Novel

For Sophomore students

Joseph Andrews
By: Henry Fielding
Summary& analysis of the chapters:
Book 1, Chapter 1: Chapter 1 provides a rationale for writing this book, which is to instruct the
public by providing an example of an exemplary life. In comparing his work to others, the
narrator, with his tongue in his cheek, passes over biographies of famous people and points out
two recent biographies of worthy persons: Mr. Colley Cibber and Mrs. Pamela Andrews. Mr.
Cibber exposes the emptiness of vanity, while the essays and letters in subsequent additions of
Pamela's biography have already explained the value of her instructive text. The narrator himself
now puts before the public the story of Mr. Joseph Andrews, who follows the pattern of his sister
and was able to "preserve his purity in the midst of such great temptations."
Book 1, Chapter 2: Joseph Andrews, the son of Gaffar and Gammar Andrews, the brother of
Pamela Andrews, has no ancestors of repute. At 10 he is apprenticed to Sir Thomas Booby, uncle
of Mr. Booby. Joseph first works as a sort of human scarecrow to chase the birds, then as the
huntsman's subordinate, and finally as a jockey. At 17 he catches the attention of Lady Booby and
becomes her footman.
Book 1, Chapter 3: Joseph Andrews is also noticed by Mr. Abraham Adams, the local parson, a
scholar with mastery of Greek and Latin as well as other languages: "He was, besides, a man of
good sense, good parts, and good nature; but was at the same time as entirely ignorant of the ways
of this world as an infant just entered into it could possibly be." Parson Adams is poor, with a
wife and six children and an income of 23 pounds a year.
When Adams questions Joseph on his knowledge of religion, he is pleasantly surprised to learn
that Joseph has read the Bible as well as other religious texts. Adams asks Mrs. Slipslop, Lady
Booby's gentlewoman-in-waiting, if she can recommend to her mistress that Joseph study Latin
with him, but she disregards his request.
Book 1, Chapter 4: In London, Joseph Andrews becomes more fashionable in appearance,
although he remains uncorrupted by new acquaintances he meets in town. He accompanies Lady

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Booby everywhere, and she says he is the "handsomest and genteelest footman in the kingdom."
Lady Booby's affectionate behavior with Joseph raises some eyebrows, but he is affected neither
by Lady Booby's attentions nor by the gossip.
Book 1, Chapter 5: Sir Thomas Booby dies unexpectedly, and after a week has passed, Lady
Booby orders Joseph Andrews to bring her tea while she is in bed. She quizzes him about his love
life and intimates that she is open to sexual relations with him. When he doesn't respond, she says
that she trusts him not to try to take advantage of her, since she is naked in bed. He reassures her
that he would never do anything untoward, and she becomes angry and dismisses him.
Analysis: Before writing Joseph Andrews, Henry Fielding penned a short parody of Samuel
Richardson's best-selling novel Pamela, called Shamela, shortly after the second edition of
Richardson's novel had been published. In Fielding's send-up, the virtuous heroine becomes a
shrewd gold digger. The Shamela parody also makes fun of the promotional material in the
second edition of Pamela (letters of praise about the novel). In writing Pamela, Richardson had
created something new and impressive: an epistolary novel depicting the flux of human
consciousness and a story in which a lower-class heroine is the main character in a romance. But
Fielding objected to the central premise of Pamela: that Providence would reward virtue by
helping someone climb the social ladder, as the servant Pamela does when her master stops trying
to seduce her and marries her instead. Fielding also found the novel morally pretentious and
hypocritical.
Fielding admired Richardson's work, particularly Clarissa, which followed Pamela, and in some
sense Richardson served as Fielding's satirical muse. Joseph Andrews begins with a premise that
parodies Pamela—the idea that a man would wish to guard his chastity. This is satirical because
of the double standard applied to gender: sexual behavior excused or even expected for a man
was forbidden to a woman. Joseph Andrews is the brother of the famous Pamela, and Pamela's
backstory is implied in Chapter 1. The family associated with Pamela's would-be seducer has
only an initial in Richardson's novel (Mr. B), but the family becomes the Boobys in Fielding's
novel, and he adds new characters—Sir Thomas Booby and Lady Booby, the aunt and uncle of
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Squire Booby (Mr. B). After Chapter 1, Fielding's story leaves behind its genesis and unfolds as
an original narrative. Pamela's backstory returns toward the end of the novel, when Squire Booby
visits his aunt with his new bride, but the squire and Pamela are bit players in Fielding's story.
The narrator notes that what female readers have been taught by Pamela's memoirs "is so well set
forth in the excellent essays or letters prefixed to the second and subsequent editions of that work,
that it would be here a needless repetition." Mr. Colley Cibber is another target in Joseph
Andrews. Cibbers was an actor and playwright who had been in one of Fielding's plays, but their
friendship had soured. Cibbers wrote an autobiography, titled An Apology for the Life of Mr.
Colley Cibber (1740), in which he makes some nasty remarks about Fielding. Fielding makes fun
of Cibber's egocentric portrait of himself, using verbal irony (in which what is said is the opposite
of what is meant) to poke holes in his pretentions: "How artfully doth ... [Cibber], by insinuating
that he escaped being promoted to the highest stations in church and state, teach us a contempt of
worldly grandeur." What Fielding means is that Cibber makes excuses for himself for not getting
ahead and then pretends not to care about praise or fame.
Summary:
Book 1, Chapter 6: Joseph Andrews writes to his sister Pamela, who is living as a servant to
Squire Booby (the nephew of Lady Booby), that he has been propositioned by Lady Booby and
expects to soon lose his job over his refusal. When he goes downstairs, he is accosted by 45-year-
old Mrs. Slipslop, an extremely ugly woman who has been slipping him treats to win his favor.
She now asks him point blank whether he intends to satisfy her passion. Joseph answers that he
has always loved her as a mother. Luckily for Joseph, Slipslop is summoned by Lady Booby's
bell before she can throw herself at him.
Book 1, Chapter 7: Lady Booby, still in her bed, berates herself mentally for her passion for
Joseph Andrews and despises him for not responding. When Slipslop arrives, Booby asks after
Joseph, and the waiting woman, equally miffed at him, begins berating him. She falsely accuses
him of seducing the female servants and even getting one particular girl pregnant. Booby demands
that Slipslop fire her as well as Joseph. But Booby calls Slipslop back a few more times,

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countermanding her orders each time, since she is not sure she wants to part with Joseph. She
finally says she will see him herself.
Book 1, Chapter 8: When Joseph Andrews appears in front of Lady Booby, the narrator
describes him as a beautiful young man with a noble bearing. Booby berates him for philandering
and accuses him of fathering a child with one of the maids. Joseph vehemently denies the
accusation, admitting he has offered no more than kissing. Booby grabs this opportunity to invite
Joseph to kiss her, which he respectfully declines. Further, he tells Booby that in matters of the
heart, he'd never allow his passion to get ahead of his virtue. This pronouncement incenses Booby,
who cries, "Did ever mortal hear of a man's virtue?" Lady Booby fires Joseph on the spot and
feels humiliated: "Have I not exposed myself to the refusal of my footman?" she thinks.
Book 1, Chapter 9: Since Mrs. Slipslop was listening at the door, she speaks to her mistress too
freely, and Lady Booby realizes that she knows more than she should. She smooths over the
quarrel with Slipslop since she fears for her reputation (if she offends her waiting woman, she
might reveal her secrets). For her part, Slipslop doesn't want to lose her place, so she readily
accepts her mistress's olive branch.
Book 1, Chapter 10: Returning to his room, Joseph Andrews writes to his sister, telling her of
his misfortune. "Mr. Adams hath often told me, that chastity is as great a virtue in a man as in a
woman," he says, vowing to continue to preserve himself from sexual advances. Joseph applies
to the estate steward, Peter Pounce, for what little wages he is owed (since Pounce has loaned
him money in advance at exorbitant interest). He must return his livery (uniform) to Peter, so he
borrows clothes from one of the servants and then sets off at night on his journey.
Analysis: Henry Fielding is remarkably candid about sexual matters, even if he is writing during
the Age of Enlightenment, in which religious authorities were no longer policing people's sex
lives in the way that had been done in previous centuries. The prevailing idea in this more open
atmosphere was that men instinctively pursued sex while women were by nature virtuous. This
attitude may leave a lot to be desired, but in its day it was an improvement over the earlier view
that women were temptresses—lustful, uncontrollable, and deceitful, following the biblical
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narrative of Eve's temptation in the Garden of Eden and the resulting fall of man. In Fielding's
more enlightened age, women are viewed as vulnerable to seduction or rape, and novels such as
Samuel Richardson's Pamela and Clarissa elaborated on this theme. Fielding, on the other hand,
is not shy about portraying women as sexual beings with sexual desire equal to that of men.
Further, in his novels, women have some measure of free choice in fending off predatory males.
In these first chapters, Fielding turns conventional thinking about sexuality upside down, creating
satire and comedy with the use of multiple types of irony. Verbal irony (in which what is said is
the opposite of what is meant) exists in the speeches the two predatory women make—for
example, when Lady Booby tells Joseph she is at his mercy while she sexually harasses him and
tries to seduce him. There is situational irony (in which what happens is the opposite of what is
expected to happen) in the fact that the reader expects a beautiful and virginal woman to resist
the sexual advances of a male rake but instead the handsome and virginal Joseph Andrews is
relentlessly pursued by two lustful and predatory women. He rebuffs them because he believes in
male chastity, but the narrator does not fail to tell the reader that the women pursuing him are a
lot older and are unattractive. The narrator lavishly describes Mrs. Slipslop's extreme ugliness.
Since Fielding makes a strong connection between physical beauty and sexual arousal—for
example, by consistently demonstrating how both Joseph and his equally beautiful fiancée Fanny
are continually assailed by the opposite sex who seem unable to resist them—it is safe to assume
that Joseph is not attracted to these ugly women. Thus, there is dramatic irony (in which the
audience is aware of something that the characters are not) in the fact that the reader knows that
Joseph cannot possibly be attracted to either Booby or Slipslop in Fielding's world yet Joseph
emphasizes his desire to uphold his chastity as the reason he says no to them.
There are layers of irony in Joseph's avowal to remain pure. Fielding's treatment of gender and
sexuality is interesting and problematic in all his works, and oftentimes the reader doesn't know
exactly where he stands, probably because he himself had ambivalent feelings about maleness,
femaleness, and sex and the social mores of his time with regard to these issues.
Summary:
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Book 1, Chapter 11: Instead of returning to his parents, Joseph makes haste to return to the
Booby county seat, since the woman he loves lives on a farm in that parish. Fanny
Goodwill and Joseph Andrews have practically grown up together, since Fanny was raised by the
Boobys. But she has recently been let go by Mrs. Slipslop, probably because of her remarkable
beauty. Fanny and Joseph intend to marry but have been waiting, on the advice of Parson Adams.
The couple has shared kisses and embraces but not more than that. They have been apart for
months, and Joseph is anxious to see his fiancée.
Book 1, Chapter 12: Joseph Andrews is attacked by robbers on the road and tries to fight them
off. But they get the best of him, beating him mercilessly, robbing him of his clothes and money,
and leaving him in a ditch. A stagecoach stops when the postilion (the man who rides and guides
the horses on a stagecoach) hears Joseph's groans, but the lady tells the coachman to leave the
naked man, and everyone agrees except a lawyer, who says that they could be liable for his death
now that they have stopped in the first place. None of the fine people in the coach will give up a
coat to the bleeding Joseph, but the postilion offers his, and the narrator comments that later he
was transported (sent as punishment to work in America) for robbing a hen roost.
The coach is subsequently robbed by the same ruffians but finally arrives at an inn. The doctor is
awakened but told that the injured man is only a poor foot passenger, so he goes back to bed. In
the morning the innkeeper tells Betty, the maid, to get Joseph one of his shirts, but she is stopped
by his wife, Mrs. Tow-wouse, who faults him for trying to clothe "naked vagabonds." Betty gets
a shirt from the hostler (servant in charge of the horses), and the surgeon finally comes to dress
Joseph's wounds.
Book 1, Chapter 13: The doctor tells Joseph that there's a good chance he will die of an infection,
and the innkeeper, Mr. Tow-wouse, sends for Mr. Barnabas, the clergyman. Barnabas asks Joseph
to repent his sins and asks him if he has forgiven the thieves. Joseph asks Barnabas what
forgiveness is, to which the clergyman has no good answer. Joseph then says that he's forgiven
them as much as he can.

