51 pages • 1 hour read
Henry FieldingThe History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and of His Friend Mr. Abraham Adams
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1742A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
City Life Versus Country Life
Joseph’s journey takes him away from the city and to the country. By leaving London, he also leaves behind several temptations, such as flirtations from Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop, while moving closer to Fanny and the simple life he desires with her. Fielding represents the city as a place of temptation and pleasure, and the country as a place of contentment.
This juxtaposition of city and country life is strongly demonstrated in the story of Mr. Wilson. He leaves his country home to pursue status and pleasure in the city, but he eventually finds that the friends, money, and skills he acquires are transient and valueless. He finds true happiness in his simple country life with his wife and children.
While not every character in the country or traveling to the country lives in contentment, Fielding’s use of these contrasting settings teaches readers to prefer simple country life over the city’s bustle, as virtue is more easily forfeited in the city and upheld in the country.
Literature
Books repeatedly symbolize education and social status. Upper-class people are more educated than those of the lower class. Consequently, several characters use literature to measure their own social status against another’s. For example, Mr. Wilson initially doubts Adams’s identity as a clergyman and so tests him by asking whether he has read Alexander Pope, a famous author of Fielding’s day.
Unlike those who use literature to measure of social status, Adams truly loves literature as a means to learn about philosophy, languages (such as Greek), and famous places around the world. One example of his love for the written word is demonstrated by his strong attachment to Aeschylus, without whose work he feels lost. Through Adams, Fielding asserts that literature is much more than a tool that measures status. In a historical period when literacy was increasing among the middle and lower classes, he shows that literature can instruct as well as entertain.
Sex
Fielding wrote Joseph Andrews in response to Samuel Richardson’s novel Pamela (1740), in which the heroine maintains her virtue despite constant sexual temptations from men. In Joseph Andrews Fielding reverses these sexual roles so that Joseph is constantly fending off sexual advances from women. For example, Lady Booby, Mrs. Slipslop, and Betty the chambermaid all invite Joseph to sleep with them, and Fielding repeatedly describes the sexual appetites of Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop. Through these attacks on Joseph’s chastity, Fielding shows that both men and women are tempted by extramarital sex, a countercultural idea in the 1740s, when many women viewed sex as a marital responsibility.
Furthermore, Joseph and Fanny are both tempted to have sex before marriage, but in every case they maintain purity. Joseph’s character shows that men have the same responsibility to maintain their virtue as women do. This idea surprises Lady Booby, who asks, “did ever mortal hear of a man’s virtue?” (32). Her surprise echoes the amazement 18th-century readers felt reading a novel in which the virtuous hero is male.
Finally, Fielding instructs that sex should be enjoyed within a marital relationship. Fanny and Joseph wait until marriage to have sex, despite many temptations and cases of attempted rape. When they are finally married, Fielding emphasizes the “private rewards of their constancy” (237) that they enjoy on their wedding night, showing that great happiness awaits those who save sex for marriage.
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