. In most of the traditional picaresque novels the picaro narrates his story in the form of autobiography. Fielding's third-person narrator is, as we have seen above, effective in . its creat-ing highly sophisticated style and the fictional world filled with generous humour and irony. And it is this narrator who leads various characters through much complicated relationship to the final resolution and harmony, and who gives coherence to this intricate and panoramic world of prose fiction.
It can be said, then, that Fielding's picaresque novel opened up the possibillHy of reshaping the traditional form and creating a new fictional world. And with the success of Tom Jones, to-gether with the success of Smollett's Roderick Random and
Hum-phry Clinker(1777), the picaresque novel proved to be resilient and adaptable to new environments. As in the words of Max-imillian Novak, the picaresque novel ceased to be a particular
18
form of literature and became "a universal mode~ And this means that Tom Jones contributes in various ways to the enhancement of the value of the novel, which was then regarded as a some-what inferior genre to poetry or drama. This is why Walter Scott called Fielding " father of the English Novel. " 19
Notes
The present paper is a revised version of the third chapter of my MA thesis, " A Study of the Eighteenth-Century English Pica-resque Novel, " presented to Tokyo University of Foreign Studies in January 1988.
1 Smollett writes in his " Preface " to Roderick Random, after praising the method of Cervantes: " The same method( as Cervantes) has been practiced by other Spanish and French authors, and by none more successful than Monsieur Le Sage, who in his adventure of Gil Blas, has described the knavery and foibles of life, with infi-nite humour and sagacity. - The following sheets I have modelled on his plan .... " Tobias George Smollett, The Adventures of Roderick Random, ed. Paul-Gabriel Bouce (Oxford Univ. Press, 1979 ) p. xliv.
2 Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling, ed. Sheridan Baker (New York: W. W. Norton&Company, 1973 ), pp.l13-14 . All further references to this work appear in the text. All quo-tations are referred to in parenthesis by the book and chapter in which they appear. And the Roman numerals indicate the book numbers and the arabic numerals the chapter numbers. Throughout the text I have modernized the eighteenth-century use of the capi-tal letter.
3 Frank Wadleigh Chandler, The Literature of Roguery, 2 vols. ( New York: Burt Franklin, 1958 ) , p. 308.
4 .. "
Samuel Colridge, Table Talk in Henry Fielding: Tom Jones,
ed. Neil Compton (London: Macmillan, 1970 ) , pp. 32-33. 5 Arnold Kettle, An Introduction to the English Novel, (London: Hutchinson Univ. Library, 1951 ) , p. 79.
offers an convincing explanation. See Homes Dudden, Henry Fielding:
His Life, Works and Times, 2 vols. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press,
1952 ) ' p. 638.
7 Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe,
Richardson and Fielding (Berkeley and Los Angels: Univ. of Califor-ma Press, 1957 ) , p. 270.
8 Kettle, p. 78. 9 Colridge, p. 33.
10 William Empson," Tom Jones," in Henry Fielding: Tom Jones, ed. Neil Compton (London: Macmillan, 1970 ) , p. 145.
II
Andrew Wright, Henry Fielding: Mask and Feast (Berkeley and Los Angeles; Univ. of California Press, 1966 ) , p. 75.
12 Sheldon Sacks, Fiction and the Shape of Belief (Chicago: The Univ. of Chicago Press, 1980 ) , p. 105.
13
Sean Shesgreen, Literary Portraits in the Novels of Henry Fielding ( Dekalb: Northern Illinois Univ. Pres"s, 1972 ) , p. 118.
14 Quoted by Dudden, p. 636. 15
Douglas Brooks Number and Pattern in the Enghteenth-cen-tury Novel ( London: Routledge&Kegan Paul, 1973 ) , p. 103.
16 Watt, p. 277.
17 Wayne C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, 2nd ed. ( Chicago: The Univ. of Chicago Press, 1983 ) , p. 218.
18 Maximillian Novak, " Freedom, Libertism, and the Picaresque," m Racism in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Harold E. Pag~iaro ( Cleve-land: Case Western Univ. press, 1973 ) , pp. 35-48, as quoted by Percy G. Adams, Travel Literature and the Evolution of the Novel
(Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1983 ) , p. 3.
19 Sir Walter Scott, Lives of the Novelists (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1928 ) , p. 70.