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Book 1, Chapter 14: A gentleman arrives at the inn, and the talk around the fireside is about the
sick man. Mrs. Tow-wouse is very annoyed that he has been brought to her inn, saying that if he
dies the parish should pick up the tab for his funeral expenses. Meanwhile, some young men in
the neighborhood have caught one of the thieves and find Joseph Andrews's broken piece of gold,
a token from Fanny Goodwill, which he keeps on a ribbon, as well as Joseph's clothes. The
gentleman, who is Mr. Abraham Adams, recognizes the Booby livery, so he goes upstairs to
investigate and finds the young man he has been mentoring.
Book 1, Chapter 15: After Mrs. Tow-wouse learns of Joseph's acquaintance with Adams, who
appears to be a gentleman, she is more kindly disposed toward the invalid. Adams tells Joseph
that he is on his way to London to publish three volumes of his sermons, which he is carrying,
and offers to loan Joseph the money in his pocket. The narrator takes an opportunity to write a
short sermon on vanity at the end of the chapter, in the context of the intellectual rivalry between
Mr. Barnabas and the surgeon.
Analysis: Henry Fielding includes a lot of descriptions of violence in this novel, and although
they are meant to be comic, they are often shocking. For example, one of the robbers
knocks Joseph Andrews unconscious with the butt of a pistol, and then another beats him
violently with a stick until he is thought to be dead. Crime increased considerably in the 18th
century, with the growth of cities and towns and the improvement of roads, which led to more
travel and more opportunity to separate people from their possessions. The narrator's description
of the robbery is realistic, since footpads (criminals who rob pedestrians) and highwaymen
(thieves who rob travelers on the road) could be quite violent with their victims. The narrator
specifically refers to Joseph's stolen clothes as previously borrowed and then replaced at the inn.
But later in the novel, the narrator refers to Joseph's clothing as livery, which is a uniform worn
by a footman or another servant. The reference to Joseph's livery is a plot device. Some people
associated this clothing with his station as a servant, and sometimes the livery reveals his
association with the Booby estate. This lapse in verisimilitude in the novel indicates that the

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narrator either forgot that Joseph was stripped of his livery in Part 1, Chapter 10, or doesn't care,
since it is a minor issue.
In this work, the names for many characters are symbolic or significant, and Joseph's ordeal,
particularly of being stripped of his clothes and thrown in a ditch, is reminiscent of the ordeal
suffered by Joseph, the biblical favored son who is thrown into a pit by his jealous brothers and
then sold into slavery. They strip him of the special coat given to him by his father and smear it
with goat blood so that the father thinks his son is dead. Joseph of the Bible is also handsome and
chaste and is punished for refusing to sleep with the wife of an Egyptian minister.
The name of the second hero in the novel, Parson Abraham Adams, is also significant. Abraham
is the father of the Hebrew nation, and he is the biblical patriarch who is tested by God, who tells
him to replace his burnt offering of a lamb with his own son Isaac. Abraham dutifully agrees,
although God rescinds his order at the last moment. Like Abraham, the parson is the father of his
parishioners and treats them like his children. His last name is Adams, which recalls Adam, the
first man and first father of the Bible. Parson Adams is the representation of a true Christian
(albeit not flawless) who attempts (not always successfully) to be an example of an obedient
servant of God. Like Adam, his obedience is less than perfect.
The treatment of Joseph by well-heeled people in the passing coach is the first of many instances
in the novel in which "high people" are shown to have no morality while "low people"
demonstrate charity and mercy. The fine lady's sense of social propriety trumps what little mercy
she may possess. The only reason the people in the coach decide to save Joseph's life is because
the lawyer warns them that they could get sued for leaving him now that they have seen him.
While the rich people have plenty of clothing, some of which they are sitting on, they would
rather not get them dirty with Joseph's blood, and it is left to the poorest person on the stagecoach
to provide Joseph with some covering. The narrator notes that this good Samaritan is later
transported for robbing eggs, which is to say he is sent to hard labor in America as an indentured
servant, but with fewer rights than those who sell themselves for labor voluntarily. The novel has

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many such asides and incidents that show the unfairness and brutality of the British criminal
justice system.
Summary:
Book 1, Chapter 16: In the morning the thief cannot be brought to justice because he has escaped
out the window the previous night. The narrator intimates that Constable Suckbribe likely let the
prisoner go in exchange for money.
The surgeon and Mr. Barnabas ask Parson Adams to share a drink with them, and he tells them
about his plan to sell his sermons. Barnabas expresses doubt that he will be able to do so, since
the world has grown so wicked and people aren't interested in religious material. During this
conversation, the surgeon highly praises the sermons of Tillotson, an Anglican archbishop. Over
the next few days, Joseph makes a good recovery, and he and Adams pray together in
thanksgiving.
Book 1, Chapter 17: A bookseller friend of Mr. Barnabas agrees to look at Parson Adams's
manuscripts, though he generally publishes only sermons of famous people. Barnabas harshly
criticizes the famous Whitefield (George Whitefield) for recommending poverty to all Christians.
Adams agrees with Whitefield that clergymen should not live luxuriously, but he cannot
countenance his "doctrine of faith against good works." God would not condemn virtuous people
just because they were unorthodox in their beliefs, he says. Further, he can't approve a villain
saying, "Lord, it is true I never obeyed one of thy commandments, yet punish me not, for I believe
them all." This view scandalizes both the bookseller, who withdraws his offer, and Barnabas, who
thinks Adams might be the devil himself. Their discussion is cut short by a commotion: Mrs.
Tow-wouse finds Betty in bed with Mr. Tow-wouse and throws her out of the house.
Book 1, Chapter 18: The next chapter gives some history of Betty the chambermaid, who has
had more than one sexual tryst. Mr. Tow-wouse has been pursuing her for a while, but she has
fended him off. After Joseph Andrews arrives, Betty becomes more and more smitten with him
and finally embraces him passionately. Joseph leaps away from her and chides her lack of
modesty, which she responds to with more advances until Joseph has to physically throw her out

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of his room. Betty, still sexually aroused and perhaps in need of assuaging her pride, walks into
Mr. Tow-wouse's bedroom on the pretense of making his bed. Seeing her, the innkeeper renews
his suit and this time is successful.
Analysis: The conversation between Parson Adams and Mr. Barnabas is the first scenario of
several used by Henry Fielding to play out the religious controversies occurring in England at the
time this novel was written. According to literary critic Judith Stuchiner, Fielding models the
religious disputes in Joseph Andrews on the feud between Whitefield and his detractors, and he
uses Parson Adams to present their differing religious perspectives and further interrogate the
Anglican view. When Barnabas mentions Whitefield, he is referring to George Whitefield, one
of the leaders of the Methodist movement in England. Anglican clergymen John and Charles
Wesley and George Whitefield are the founders of Methodism, although the Wesleys sought to
reform the Church of England from within and did not want to start a breakaway movement. The
Wesleys and Whitefield disagreed about the doctrine of salvation. The Wesleys preached that
anyone had the ability to receive grace and thus salvation, while Whitefield believed in double
predestination—or that God decided ahead of time who would be saved (go to heaven) and who
would be damned (go to hell). Whitefield, an evangelist who preached both in Great Britain and
the American colonies, was an important figure in the Great Awakening, or religious revival in
the colonies from 1720 to 1740.
Barnabas calls Whitefield heterodox for preaching that the Anglican clergy should not engage in
luxurious living (some of these clergymen had large estates and enjoyed upper-class privilege).
Parson Adams agrees with Whitefield in this regard, but he does not agree that human beings can
be justified (saved) by faith alone, which was the belief of most Protestants. While Adams does
not properly represent the nuances of this Protestant view, the Anglicans and Methodists did
believe that good works not based in faith were useless. Thus, what Adams says is fairly radical,
since he suggests that God will save anyone who is good, regardless of what they believe. He
says: "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."
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Parson Adams is most properly a high Anglican clergyman, meaning he adheres closely to the
original doctrines of the Church of England. However, sometimes the parson seems to espouse
Latitudinarian doctrines, or the idea that reason should be used to establish the moral certainty of
Christian doctrines rather than faith. And sometimes, as in this instance, he seems to say
something that even the most liberal Christian of his day might back away from.
Summary:
Book 2, Chapter 1: This chapter digresses to the subject of how authors divide their works. The
narrator compares chapter divisions to resting places, where the reader may stop and take
refreshment. The chapter titles are like inscriptions over the gates of inns to inform the reader
about what type of entertainment to expect. The narrator notes that Homer was the first to divide
a work into books, although modern-day publishers have perfected this system so that they can
get more profit by publishing content in pieces.
Book 2, Chapter 2: Parson Adams manages to borrow money from a former parishioner to pay
the bill for himself and Joseph Andrews and continue on to London. But when he checks his
saddlebags, he learns that his wife has replaced his sermons with extra shirts. Thus he decides to
return home with Joseph. Since Adams has a horse, they will take turns riding it, using the method
of having the walker start first. When the rider catches up to the walker, they switch places. The
parson sets out on foot, forgetting to pay for the horse's board, so when Joseph tries to retrieve
the horse, the inn will not release it. After Adams is walking a while, he begins to wonder what's
delaying Joseph. He finally sits down on a stile (set of steps over a fence or wall) to wait for him
to catch up and pulls out his Aeschylus to read.
Book 2, Chapter 3: Parson Adams finally steps into an alehouse for refreshment and overhears
two people talking about a man who was detained and realizes what happened to Joseph. He
resolves to return to the inn but must wait for the rain to pass. While waiting he listens to two
lawyers give opposing views of a neighborhood man, and the innkeeper says later that they are
both lying. Out of self-love people speak better of their friends than enemies, he says. Adams

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replies, "Out of love to yourself, you should confine yourself to truth, ... for by doing otherwise
you injure the noblest part of yourself, your immortal soul."
A stagecoach drives up, and Adams learns that a gentlewoman in the coach has redeemed the
horse for Joseph Andrews. When Joseph arrives, the woman, Mrs. Slipslop, invites him to ride
with her, but he demurs, saying that the parson should ride in the coach. Once they set off, another
passenger begins to tell the story of the unfortunate Leonora, who lives in a house they happen to
pass by.
Analysis: In Book 2, Chapter 1, the narrator resumes his persona as an author to make some jokes
about why narratives are divided into chapters and parts. The narrator references Homer again,
the ultimate authority for his own work, which is partly a mock epic, to point out that the Greek
bard and sage also divided his work into parts. The classical theme spills into Chapter 2,
after Parson Adams, ever an absentminded clergyman, forgets to pay for the boarding of his horse
and now sits down on some steps to read the book that he carries around with him while he waits
for Joseph to appear. Parson Adams is reading and studying one or more plays by Aeschylus, in
their original language of Greek. The playwright is considered to be the father of tragedy and is
one of three early Greek tragedians whose work has endured for posterity.
Adams's dog-eared volume of Aeschylus is symbolic of both his genuine learning as well as his
overdependence on book knowledge and his tendency toward scholarly pretentiousness. In
addition to being absentminded, the parson is naive in the extreme. While he has a lot of book
learning, he is completely void of "street smarts" in the sense that he takes people entirely at face
value and often cannot see what is right in front of him. For example, when he sits down to wait
for Joseph, he fails to notice an alehouse right in front of him until a passerby helpfully points it
out. When the barman tells him the story of the two lawyers with diametrically opposed views
about one of their neighbors, he can't understand it and insists that telling the truth is a simple
matter, without taking into consideration that the truth can look very different depending on one's
viewpoint.
Summary:
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Book 2, Chapter 4: Leonora is a very attractive but shallow 18-year-old, much sought after by
the gentlemen. She loves to attend balls and is greedy for flattery and attention. A young, worthy
suitor from a good family falls in love with Leonora. Horatio courts her somewhat awkwardly,
but they are finally engaged. About two weeks before the impending marriage, Horatio, a young
lawyer, is called to attend sessions. In his absence, a seemingly rich fop named Bellarmine,
decked out in the French fashion and driving a coach with six horses, shows up at a town assembly
and admires Leonora. Because all the women envy Bellarmine's attention, she dances with him
all night. The next day he proposes marriage, and she agrees. The following day, Horatio returns
unexpectedly and finds the interloper in his place. Leonora pretends as if she hardly knows
Horatio. He leaves, but later he stabs his rival with a sword and almost kills him. Leonora
responds by rushing to her new lover's side to tend his wounds, against the advice of her aunt.
Book 2, Chapter 5: The story is interrupted when the party stops at an inn to eat. Parson
Adams finds Joseph Andrews in the kitchen with the innkeeper's wife, where she is nursing a
contusion on his leg. Adams's horse, borrowed from the pastor's clerk, has a nasty trick of
kneeling down unexpectedly, and Joseph fell off the horse and caught his leg under the animal.
When the innkeeper comes in behind Adams and sees his wife tending to Joseph, he chases his
wife and makes rude remarks. The parson steps up to defend his friend, striking the innkeeper
and beginning a nasty brawl, which ends up involving the innkeeper, his wife, Adams, and Mrs.
Slipslop. Afterward, a few lawyers who are present attempt to get Adams and the innkeeper to
sue their assailants, but both men decline the lawyers' services. Joseph now must ride in the coach,
but one passenger, Mrs. Grave-airs, objects to riding with a servant and begins arguing with
Slipslop. Luckily, the father of Mrs. Grave-airs passes by and gets her a place in one of his
coaches.
Analysis: If Joseph Andrews is a model of a righteous man who is willing to lose what little he
has to defend his virtue and not fall into hypocrisy or vanity, the story of Leonora is a counterpoint
to his righteousness and an object lesson in how not to behave. Leonora is exceedingly attractive,
just as Joseph is, but she is vain about her looks and addicted to the attention she receives from
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men. She is also addicted to the pleasure she receives when other women feel jealous and resentful
of the attention she gets. "She had frequent opportunities of satisfying a greedy appetite of vanity
with the preference which was given her by the men to almost every other woman present," the
narrator says.
Once she becomes engaged to Horatio, Leonora has no reason to flirt with single men or even to
dance at a ball, and she craves that attention like a drug. She is conquered by her own vanity when
she agrees to dance with Bellarmine—so that she can once again feel the gratification of a new
man's attention and the envy of the other women. She perceives Bellarmine as one of the high
people, which is why she so easily disregards Horatio after making intense professions of love to
him. He is starting out in law and has not made his mark on the world. Bellarmine is the picture
of fashion, and he seems to have a lot of money. Leonora's vanity also makes her rush to her new
lover's side after he is stabbed. She loves neither Bellarmine nor Horatio, but she puts on the mask
of tragedy to attend to her new fiancé's wounds. Leonora has no ability to go beyond the most
superficial level of life, which means she has no basis on which to make sound judgments.
Horatio, a man of substance, could not see beyond her appearance, equating her beauty with virtue
that she does not possess.
The brawl that ensues after the innkeeper insults Joseph is another example of extreme violence,
in which Mrs. Slipslop pulls out a large quantity of hair from the innkeeper's wife's head
and Parson Adams is covered in hog blood. This scene also demonstrates the deceptiveness of
appearances: civilized people have a very thin veneer of gentility and quickly descend into
barbarity—including the parson. A traveler, an Italian, provides comic relief when he notes that
the English, to their "disgracia" are "accustomata" to "a little boxing."

Summary:
Book 2, Chapter 6: The lady telling Leonora's story says she completely puts aside propriety,
becoming Bellarmine's nurse while she practically lived in his apartment. After Bellarmine
recovers, he keeps his promise to ask for Leonora's hand in marriage. He expects her father to

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settle a portion of his fortune on the couple. The father refuses, and Bellarmine returns to France
because he has no money of his own. Leonora then retires as a recluse to the house the storyteller
has already pointed out. Horatio ends up doing very well in business and making a fortune, but
he never marries.
Book 2, Chapter 7: Joseph Andrews puts his head out the coach window and sees that Parson
Adams is walking along with his crabstick, apparently having forgotten once again about his
horse at the inn. When the coachman tries to catch up with him, he goes faster and puts more
distance between them as a lark. Three miles ahead, he runs into a man who is hunting. As they
begin talking, the man shows himself to be patriotic in the extreme, saying anyone who would
not die for his country should be hanged.
Book 2, Chapter 8: Parson Adams is impressed with the man's honorable nature and relays how
he himself never committed a dishonest act to advance in his profession. For example, he once
lost his curacy (position as a curate or clergy in charge of a parish) for refusing to encourage his
nephew, an alderman, to support the rector's candidate. Adams later encouraged his nephew to
help Sir Thomas Booby get elected, since he thought he was a good man. Sir Thomas offered
Adams a living, but then Lady Booby gave the post to a different man. Now that both Adams's
nephew and Sir Thomas are dead, the parson says he is no longer "a man of consequence."
Book 2, Chapter 9: The hunter picks up his original subject of valor, saying he disinherited his
nephew because he would not exchange his commission to fight in the West Indies. As they
continue walking, they hear a woman shrieking. Parson Adams, brandishing his crabstick, runs
toward the sound while the patriot holds back, in fear for his life. The parson finds a woman on
the ground, struggling with her would-be rapist. The two men begin boxing, and Adams knocks
the man out. The woman tells Adams she was on her way to London when the man offered to
walk with her to the nearest inn. But then he attacked her when she spurned his sexual advances.
Analysis: The motif of the deceptiveness of appearances continues through Book 2, Chapters 6
through 11. In Chapter 6, the lady in the stagecoach finishes Leonora's story, in which she realizes
that her new lover is much less in love with her than he is with her father's money. Since her
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father refuses to give her a dowry, Bellarmine abandons her. Meanwhile, Horatio, of modest
means, becomes a rich man in an unexpected case of situational irony (in which what happens is
the opposite of what is expected to happen). Because she does not have the ability to see beneath
the surface of appearances, Leonora loses two suitors and ends up alone. Through her excessive
vanity—wishing to be well thought of and admired for her beauty—she loses both suitors and
ends up unhappy and alone, not to mention disgraced.
When the scene changes and the narrator checks in on Parson Adams, the reader finds him
walking along with a huntsman who claims to be a patriot. This man is extremely critical of
anyone who would hesitate to defend their country. The parson takes the huntsman at face value,
assuming he is honorable, and to demonstrate his own virtue, Adams tells this man true stories
about how he has never used his office for personal gain nor committed a dishonorable act to
obtain money or status. When the two men hear the cries of a woman in trouble, the huntsman
immediately bolts. Thus he is shown to be the worst kind of hypocrite, covering up his own
cowardice by projecting it onto other people. He runs away rather than help, and Adams, a truly
brave man, immediately jumps in to be of service. In this episode, Adams is the counterpoint to
the hypocrite, driving home the object lesson for the reader.
Summary:
Book 2, Chapter 10: By now it is dark, but Parson Adams spies some bird baiters (or trappers),
and he calls them over to get help. After he tells his story, the villain, who has been pretending to
be unconscious, jumps up and accuses the parson and the woman of robbing him. The young men
are fooled and now decide to carry the innocents off to the magistrate. As they argue over how
they will apportion the reward for catching robbers, the woman recognizes the parson and begins
plying him with questions about Joseph. She is Fanny Goodwill and has learned of her fiancé's
misfortune from some servants who were on the robbed coach. This is why she is on the road—
having dropped everything to look for Joseph, whom "she loved with inexpressible violence,
though with the purest and most delicate passion."

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Book 2, Chapter 11: The justice immediately begins to scold the "robbers," before hearing any
evidence, ordering the clerk to draw up a warrant and put them in prison. Someone in the crowd
recognizes the parson, however, and asks him if he knows Lady Booby. The squire vouches for
him before the judge, and Parson Adams vouches for Fanny Goodwill. The judge now turns his
wrath on the "witness," who has slipped away, and he demands that the young men who brought
in Adams and Fanny find the miscreant who perjured himself. The judge and Parson Adams then
begin to argue over a point of law, but Fanny interrupts, since she has met a young man who can
guide them to the inn where Joseph's stagecoach will be put up. Thus she hurries the parson away.
Book 2, Chapter 12: Soon after they leave, the party has to stop at an alehouse to get out of a
violent rainstorm. Parson Adams is happy to sit by the fire with toast and ale, but Fanny Goodwill
is impatient to get to Joseph Andrews. The narrator describes Fanny as being a beautiful and
buxom woman of 19 who draws everyone's attention. The parson is lost in thought, thinking about
a passage from Aeschylus, while Fanny becomes transfixed when she hears a man with a beautiful
voice singing a ballad and realizes it is Joseph. Fanny falls out of her chair, and Adams gets up
to help her, accidentally throwing his Aeschylus in the fire. When the parson calls for help to
rescue his book, Joseph appears from a back room. Seeing Fanny, he kisses her passionately,
despite being in a public place. The parson is delighted at the reunion but sad that he has lost his
precious book.
Analysis: Parson Adams calls over a group of young men to solicit help, and in another instance
of situational irony, he gets the opposite result. The foolish youths believe the would-be rapist's
story and immediately fall in with his plan to have them arrested as robbers. When they hold the
lantern up to Adams's face, they swear he looks like a rascal, and since Fanny has been disheveled
in fighting off her attacker and her nose is bleeding, the young men assume the pair must be guilty
people because they look disreputable.
Fanny Goodwill enters the story in Book 2, Chapter 10, and the reader learns that she loves Joseph
with "inexpressible violence," an interesting choice of words on the narrator's part, perhaps
making the point that a chaste and lovely maiden can also feel unbridled passion for the man she
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loves—an uncommon idea for both writers and readers of 18th-century novels. Her love of Joseph
propels her to leave home and travel the dangerous country roads, a single woman who is easy
prey for robbers and rapists.
Most criminal cases during the 1700s came before local magistrates or judges, who made
decisions on crimes without a jury. Magistrates were unpaid officials, men who came from the
upper classes. They were not lawyers and knew little about English law. As a result, many were
inept, and they were often corrupt. In Chapter 11, Adams and Fanny come before a magistrate
who must first decide whether the case merits the defendants being sent to prison to await trial
(i.e., if there is enough evidence for holding them over for trial), and he decides to issue a
mittimus, or warrant of commitment to prison, because he believes they are guilty. The only
reason he decides to hear their side of the story is because someone in the crowd who is in the
upper class recognizes Parson Adams. Further, when the judge learns that the parson is a
gentleman, he says, "Nobody can say I have committed a gentleman [to prison] since I have been
in the commission." Thus, he listens to Adams's testimony on behalf of himself and Fanny,
demonstrating how class plays a major role in whether a person gets justice. The narrator plays
this scene for comedy and shows the judge to be a buffoon, but the author's satire points up the
serious problem of a broken and unfair criminal justice system.
In Chapter 12, Parson Adams loses his beloved Aeschylus in the fire when he gets up suddenly
to help Fanny, but his upset is quickly overtaken by his joy in watching the reunion of his two
young parishioners. Adams's book is almost a sacred object to him, a symbol of his learning. But
the text is also a symbol of his excessive reliance on book learning to navigate the vicissitudes of
life. This is a fault because it prevents Adams from seeing what is clearly in front of him.
Moreover, his pride in his learning is sometimes excessive and spills over into vanity. But in this
scene, when he loses his book, Adams does see what is in front of him and rejoices in it, which
shows he has the ability to transcend his own shortcomings.
Summary:

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Book 2, Chapter 13: The narrator uses the occasion of Mrs. Slipslop ignoring Fanny Goodwill to
digress and explain the difference between high people and low people: "High people signify no
other than people of fashion, and low people those of no fashion." These two groups are in a
fierce contention, which is why they do not speak publicly to each other, although they may have
quite a bit of interaction privately. The narrator makes witty observations about how they
segregate themselves in public places and use special terms for the low people, such as "the
creature," "wretches," "people one does not know," and so forth. The narrator also notes that
people may be of fashion in one context and of no fashion in another.
Mrs. Slipslop refers to Fanny as a wench, and when Parson Adams vouches for her chastity and
tells Mrs. Slipslop about the attempted rape, she chastises him for fighting the rapist. She gets
ready to leave for home in a chaise (horse-drawn vehicle), since Lady Booby is shortly expected,
and tries to get Joseph to ride with her, but he refuses to leave Fanny. This puts Slipslop into a
fury, since she was hoping to corner Joseph for a sexual encounter. After she leaves, Fanny and
Joseph share some romantic time together while the parson naps in his chair, and when he awakes,
Joseph asks Adams to marry them. He refuses, saying they must either get a license or publish
the banns (make a public announcement of marriage in a church or town council meeting) three
times, following the forms of the Church. In the morning the parson finds he does not have enough
money to pay the bill, so he decides to visit the local parson to borrow some money.
Book 2, Chapter 14: Mr. Trulliber is a parson only on Sundays, and the rest of the time he runs
a prosperous farm with his wife. The narrator describes Mrs. Trulliber as having been cowed by
the man to the point where she "absolutely submitted, and now worshipped her husband, as Sarah
did Abraham." Parson Adams is offered breakfast, and after eating he asks to borrow 14 shillings.
Trulliber is astonished by this request and then angered, threatening to have Adams punished as
a vagabond. Adams remonstrates with Trulliber for his lack of charity: "If you trust to your
knowledge for your justification, you will find yourself deceived, though you should add faith to
it, without good works." Adams says any man "void of charity, I make no scruple of pronouncing
that he is no Christian." Although Trulliber threatens him physically, he walks away.
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Analysis: In Book 2, Chapter 13, the narrator satirizes the British class system by reducing it to
two categories—high people and low people. He also points out the absurdity of the class ladder
by showing how a person changes status depending on whom they are dealing with. For example,
a squire may be served by his valet, but the squire then serves his lord. In considering the class
system, the narrator opines that "if the gods, according to the opinion of some, made men only to
laugh at them, there is no part of our behavior which answers the ends of our creation better than
this."
Book 3, Chapter 1 is devoted to the narrator's meditations on biography, and he refers to the high
people in his narrative as "a set of wretches, who ... are a disgrace to their ancestors" and who
treat other people with insolence, especially those below them on the class ladder: "It is, I fancy,
impossible to conceive a spectacle more worthy of our indignation, than that of a fellow, who is
not only a blot in the escutcheon [coat of arms] of a great family, but a scandal to the human
species, maintaining a supercilious behavior to men who are an honor to their nature and a
disgrace to their fortune." Almost all the high people in the novel are despicable, while many of
the low people are honorable and even blameless. Certainly, the main characters who are low
people (Fanny Goodwill, Joseph Andrews, and Parson Adams) fall into the honorable category,
along with other minor characters. In this sense, the novel is a mock epic, since it turns the class
ladder upside down and makes the high people the villains and the low people the heroes.
Goodness is measured not by status but by Christian deeds. The view presented in Joseph
Andrews is radical in this regard: Henry Fielding has gone so much further than Samuel
Richardson, who promotes only one woman out of the lower classes, while Fielding demotes the
entire upper class and raises up the unsung heroes among the low people.
Parson Adams's encounter with Mr. Trulliber immediately follows the narrator's discourse on
high and low people, in which the prosperous parson refuses to give a very small sum of money
to his clerical brethren. Adams scolds him for not being a true Christian because he is void of
charity. Adams again repeats his radical doctrine that a Christian will not be justified (saved or
made righteous by Christ) simply by reading books and/or by believing the words in the Bible if
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they do not perform good works. The message of the novel is that a Christian must have charity
and that charity is necessary for salvation.
Summary:
Book 2, Chapter 15: The hostess of the inn threatens to have Parson Adams and his party
arrested if they leave without paying. A peddler overhears this conversation and takes Adams
aside, giving him all the money in his pocket and promising to call on Adams to be repaid when
he passes through his parish.
Book 2, Chapter 16: After about two miles of walking, the party passes a large house, and when
they get to an alehouse, the parson asks about the owner of the mansion. He happens to be that
very man Adams questions, who now invites him into the alehouse for a glass of beer. The man
is very friendly and begins to make several outlandish promises to Parson Adams—for example,
that he will provide him with a lucrative post in a prosperous parish. Adams believes everything
the man says, even though it becomes clear he is lying. Adams's party stays at the inn because the
parson believes his new friend is footing the bill, but that turns out to be another lie. The innkeeper
is sympathetic, since he too has been hoodwinked by this man, and he tells Adams he will let him
go without paying.
Part 2, Chapter 17: The landlord continues to drink with Parson Adams, relating various stories
of how people were ruined by this trickster. He himself was a sea captain who lost his ship, and
the trickster promised to get him a lieutenancy in a large ship. When the sailor finally realized the
trickster is a liar, he set up an alehouse with his wife. Adams opines that although the trickster is
base (ignoble), his countenance (facial expression) reveals a sweetness of disposition. The
innkeeper replies that if Adams had seen as much of the world as himself, he would not put such
trust in a man's countenance. Adams retorts by bragging about traveling through books, and he
notes that Socrates was a great believer in physiognomy (relationship between character and
outward appearance). The two next begin arguing about the relative merits of men of trade and
of the clergy, but before the argument gets too hot, Fanny and Joseph return and urge Adams to
leave immediately.

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Analysis: Parson Adams has shown himself able to transcend his attachment to book learning
when he quickly lets go of his sorrow over the lost Aeschylus, and he has scolded Trulliber for
trusting too much in his own knowledge. But Adams reverts to form in the next few chapters
because a lifetime of habit is hard to shake. After he finally collects enough money to pay the
innkeeper, from a kind peddler who agrees to spot him, Adams passes another alehouse and takes
the hospitality of a strange gentleman who makes him many promises but turns out to be a liar
who leads people astray and ruins them. Once again Adams is fooled by the outward appearance
of a con artist. And while it is reasonable to think this is not his fault—since this con artist and
liar has been able to fool a lot of people—Adams insists that he read some basic goodness in his
countenance, contrary to evidence piled up over a long period of time.
The innkeeper argues with Adams, who believes in the pseudoscience of physiognomy. A former
sailor, the innkeeper is widely traveled and knows better than to put trust in a friendly or pleasing
face. But Adams, not one to lose an argument, insists on his view, bringing in Socrates as his star
witness and insisting that travels through books can provide just as much experience as real
experience in the three-dimensional world. Once again, Adams's vanity about his own learning
and intelligence leads him to ignore the empirical evidence before him. Adams is much like the
protagonist of Don Quixote, insisting on thinking the best of people and never learning his lesson
when confronted with the cold, hard facts.
Summary:
Book 3, Chapter 1: The first chapter of Book 3 returns to the topic of genre. First, the author
claims that little truth can be found in histories, aside from geographical information, and that
such works have much in common with romance. Biographies, on the other hand, deliver true
facts, even if the time and place of events are mistaken. The author gives instances of both types
of work to prove his point and then moves on to discuss made-up stories, such as those found in
romances and the modern novel. In his view, a fictional work displays human genius and
inventiveness and thus is a much superior art form. Miguel Cervantes's Don Quixote is an
example of a true history of the world, confined neither to time nor nation. The author claims for

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his current work the same fictional genre, in which he presents types and archetypes, not
individuals. The author is not interested in exposing one pitiful individual; rather, his job as a
satirist is to "hold the glass to thousands in their closets, that they may contemplate their
deformity, and endeavor to reduce it, and thus by suffering private mortification may avoid public
shame."
Book 3, Chapter 2: Night falls after Joseph Andrews, Fanny Goodwill, and Parson Adams leave
the alehouse. They have not traveled far before they hear a group of men talking about murder,
so they move away very quickly. Soon the parson falls down a hill, and Joseph carefully follows
after him, carrying Fanny. After crossing a field, they arrive at a house and knock for hospitality
because Fanny is exhausted. A man kindly lets them in, and his wife settles them and offers
refreshment. The party learns that the murderers they heard were sheep stealers, who have been
caught by the shepherds. The man is not entirely sure that Adams is an honest clergyman and
Fanny and Joseph his parishioners, so he asks him about the Greek classics. The parson soon
demonstrates he is quite learned. Satisfied, the man asks Adams more about himself and the
young people. The parson satisfies his curiosity and then asks his new acquaintance to return the
favor.
Book 3, Chapter 3: Mr. Wilson was born a gentleman and sent to a public school, where he
learned Latin and Greek. When Wilson is 16, his father dies, leaving him a good amount of
money, which he wasn't supposed to receive until he was 25. But acting on the bad advice of
lawyers, he is able to get the money sooner and leaves school, anxious to experience the world.
He becomes a fashionable man about town, but in a few years he has to move to avoid fighting a
duel over a woman. Wilson continues to lead a dissolute life among bad acquaintances and
contracts venereal disease. During this time, Wilson is running through his fortune. He loses his
remaining money in a lawsuit, when he is prosecuted for damages by the husband of his mistress.
Wilson next takes up with theatrical people and armchair philosophers with questionable morals.
He himself takes up playwriting, with little success. He works for a time as a translator for a
bookseller, and after he is let go, he buys a lottery ticket. After he is arrested for debt, he gives
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his lottery ticket to a relation for some money to buy bread. In jail he finds out the ticket has won
3,000 pounds. Wilson's relation dies around the same time, and the ticket passes to his daughter,
Harriet Hearty, who writes to Wilson and encloses 200 pounds in the letter. Wilson has admired
Harriet from afar for a long time. After he gets out of jail, he visits Harriet, who is willing to lend
him additional money if he wants to start a business. He is overwhelmed with gratitude,
confessing his long-standing feelings. To his surprise he learns she also has been harboring a
secret passion for him. The two get married, and Wilson attempts to carry on with Harriet's father's
wine business without great success. The couple finally decide to take what is left of Harriet's
fortune and retire to the country. Wilson and his wife now lead a happy life and have three
daughters. One sorrow in their life is the loss of a baby son, taken many years ago by the gypsies.
Analysis: Henry Fielding resumes the persona of author in Book 3, Chapter 1, when he reopens
the discussion of genre. He disparages the truth of histories, which he believes are mostly fictional
in their portrayal of persons—returning to the idea that the same person may be a rogue or an
honest man, depending on the author's biases. This statement echoes the previous story of the two
lawyers with diametrically opposed views of the same neighbor in Book 2, Chapter 3. In that
chapter Parson Adams advises that people should confine themselves to the truth, lest they injure
the noblest part of themselves. The author intends to follow this advice, which is why he wishes
to imitate Miguel Cervantes in writing a true history of the world, not confined to a particular set
of alleged facts, but rather expanded to include the truth of humanity more generally. To this end,
Fielding creates archetypal characters who appear in every era and in every place where humans
make a home. "I describe not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species," he says. While
the characters are taken from life, they do not vary greatly with time or place. For example, "When
the first mean selfish creature appeared on the human stage, who made self the center of the whole
creation ... then was our lawyer born." The novel contains numerous instances of villainous and
unscrupulous lawyers, which is both amusing and the occasion for dramatic irony (in which the
audience knows something the characters do not), if the reader knows that Fielding himself was
a lawyer. As Henry James notes in the 19th century, Fielding is first and foremost a moralist, and
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he exposes the worst of God's creation in his rendering of such archetypes as the scheming lawyer,
the corrupt judge, the lascivious and unscrupulous upper-class woman, and the entitled male
rapist. The author wraps his criticism in layers of slapstick situations, humorous dialogue, and
incisive verbal irony (in which what is said is the opposite of what is meant), metaphorically
administering a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. The medicine is the truth about
human beings. Fielding believes that if people have the courage to look at their moral defects,
they might have a chance of improving their character.
Following this explanation of purpose, the narrator takes up the novel again, presenting another
story within a story, as he has done in Book 2, Chapters 3, 4, and 6 with the tale of Leonora. Mr.
Wilson is archetypal as a man who leads a dissolute life and falls into misery. This type of story
was made famous by William Hogarth, in his series of moral paintings called A Rake's
Progress (1735). Fielding was a great fan of Hogarth's and mentions him in the preface of Joseph
Andrews, giving him the highest praise for his visual satire. But unlike Hogarth's characters or
the frivolous coquette Leonora, Mr. Wilson gets a happy ending. Fielding likely used elements
of his own autobiography to draw Wilson's portrait, since he led a wild life as a young man and,
like Wilson, was saved from himself by a woman. But to be truly happy and to stay clean, as it
were, Wilson must withdraw from the world and become a partial recluse in the country. The
novel shows in more than one place how populated cities tend to bring out the worst in people
and are often dens of iniquity, and while people can be evil in the country, they have a better
chance of being good in a rural setting in Fielding's moral universe.
The story of the reformed rake turned recluse shows up again in Fielding's masterpiece, Tom
Jones. Just as in Joseph Andrews, the hero of Tom Jones meets a man in the vicinity of a hill, and
that person relates the story of how he retired from the world. But while the narrative of Mr.
Wilson ends happily, the Man of the Hill in Tom Jones is without a wife or children and has given
up on humanity. The cynicism of the clear-eyed misanthrope, at the heart of most comedy, is
more pronounced in Fielding's later story, when The Man of the Hill says, "Man ... hath basely
dishonored his own nature; and by dishonesty, cruelty, ingratitude, and treachery, has called his
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Maker's goodness into question, by puzzling us to account how a benevolent being should form
so foolish and so vile an animal." While this is not the final word about humanity in Tom Jones,
it shows that Fielding had a strong cynical streak and was disappointed by people's inability to
follow the precepts of their moral and religious codes. This jaded view of humanity is clearly
evident in Joseph Andrews as well, although pessimism is balanced by the optimism inspired by
characters such as Parson Adams, Joseph Andrews, and Fanny Goodwill.
Summary:
Book 3, Chapter 4: Parson Adams tries to comfort the man by saying his son may have ended
up with good fortune and may visit him someday. Mr. Wilson replies that he would know his son
in any crowd because he has a birthmark in the likeness of a strawberry on his left breast. It is
now morning, and Mr. Wilson and the parson take a turn around the garden. The family is quite
self-sufficient, and the couple are raising their daughters to be dutiful and affectionate. After
breakfast, Parson Adams and the young people take their leave of this exemplary family, which
Adams says lives in the manner of the Golden Age.
Book 3, Chapter 5: As the trio walks along, Parson Adams says to Joseph, who heard part of
Mr. Wilson's story before nodding off, that the cause of the man's calamities was public school:
"Public schools are the nurseries of all vice and immorality. All the wicked fellows whom I
remember at the university were bred at them," he says. Joseph respectfully demurs: his late
master, Sir Thomas Booby, went to a public school and was a fine gentleman. Joseph repeats Sir
Thomas's opinion that a boy at a public school will see "in epitome what he will afterwards find
in the world at large." Many country gentlemen educated close to home are wicked, and if a boy
has a bad inclination, no school can make him good. If he has a "righteous temper," he may be
trusted anywhere and not be corrupted. Adams does not like to be bested and says Joseph talks
"like a jackanapes." The narrator adds that if Adams had a blind side, it was that "he thought a
schoolmaster the greatest character in the world, and himself the greatest of all schoolmasters."
Book 3, Chapter 6: While most of the moralizing up until now has been done by Parson
Adams, Joseph Andrews takes up the pulpit, offering his reflections on charity and goodness. He

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doesn't understand why there is so little charity among people, since he would at least expect his
fellow creatures to show charity for the purpose of winning praise. In Joseph's view, being
honored for charity would be greater than getting kudos for acquiring material possessions. He
finds it "strange that all men should consent in commending goodness" but "no man endeavor[s]
to deserve that commendation." Similarly, all rail against wickedness yet seem eager to carry out
wicked deeds. Fanny Goodwill asks Joseph if all great people are wicked, to which he replies that
there are some exceptions.
The walking party are resting during this interlude, and the parson is fast asleep. Soon their peace
is broken by a pack of running hounds, who kill and devour a hare very close to Fanny and Joseph.
The hounds mistake Adams for part of their quarry and begin tearing at his clothes. The parson
jumps up and gets the dogs off, but now the hunting master arrives and thinks it good sport to
encourage the hounds to pursue the clergyman. Joseph takes the cudgel he carries to defend his
mentor, and Adams joins in with his crabstick. Between the two of them, they defeat the dogs,
doing them bodily harm. By now the squire and his companions have arrived and are taken by
Fanny's beauty. The squire pretends to apologize for the behavior of his hunting master and invites
the trio to dinner with such courtesy that they find themselves unable to refuse.
Analysis: In keeping with his idea to write a comic epic in prose, Henry Fielding makes use, from
time to time, of epic similes, which are extended similes that run to several lines. A simile is a
type of metaphor that uses like or as in its comparison. A metaphor is the comparison of two
unlike things for the purpose of creating a mental picture in the reader's mind. In Book 3, Chapter
4, the narrator describes the sunrise: "that beautiful young lady the morning," rising from her bed
"with a countenance blooming with fresh youth and sprightliness, like Miss _____, with soft dews
hanging on her pouting lips," who begins to "take her early walk over the eastern hills." Fielding
puts a footnote on the blank and invites the reader to insert the name of whomever the reader
pleases. These epic similes are parodic of the elevated language found in Homer, and the narrator
adds comedy to the parody when he invites the reader to compare the dawn to a lady of the reader's
choice.
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While Joseph Andrews has shown himself to be virtuous by his actions, in Book 3, Chapter 5, he
begins to voice his own ideas about moral issues, openly disagreeing with his teacher for the first
time. Parson Adams blames the public schools—private schools for rich boys of the upper
classes—for the deterioration of Mr. Wilson's character early in his life. Since English boys
boarded at these schools, they became a microcosm of the outside world. Adolescents living
together could be exposed to many kinds of vices prematurely and bullied by their peers or
encouraged to engage in immoral behavior. Parson Adams makes his generalization about
boarding schools based on his own experience at university. But Joseph uses his own experience
to refute him, pointing out that Sir Thomas was not wicked and that many squires educated close
to home have bad character. Joseph raises the nature-versus-nurture debate, pointing out that
some people are just born bad. Adams's vanity gets the best of him, and he cannot concede any
ground, insisting on the infallibility of good schoolmasters such as himself.
Once the parson falls asleep, Joseph finally gets the spotlight and tells Fanny he is baffled by
people's lack of charity. As has been pointed out by literary critic Christopher Parkes, "Joseph
Andrews is about the absence of charity in eighteenth-century England." Charity in this sense
refers to disinterested love for one's fellow beings that expresses itself as compassion for people's
difficult circumstances and generosity when they are in need. Joseph Andrews and Parson Adams
are continually denied charity, and the subtext of the novel is that charity ought to be provided by
wealthy, benevolent individuals as well as by kinder state institutions. Joseph points out the
hypocrisy of people who are eager to praise good actions but are loath to do them personally. On
cue the trio are exposed to further insults when a hunting party commanded by a wicked squire
happens to cross their path. The hunting dogs have taken down a hare but then attack Adams, at
first by accident and then in earnest when they are egged on by the malicious hunting master.
Although the fight with the dogs is a serious matter, the narrator takes the opportunity to use
mock-heroic style to describe Joseph's cudgel, which he employs in the service of his friend and
mentor: "He grasped his cudgel in his right hand—a cudgel which his father had of his
grandfather, to whom a mighty strong man of Kent had given it for a present in that day when he
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broke three heads on the stage." This description of the cudgel and its provenance goes on for a
half page, followed by an additional two pages describing the mock-heroic battle between the
dogs and Joseph and Parson Adams. The description of the cudgel is meant to call to mind
Homer's description of the shield of Achilles, according to critic Roger D. Lund, and indicates
that Fielding is knowingly including significant elements of burlesque or parody in his new novel
form. In Lund's view, however, the various mock-heroic elements create an eclectic tone that is
sometimes difficult to read. On the one hand, Fielding has told the reader in the preface that he
will use elements of burlesque, but on the other, he has claimed his new genre is not burlesque.
On the one hand, any parody, no matter how much it pays homage to its source, must cast the
original in an ambivalent light; on the other hand, Fielding expects the reader to take Joseph
Andrews seriously as a heroic figure. Lund concludes that, in fact, the novel Joseph
Andrews stands at the crossroads of the rise of the novel and the decline of burlesque.
Summary:
Book 3, Chapter 7: The squire attempts to get Fanny Goodwill to sit at his table, but she refuses,
and Parson Adams insists the couple eat in the kitchen. The narrator provides a character sketch
of the 40-year-old country gentleman of considerable fortune, who has been spoiled from an early
age by his mother and tutor and is altogether a vicious character. He amuses himself with hunting
and riding and surrounds himself with a group of "curs," misfits whose job it is to make other
people look ridiculous. These fellows did "no great honor to the canine kind." During dinner they
begin playing practical jokes on Parson Adams, which become progressively crueler and
culminate in dunking him in a tub of water. At the last, Adams finally realizes he is being
ridiculed. He gets some revenge by dunking the squire a few times before leaping from the tub.
The parson collects Joseph and Fanny and quickly leaves.
Book 3, Chapter 8: The squire had planned to get Joseph Andrews and Parson Adams drunk so
that he could rape Fanny Goodwill. He is furious about their escape and sends some of his curs
out to retrieve Fanny. The escaped trio stops at an inn to rest and eat because Adams thinks he

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still has the gold coin in his pocket from Mrs. Wilson, which she had kindly slipped into their
packed lunch.
A traveler who is a Roman Catholic priest in disguise opens a conversation with Adams and
delivers a sermon on the uselessness of riches, to which Parson Adams heartily agrees. The
traveler now asks Adams to pay his bill, and the parson is glad to oblige, except he finds his
pocket is empty since one of the curs at their last stop has robbed him.
Book 3, Chapter 9: The parson doesn't consider the problem of paying, which he will face in the
morning, and retires to bed. Close to morning, three of the squire's curs—whom the narrator
identifies as the captain, the poet, and the player—knock on the door of the inn, claiming that
Fanny Goodwill has been abducted by Joseph Andrews and Parson Adams. The ruffians come
upstairs with three servants. Joseph and Adams put up a good fight to defend Fanny, but they are
two against six, and Joseph is knocked unconscious. Fanny is dragged out, crying and tearing her
hair, and the servants tie up Joseph and the parson.
Analysis: These chapters are painful reading by any account, in which Parson Adams is
tormented and then humiliated by an unruly group of men. After Adams's party makes a getaway,
they come back to the inn to abduct Fanny Goodwill so their leader can rape her. The narrator
has pointed out earlier that he wishes to write a universal story, with characters taken from life—
archetypes that can be found in any time and place. The narrator says the squire took delight in
"everything ... ridiculous, odious, and absurd in his own species" and looked for ways to force
people into a situation in which they appeared absurd. The squire's yes-men have the job of
"turn[ing] even virtue and wisdom themselves into ridicule, for the diversion of their master and
feeder."
The men in Henry Fielding's story are shrewd, and one of them has honed his cruelty to a fine art,
guessing Adams's Achilles' heel—his vanity about his learning. Thus, he engineers a prank in
which the clergyman thinks he will be reenacting a Greek ceremony that requires he sit on a
throne while he holds forth. This leads to his unfortunate dunking. While the reader knows Adams
is to blame for falling for this trick, the reader never stops sympathizing with the parson. The
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narrator skillfully uses ironic language to show that it is not the parson who should be laughed at,
but rather the creatures who are masquerading as human beings.
In the interlude between the time Adams and his party escape and the ruffians return for Fanny,
Parson Adams speaks to a Roman Catholic priest who is traveling in disguise. Fielding is pointing
out that Roman Catholics were persecuted in this era and could not practice their faith openly.
The author may have put an antimaterialism speech in the mouth of a priest because Anglicans
and other Protestants criticized the Roman Catholic Church for its opulence (thus, the speech
could be viewed as verbal and situational irony). Or Fielding may have given the speech to a
priest to show that the precepts of Christianity are the same across denominations.
Summary:
Book 3, Chapter 10: Chapter 10 provides a digression to divert the reader: a conversation
between the poet and the player (playwright and actor), two of the squire's kidnappers, in which
they alternatively flatter each other and disparage each other's profession. This culminates in an
argument over a recent play both were involved in, in which each blames the other for the work's
failure.
Book 3, Chapter 11: When Joseph Andrews regains consciousness, he is beside himself, calling
out his beloved's name. Parson Adams says that he feels sympathy for his misfortune but that
Joseph has a duty as "a man and a Christian to summon reason as quickly as he can to his aid;
and she will presently teach him patience and submission." Joseph cries that he would tear his
eyes out if his hands were loose, and Adams replies that people are ignorant of God's divine plan.
Joseph finally responds with lines he heard in a play: "Yes, I will bear my sorrows like a man, /
But I must also feel them as a man," to which the parson responds that this is "nothing but
heathenism."
Book 3, Chapter 12: The captain rides to the squire's house with a wailing Fanny Goodwill tied
to a second horse. He calls Joseph Andrews a pitiful fellow in livery and advises her that the
squire will be much kinder "if he enjoys you willingly than by force." Fanny continues to call for
help, and when they pass a man on horseback, the captain claims that Fanny is his adulterous

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wife. They pass two more horsemen, armed with pistols, and when she yells out, one of them
recognizes her. The chariot they are guarding, which belongs to Lady Booby's steward, now
arrives. Peter Pounce takes the captain into custody and takes Fanny back to the inn. Pounce,
known to the host of the inn, explains his mistake (Book 3, Chapter 9), and Joseph and Fanny are
reunited. When Joseph hears that the captain has been taken prisoner, he beats him severely.
Although the prisoner is supposed to be brought to the magistrate, the servants feel sorry for him
and let him go. Pounce invites Parson Adams to ride in his chariot. The servants have retrieved
Parson Adams's horse, but since he is difficult to ride, Fanny and Joseph are put on another horse,
and everyone heads back to the county seat.
Book 3, Chapter 13: Peter Pounce and Parson Adams begin discussing the notion of charity. The
parson says it is "a generous disposition to relieve the distressed," and Pounce opines that "the
distresses of mankind are mostly imaginary, and it would be rather folly than goodness to relieve
them." Pounce continues to make absurd remarks about the distresses of the poor, and Adams
says he hears Pounce is worth quite a bit of money, although he himself does not believe it. This
statement enrages Pounce, and he insults Parson Adams as a shabby fellow. Adam gets angry and
jumps out of the chariot.
Analysis: As has already been mentioned, Parson Adams sometimes represents the view of a
traditional high-church Anglican, who thinks Presbyterians are as bad as atheists; sometimes the
view of a Latitudinarian, who turns to reason to establish the moral certainty of Christian
doctrines; and sometimes the view of a heterodox Christianity of Henry Fielding's own making,
who counts moral behavior as the righteous path to salvation. After Joseph Andrews loses Fanny
Goodwill to the squire's men, following a particularly brutal physical fight in which he is knocked
unconscious, he is understandably stricken with grief. But he doesn't get much sympathy from
the parson, who counsels him according to Latitudinarian theology, following the teachings of
Archbishop John Tillotson.
Methodist evangelist George Whitefield famously criticized Tillotson for preaching that man
believes in God because of his reason, in opposition to Whitefield's own teaching that man
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believes in God despite his reason (takes God entirely on faith). More specifically, instead of
empathizing with Joseph in his misery, Parson Adams tells him to buck up and use his reason to
remember that "no accident happens to us without the divine permission, and ... it is the duty of
a man, and a Christian, to submit." Adams continues with what appears to be a canned "rational"
speech about why it doesn't make sense to remonstrate with God. He tells Joseph that he's a sinner
after all and that perhaps God is punishing him. Moreover, who can resist "a power from whose
shafts no armor can guard us, no speed can fly?" This parson seems very different from the parson
who has consistently acted as a spiritual father to Joseph and Fanny and has rejoiced in their
happiness.
In critic Judith Stuchiner's view, even though Henry Fielding was an admirer of Tillotson, he may
have been more open to Whitefield's views than he realized. She says this because the narrator
clearly sympathizes with Joseph's point of view, in which he cannot accept God's will on the basis
of reason. The narrator has a little joke on Adams, the scholar, when Joseph quotes famous lines
from Shakespeare's Macbeth: Macduff, the hero who will restore order to Scotland, expresses his
grief in learning that his wife and children have been slain by Macbeth's men. When he is chided
by his companion to "dispute it like a man," he responds that he will do so. "But I must also feel it
as a man," he says. In referring to Shakespeare as a heathen, the parson is revealing his own
ignorance.
While some critics have called Fanny a passive character who simply waits to be rescued, the
narrator makes it clear that she has struggled against her captors—three men in all were involved
in the kidnapping. When she is tied to a horse by the captain, she repeatedly calls out for help,
even though he threatens to gag her. Moreover, the captain makes a point of telling her it will go
easier for her if she doesn't resist her rapist—something he expects she will do. He makes the
point of telling her that the squire will enjoy her by force if necessary. This speech by the captain
clearly takes the view that a woman could be unwillingly raped—something that most men in the
18th century did not believe. In this instance, Fielding takes the side of the woman, and there is
nothing funny about this scene in which Fanny is being carried off to her would-be ravisher.
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Summary:
Book 4, Chapter 1: Lady Booby's coach arrives back at the county seat around the same time as
the other travelers get home, and she is taken aback when she sees Joseph. Everyone is overjoyed
to see Parson Adams, who is loved like a father. Lady Booby continues to be tortured by her
feelings for Joseph. When she attends church that Sunday, she hears the first posting of his
marriage banns. She sends for Mrs. Slipslop, who gives her an account of Joseph's adventures
since he was cast out. Lady Booby then summons Parson Adams.
Book 4, Chapter 2: Lady Booby begins by scolding Parson Adams, who has obligations to her
family, for aiding and abetting a man who has been fired by her. Adams respectfully defends the
character of both Joseph Andrews and Fanny Goodwill and explains that they have already
waited long enough, upon his advice, to marry. Lady Booby argues that Joseph is a vagabond and
will "bring a nest of beggars in the parish." Adams counters that since Joseph has worked for
more than a year in the parish and has therefore gained a settlement, he cannot be labeled a
vagrant. Booby now orders Adams to stop publishing the banns or she will have him thrown out
of his curacy. Adams says he answers to God, not man.
Book 4, Chapter 3: Lady Booby now summons Lawyer Scout, who has given Parson Adams the
information about gaining a settlement. The lawyer says he will fall in with her plan to stop the
banns. He will see that the case comes before Justice Frolick, who is sure to take the side of a
lady against a nonentity such as Joseph Andrews. The judge is known for taking poor people off
the hands of the parish and sending them to Bridewell, a workhouse where they are "either starved
or eat up by vermin in a month's time."
Book 4, Chapter 4: Lady Booby continues to suffer over Joseph's impending marriage: "She
loved, hated, pitied, scorned, admired, despised the same person by fits, which changed in a very
short interval." On Tuesday she goes to church and hears the banns announced a second time.
When she gets back home, she learns from Mrs. Slipslop that Joseph Andrews and Fanny
Goodwill have been brought before the law. Before she can respond, her nephew, Squire Booby,

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and his new wife arrive and are conducted into the drawing room, and Lady Booby is polite when
Pamela Andrews Booby is introduced as Joseph's sister.
Book 5, Chapter 5: The servants tell Squire Booby that Joseph Andrews and Fanny Goodwill
have been hauled off. He immediately visits Justice Frolick, an acquaintance. The couple have
been sentenced to "stripping and whipping" for a trumped-up larceny charge—cutting a twig from
a tree in a field belonging to Lawyer Scout. The judge is also sending them to Bridewell for a
month. The squire is aghast at the harsh punishment, to which Scout responds that if the tree had
been young, they would have been sentenced to hanging. The judge takes Squire Booby aside
and explains that the constable has been given orders to let them run away. Lady Booby has no
other way to get rid of them because they are legally settled in the parish. Nonetheless, the judge
agrees to release Joseph and Fanny into his custody. The party meet Parson Adams on the way
out, and when everyone is in the coach, the squire announces his marriage to Pamela Andrews,
now his Mrs. Booby. Fanny returns to Parson Adams's house, and Joseph returns to the manor,
where he has been staying since he was reunited with his sister. The squire tells his aunt he must
honor Joseph like a brother now that he is married to Pamela.
Analysis: Lady Booby's passion for Joseph Andrews resurfaces when he comes back to town,
and her jealousy is ignited as well when she learns he is planning to marry another woman. Using
the prerogative of the rich, she threatens Parson Adams with the loss of his job if he doesn't do
what she says—which is to stop publishing the marriage banns—but as is typical of him, Parson
Adams retains his honor and refuses to be bullied. The narrator realistically portrays Lady
Booby's conflicting feelings about Joseph as well as her self-hatred for being so much at the
mercy of her own passions. She wishes she had not dismissed Joseph, and at the same time she
gets satisfaction from imagining him in rags. The thing she cannot abide is any thought that
Joseph has rejected her because he is not physically attracted to her.
In an effort to break up Joseph and Fanny Goodwill, Lady Booby claims they will be a burden on
the parish because according to the Poor Act, passed in 1601, local parishes had to provide food,
money, and even housing for the poor, although sometimes people were sent to workhouses. The
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1662 Settlement Act put safeguards into place to ensure that poor people did not attempt to move
to richer parishes to get better benefits. Thus, to be eligible for a settlement, a person must meet
certain conditions, such as living in the parish for more than three years or have been hired
continually by a settled resident for more than a year and a day, conditions that both Joseph and
Fanny meet.
The trumped-up charges against Joseph and Fanny demonstrate the brutality and injustice of the
so-called criminal justice system in England in the 18th century. Because of the increase in
population and growing poverty, especially in larger cities, crime increased in the Restoration Era
(1660–88). In response, the government took extreme measures to curb crime and vagrancy.
Bridewell was established in 1553 as a house of correction for poor people and homeless children.
Offenses that typically sent people to Bridewell were prostitution, minor acts of dishonesty,
vagrancy, and having a child out of wedlock. Judge Frolick plans to send Fanny and Joseph to
Bridewell for a month, after they are stripped and whipped for pilfering a twig from Lawyer
Scout's property. This crime would have fallen under the Black Act, passed in 1723 during the
reign of King George I, which established the death penalty for the following infractions:
poaching animals in private parks or on private lands; cutting down trees; establishing gardens;
or committing acts of vandalism on other people's property. The Black Act was established under
the government of Robert Walpole, one of Henry Fielding's prime targets for satire. Stripping and
whipping was the punishment for petty larceny, or stealing goods of less than a shilling in value.
In London, a loaf of bread might cost a shilling. For this punishment, the miscreant was tied to
the back of a cart, stripped to the waist, and whipped along a public route. Since Joseph and Fanny
have not "stolen" a twig from a live tree, they cannot get the death penalty, which is why they are
given the less severe punishment.
Summary:
Book 4, Chapter 6: Joseph Andrews and Pamela Andrews Booby have a tearful and joyous
reunion. Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop tear Pamela to pieces behind her back and are even more
ferocious about Fanny. They agree that Joseph is a prize, but as a person of fashion, Lady Booby

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cannot act on her impulses. The two women have an inane "what if" conversation about whether
either of them would marry Joseph, but the upshot is that Slipslop encourages her mistress to
pursue him.
Book 4, Chapter 7: The narrator pauses to explain that when a person practices deceit for a long
time with others, they begin believing the lies they have told about themselves. He applies this
precept to women's view of men and sex. From an early age they are instructed that men are
monstrous, so women develop an aversion to the opposite sex. But even after they learn men are
not monsters and are attracted to them, they continue to feign antipathy. This happens to Lady
Booby, who loves Joseph Andrews more than she realizes. To this end, she asks her nephew to
persuade Joseph to break off the engagement with Fanny, since marrying her will prevent him
from rising in social class—which he can do now that he is attached to the Boobys. Both the
squire and Joseph's sister put the case before him, but he cannot be persuaded to part from Fanny
Goodwill.
Meanwhile, Fanny is out walking and is accosted by a gentleman who insists on kissing her, to
which she submits, begging him not to be rude, but he launches an aggressive attack. She
vigorously resists him, so he leaves a servant behind, hoping he can persuade her to change her
mind. The servant doesn't get anywhere with Fanny on behalf of his master, so he propositions
her on his own behalf. When she refuses, he attacks Fanny with great force. Luckily, Joseph
comes along and furiously fights off her attacker.
Book 4, Chapter 8: Mrs. Adams is not happy her husband has put the family in jeopardy by
going up against Lady Booby, but the parson disregards his wife's protests. When Joseph
Andrews comes to the house, he asks Parson Adams to hasten the marriage, but the parson says
to wait for the third banns. He warns Joseph that he shouldn't be getting married merely to satisfy
his carnal appetites. "All passions are criminal in their excess, even love itself, if it is not
subservient to duty," he says. He cites the biblical story of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his
son Isaac, saying that Joseph ought to be willing to sacrifice his fiancée if Divine Providence
required it.
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At that moment, the parson hears that his young son has drowned in the river and responds with
swooning and gnashing of teeth. When Joseph repeats his own arguments to him in an effort to
comfort him, the parson is not moved. Just then, he sees his son, wet but alive. He has been saved
from the river by the peddler who loaned him money earlier in the story and who has come to pay
him a visit. Once Adams gains his equilibrium, he begins lecturing Joseph again, who interrupts,
saying advice is easier to give than to follow. The parson tells Joseph he is ignorant about fatherly
affection and cannot judge, but Joseph insists that their cases are similar and that it is not sinful
to love his wife to distraction. At this point, Mrs. Adams jumps in and defends Joseph's position.
"A wife has a right to insist on her husband loving her as much as he can: and he is a sinful villain
who doth not," she says. She notes that her husband has not been wanting in this regard.
Analysis: All pretense has been dropped between Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop. Since Slipslop
has no chance of getting with Joseph Andrews, she has surrendered the field to her mistress.
Neither woman is attractive, and both are well past their prime, so they derive joy from
disparaging the two young, beautiful women, Pamela Andrews Booby and Fanny Goodwill.
Pamela and her husband, Squire Booby, are characters that appear in the Samuel Richardson
novel, but they have been wholly appropriated by Henry Fielding and will continue to play a
minor role in Joseph Andrews.
At this point, Slipslop is strongly encouraging her mistress to go after what she wants—namely,
Joseph—and disregard the social forms. Buttering up Lady Booby will keep her own position
secure in the Booby household, but she likely feels some compassion for her mistress and would
like to help her. Lady Booby wistfully says that though Joseph is worth so much more than other
men of a higher class, she must shun him to avoid the contempt of the world. "It is a tyranny of
custom, a tyranny we must comply with; for we people of fashion are the slaves of custom," she
says. This is especially humorous in light of the narrator's previous assessment of high people
and low people and how high people are loath to associate in public with low people and use a
special language for them. Mrs. Slipslop had often heard her mistress use such terms as "strange
persons, people one does not know, the creature, wretches, beasts, brutes," and similar terms. The
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situational and verbal irony is thus rich when Slipslop says, "If I was a woman of your ladyship's
fortune and quality, I would be a slave to nobody."
Some readers may be confused about why Fanny, being accosted a third time by a strange man
(and the second time when out walking alone), would allow him to kiss her. Literary critic Simon
Dickie opines that she is enchanted by this man, whose name is Beau Didapper, because of his
"metropolitan foppery." It may also be likely that Fanny does not see the small man as such a
threat and that she thinks she might be able to get rid of him quickly if she allows him a small
concession. Fanny fights him off but then almost gets raped by his servant. She fights him off as
well, but he is much stronger, and it takes Joseph to stop the attack. Clearly, there is something
disturbing about all these attempted rapes, and it is hard to know what to make of them. On the
one hand, Fielding is parodying the literary trends of the day. As noted by Simon Dickie, "Rescues
of virgins from their would-be rapists were standard episodes and often obtrusively sexualized in
romance and sentimental fiction." Perhaps Fielding wrestled with the prevailing views of his day
regarding women and rape. For the most part in his works, he seems to sympathize with female
victims and is not of the opinion, as were many of his contemporaries, that a woman was
responsible if she were raped. Perhaps he was disturbed by the number of rapes that regularly
occurred. And perhaps he himself struggled with personal confusion about relations between the
sexes.
In Book 4, Chapter 8, Parson Adams, although for the most part an admirable and heroic
character, practices a bit of hypocrisy. First, he scolds Joseph for his desire to marry quickly,
saying excessive passion is criminal. He tells Joseph that, like Abraham, he should be willing to
sacrifice Fanny if that is what God calls on him to do. Immediately following this speech, he
himself faces the possibility of losing his precious son, and not surprisingly, he reacts with great
passion and grief. When Joseph calls him on his double standard—one for his parishioner and a
different one for himself—he tries to slap Joseph down, saying their situations are not equivalent.
But even Adams's wife agrees with Joseph, and this time the younger man will not back down
the way he did previously when Adams scolded him after Fanny was abducted. Rather, the parson
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looks more than a little ridiculous when he says, "It doth not become green heads to advise gray
hairs."
In this last bit of preaching done by Adams, Fielding once again raises the debate between the
Latitudinarians and the Methodists. The Tillotson-Whitefield quarrel, between the Anglican
archbishop Tillotson and the Methodist minister Whitefield, centered on whether Abraham of the
Old Testament was guided by faith or by reason when he chose to obey God's command to
sacrifice his son Isaac as the burnt offering in place of the sheep (a command later rescinded by
God). In this debate, Fielding once again seems to sympathize more with Whitefield, who argues
that Abraham was motivated by love for God rather than reason, as was his son Isaac. Moreover,
Fielding doesn't fault Adams for his grief about his son because it would be a proper response to
such a tragedy. Adams's insistence that Joseph follow reason instead of his heart when it comes
to Fanny is just plain ludicrous.
Summary:
Book 4, Chapter 9: The first gentleman who attacked Fanny Goodwill on the road, Mr. Beau
Didapper, is a guest at Lady Booby's. When he talks about meeting a beauty nearby, Lady Booby
knows he's talking about Fanny and thinks she might hatch a plot to bring them together. Thus
she slyly arranges for her household to casually call at Parson Adams's house. Didapper is
exceedingly short at 4 feet 5 inches and rather unattractive. When they get to the house and are
invited in, Didapper is delighted to see Fanny. Lady Booby pretends to be interested in the
parson's son Dick, who begins reading the company a story.
Book 4, Chapter 10: Dick reads about two friends who lose touch with each other but then are
reunited by chance when Paul, an army officer, is stationed in Leonard's town. Leonard is married
and asks his friend to come to his house and visit for a month. While he is there, Paul observes
the couple fighting constantly over trifles. At first Paul doesn't interfere, but each half of the
couple begins taking him aside and asking his opinion. He counsels both husband and wife to
submit to the other for the sake of love. Although he preaches the doctrine of submission, he also
assures both of them, privately, that they are in the right. This works for a while until the husband

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and wife begin comparing notes on their private conversations with Paul, and now they turn on
him, blaming him for their quarrels. The story is interrupted.
Book 4, Chapter 11: Joseph has been watching Beau Didapper proposition his fiancée, and he
has restrained himself for the sake of the company, but when the man puts his hands on Fanny
Goodwill when he thinks no one is looking, he boxes his ear and sends him flying. Didapper
draws his sword, and Adams takes up a pot lid as a shield to defend his parishioner. Joseph begs
him to step aside and let him handle the interloper. Squire Booby asks Didapper to put his weapon
away, and Lady Booby chides Joseph for defending Fanny over Didapper's minor offense. Fanny
begins crying, and Joseph walks out with her, with the Booby party following shortly thereafter.
Parson Adams is then berated by his wife and eldest daughter for his excessive love for his
parishioners, which is ruining the family. When Joseph returns with Fanny and the peddler, he
invites the Adams family out to dinner at a local alehouse.
Book 4, Chapter 12: The peddler has been asking questions about the Booby family and learns
that Sir Thomas bought Fanny Goodwill at age three or four from a traveling woman. After the
party finishes eating, he tells Fanny he knows who her parents are. In his younger days, the
peddler was a drummer in an Irish infantry regiment, and he began a long-term relationship with
a camp follower, with whom he lived with as man and wife until she died. On her deathbed she
confessed she had previously traveled with a band of gypsies who were in the habit of stealing
children. She herself stole one very beautiful child, who the gypsies kept about two years, until
the woman sold her to Sir Thomas Booby when she was about four. The family the child belonged
to was named Andrews, and they had another daughter named Pamela. At this news, Fanny faints,
and Joseph Andrews becomes very pale, while Parson Adams falls on his knees to thank God the
sin of incest has been avoided.
Analysis: Not surprisingly, the blackguard Beau Didapper is a great friend of Lady Booby, who
now thinks she might get rid of Fanny Goodwill by delivering the young woman to her
fashionable friend. The unexpected visit to the Adams family is interrupted by a story about a
couple at cross purposes and how, when the husband's friend tries to smooth things over, he ends
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up getting into trouble with both parties. This is an archetypal situation of the triangle in which
one person is trying to keep two parties happy and smooth things over between them and is
punished for his or her trouble. This inserted story is in some sense a prelude to the final comic
scenes in Book 5, Chapter 14, in which humor is created by the mismatch of appearance and
reality.
Joseph Andrews defends Fanny's honor once again in Book 4, Chapter 11, and Lady Booby's
response to Didapper's sexual harassment is that it is nothing much for Joseph to become upset
over: "I suppose he would have kissed the wench; and is a gentleman to be struck for such an
offer? I must tell you, Joseph, these airs do not become you." Since Fanny is one of the low
people, she merits no respect in Lady Booby's eyes, and any disrespect toward her can be excused.
After the Boobys leave and the Adams family and Joseph and Fanny go out to dinner with the
peddler, the narrator begins unspooling the last of his plotline, which is full of surprises and faux
reversals of fortune. The spectacular threat of incest is raised, something that is sure to put a
damper on any love affair. The reader learns that Fanny has been stolen by gypsies, which turns
the story into a sort of fairy tale, since gypsies were not in the habit of stealing children from the
English countryside. In this regard, the author takes a page out of the Greek playbook. Sophocles,
one of the three great Greek tragedians, wrote the Oedipus cycle, in which the worst kind of
misfortune is brought down on a family because a son separated from his family accidentally
marries his mother in later life. But Joseph Andrews is a comedy, not a tragedy, so Fanny simply
faints away with the thought that Joseph is her brother, and the parson falls to his knees in
thanksgiving.
Summary:
Book 4, Chapter 13: Mrs. Slipslop brings Lady Booby the news that Fanny Goodwill and Joseph
Andrews are siblings. Pamela Andrews Booby has her doubts about this revelation, and the squire
suggests that his aunt invite everybody to the house, including Fanny, to sort out the matter. Mr.
and Mrs. Andrews are arriving the next morning, so they will find out from them whether there
is any truth to the story. Because of bad weather, the entire party stays overnight.

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By: Hayder Gebreen

Book 4, Chapter 14: Beau Didapper waits about an hour after everyone has gone to bed to
execute a plan to steal into Fanny Goodwill's room and satisfy his desires. He accidently sneaks
into Mrs. Slipslop's bed, pretending to be Joseph Andrews. Didapper soon realizes his mistake,
as does Slipslop, but she will not allow him to escape, yelling, "Murder! murder! rape! robbery!
ruin!" Parson Adams hears the alarm and runs without putting his clothes on into Slipslop's room,
mistaking Didapper for a maiden, since his skin is soft, thus helping him get away. Since
Slipslop's skin is rough, he attacks her instead, thinking she is a man. Lady Booby comes into
Slipslop's chamber to find the naked Adams, and after some accusations and explanations, the
three of them sort out the confusion. Adams now attempts to return to his bed but ends up in
Fanny's room and lies down next to the soundly sleeping female. Joseph and Fanny have secretly
planned to meet before dawn to discuss their predicament, so when Joseph knocks on the door
and Adams answers, Joseph finds his mentor in bed with his fiancée. This mix-up is also sorted
out without mishap, and the two men return to their rooms.
Book 4, Chapter 15: After Fanny Goodwill dresses, Joseph returns to her room, and they decide
to live together in celibacy, maintaining a platonic friendship. When the Andrews parents arrive,
everyone assembles to hear their story. Mr. Andrews was in the army when Mrs. Andrews gave
birth to Fanny. When she was about 18 months old, two gypsies came to the door, one carrying a
child, and offered to tell her fortune. While Mrs. Andrews left to get refreshment, the women
switched the plump, healthy girl with a sickly boy and then disappeared. Mrs. Andrews briefly
went mad with grief but grew to love Joseph. When her husband returned, she saw no reason to
tell him the story, in case he would love the child less. Mrs. Andrews also confirms that Joseph
has a strawberry birthmark on his left breast. The peddler tells Joseph that he was also stolen, by
his common-law wife's account, from a family of greater means, and that he has an idea about
where they live. By fortuitous circumstance, Mr. Wilson is passing through the parish to see Mr.
Adams, and when he hears about the story of the stolen children, he bursts in on the company to
find Joseph (his son). The two have a joyful reunion.

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By: Hayder Gebreen

Book 4, Chapter 16: Lady Booby leaves abruptly, sending her nephew best wishes for a good
journey. Squire Booby invites everyone to his country estate. On Sunday, Joseph Andrews and
Fanny Goodwill marry, and the happy couple returns to Joseph's family home. Mr. Booby
provides a gift of 2,000 pounds to Fanny, which Joseph uses to build his own small estate in his
father's parish. Squire Booby provides Parson Adams with a lucrative living. Soon Fanny is
pregnant with her first child. Lady Booby returns to London and takes up with a young captain
of dragoons.
Analysis: Once it is revealed that Fanny Goodwill might be the sister of Joseph Andrews, Lady
Booby graciously invites everyone to her house to sort out the mystery—at the suggestion of her
nephew. Both she and Squire Booby have a vested interest in the outcome of this mystery. If
Joseph is Fanny's brother, then the coast is once again clear for Lady Booby to move in on Joseph.
Of course, she is not considering how he might feel about such an arrangement since she doesn't
treat Joseph like a person but like a sex object with no agency. Squire Booby also has an interest
in the outcome, since if Joseph is Fanny's brother, he is no longer the squire's brother-in-law. The
bad weather sets the scene for the slapstick comedy that ensues in Book 4, Chapter 14, when
everyone stays overnight.
The goings on that begin when Beau Didapper attempts to get into bed with Fanny are vividly
described and could easily be adapted and made into a comedic film. Didapper is a fool to think
Fanny would ever mistake him for Joseph, even if he is a good mimic, but his overestimation of
himself and his charms allows him to make that error. He has one appearance to the outside world
but quite a different appearance to himself in his own mind. Mrs. Slipslop is not fooled by him
for a moment, but she yells about murder and rape because, according to the narrator, she wishes
to restore "her lady's opinion of her impregnable chastity." Slipslop also wishes to make
something appear the opposite of what it is: she is no maiden, and besides, she is quite a lascivious
old woman. Like Didapper, her attempts at sleight of hand are somewhat pathetic.
Parson Adams, ever the inadvertent clown, next gets into bed with Fanny, who has no idea he is
even in her room because she is sound asleep. The purity of these two ensures that nothing
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By: Hayder Gebreen

untoward happens between them, but when Joseph finds him in Fanny's room, he has a moment
of doubt before he is convinced that Adams has no designs on his fiancée and came into her room
by mistake. When Joseph and Fanny talk later, they decide that, even if they are brother and sister,
they will stay together in a chaste relationship. This shows that the sexual passion they feel for
each other is a manifestation of a love deep and strong enough to continue, even if they are
forbidden physical contact. Whether they would actually be able to carry through on such a life
together is another matter, but certainly their hearts are in the right place.
At last, the Andrews parents arrive, and all is made clear. Appearances are wiped away, and
reality is established. For all his leveling of class distinctions, Henry Fielding cannot help but
make Joseph Andrews a gentleman after all. Thanks to his strawberry birthmark and the
revelation of his true parentage, Joseph gains back his original family and is able to keep his old
family as well, who have now become his in-laws. For her part, Fanny, who had no family, gets
back her original family and a set of in-laws besides. It's a perfect ending to a tale of love
consummated. The narrator takes one parting shot at Samuel Richardson when he says that Joseph
married Fanny with no intention of taking up the high life. Richardson had published a two-
volume sequel to Pamela, describing his heroine in her new, genteel life. Joseph and Fanny, on
the other hand, have retired to the country.

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