Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding, pioneers
of the new genre, the novel, have laid much emphasis in their works on the
exploration of the concept ‘virtue’. Richardson in his pioneering work Pamela
limits the concept ‘virtue’ to chastity, especially female chastity, while
Fielding in Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones reaches for its broader
classical sense - arête. Virtue as arête
means the attainment of one’s highest human potential both physically and
mentally.
The Oxford English Dictionary defining
‘virtue’ quotes Joseph Butler, an 18th century English philosopher,
who defines the term as “what is right and reasonable, as being so; in a regard
to veracity, justice, charity, in themselves” (675). An examination of the
definition points to the fact that chastity
alone could by no means be taken as an equivalent to virtue, and in fact it is not even the most important of the many
qualities that constitute this multifaceted concept. Thus, in comparison to
Richardson's limiting definition of ‘virtue’, Fielding’s reading of the term is
broader and more compatible with its 18th century elucidation as
well as the modern one which defines virtueas “voluntary observance of the moral laws or standards of right conduct”
(675).
Richardson, the middleclass capitalist, is
clearly using his work Pamela to showcase the values and aspirations that
are dear to him and his class. Hence, despite her family’s descent into
poverty, Pamela remains the quintessential middleclass gentlewoman. Thus, by
making Pamela cling to her chastity Richardson
coerce Mr. B, a member of the nobility, to look beyond her body and recognize
her as his spiritual superior. Finally, the novel is intended to be a
celebration of the triumph of the middleclass values over the moral decadence
of the nobility; however, under a closer examination the text fails to reveals anything
more than the ugly underbelly of the middleclass ambitions.
Virtuousness of Pamela has a hypocritical
and calculated air. The heroin records several occasions in which her virtue
and beauty have been praised by her fellow workers, Mr Williams, and Mr B
himself which due to her all too frequent claims to humility reeks of hypocrisy.
The title page of Pamela states
that the book was “published in order to cultivate the Principles of Virtue and
Religion in the Minds of Both Sexes” (1). But Richardson himself defeats the
stated purpose by including scenes which are titillating to such an extent that
Charles Povey denounces Pamela as duplicitous and questions how “amorous
Embraces…[could] inculcate Religion in the Minds of Youth” (qtd. in Downs 64). In
the first half of the novel the heroin is constantly under the threat of being
ravished by Mr B. Hence her decision to postpone leaving Bedfordshire in order
to embroider a waistcoat for her would-be-ravisher points to three
possibilities: naïveté, masochism, or calculated-ness. The zeal with which
Pamela accepts Mr B’s marriage proposal and her subsequent behaviour, however,
points strongly to the second option.
At first glance, the marriage between
Pamela and Mr. B looks like a progressive act. Yet a closer analysis of the
novel reveals that the union is little more than a trade of sex for status. In
fact Henry Fielding hits the nail on its very head when he mocks the hypocrisy
in Pamela in his ribald parody Shamela in which the heroin’s letter to
her equally promiscuous mother reveals that instead of “making a little
fortune” by selling her body she has decided to “make a great one by …
[marketing her] virtue” (53). Mr B’s letter to Lady Davers shows that his
status as an aristocrat has always been immune from any possible stigma he
might have incurred by marrying below his class; thus, there is no grand progressive
gesture involved in his part in marrying Pamala. Conversely, the marriage
changes Pamela’s status and exposes her hypocrisy. As soon as Mr B has married
her, Pamela awards him divine status and declares her desire to please him in
every possible way. Furthermore, as a part of her transition to her husband’s
world, Pamela rejects her identity as a gentlewoman. Her zest to let go of her
former identity is laid bare when she states, “of late been so much honoured by
better company” she could not “stoop to” the level of her former colleagues anymore
(414). Thus, Pamela’s marriage to Mr B is yet another story of rags to riches
with very little large-scale moral or social implications.
Joseph Andrews, too, begins as a
parody of Pamela; however, it evolves into a serious discussion of the
concept of virtue within the first
book itself. Most of the wealthy characters in the novel are morally depraved.
In contrast, Parson Adams, Joseph, and Fanny, despite their poverty, are
extremely virtuous. In fact their extreme virtuousness is often exploited by
the unscrupulous characters they meet on their journey. Though Joseph’s single
minded determination to save himself
for his dear Fanny oozes of parody, his reason for it - the Christian concept
of premarital chastity - does not appear calculated as Pamela’s. As with
Joseph, Fielding evokes humour at the expense of Parson Adams, but he never
allows the clergyman to be a figure of outright ridicule. In fact the writer
uses the virtue of the two male leads as a touchstone in testing the
genuineness of the self-proclaimed virtues of the other characters in the
novel. However, in contrast to Richardson,
Fielding accepts the difficulty in pigeonholing characters as virtuous or
vicious: genteel Mr Wilson is a reformed rake; kindly Betty is free with her
favours; and the generous postilion turns out to be a chicken thief.
In the
preface to Joseph Andrews and Shamela Fielding distinguishes between
vanity and hypocrisy: “For as Vanity puts us on affecting false characters, in
order to purchase Applause; so Hypocrisy sets us on Endeavours to avoid Censure
by concealing our vice under the Appearance of their opposite Virtue” (6). He
states that vanity “hath not the violent Repugnancy of Nature to struggle with,
which that of the Hypocrite hath” (7). Thus Parson Adam’s pride in his learning
is nothing more than harmless self-indulgence while Mr B and Pamela’s reasons
against Joseph’s marriage to Fanny, Lady Booby and Slipslop’s behaviour towards
Joseph and Fanny, and Parson Trulliber’s behaviour towards his flock are
viciously deceitful. Fielding certainly does not approve of vanity but at the
same time he absolutely detests hypocrisy. Thus, though the writer is clearly
not above raising a chuckle over the naive vanity of characters like Parson
Adams and Joseph, his bitter satire is reserved for the hypocrites like Mr B,
Pamela, Slipslop, and Lady Booby.
However, Fielding’s disapproval of the
conduct of some members of his own class does not necessarily make him an
advocate for an egalitarian society. The writer equates class with virtue by
making his heroes gentlemen by birth. At the same time, Fielding is careful to
note that nobility in birth does not assure nobility in deed. Thus, true
nobility is a blend of ‘nature’ as well as ‘nurture’.
The writer ridicules Pamela’s
ambitiousness, but this does not mean that he is completely against social
mobility for he himself engineers upward social mobility for his morally
excellent yet poverty-stricken heroes so that they would find themselves
occupying places that are rightfully theirs from which they have been pushed
out sometime in the past by chance or adverse forces. In that sense, Fielding
is an advocate of the Great Chain of Being put forwards by the Greek
philosopher and educator Plato in his Republic. Then, what Fielding seems
to dislike is the hypocrisy of preening in borrowed feathers.
On
the issue of chastity, unlike Richardson who pretends to consider all forms of
pre-marital physical relations as abhorrent yet titillates the reader with the
ever-present possibility of Pamela being ravished by Mr. B., Fielding allows
the attraction between Joseph and Fanny to be translated into physical
expressions. The very mutuality of their attraction and the fact that it is in
essence foreplay leading to the
blessed state of holy matrimony immunize their petting sessions and Joseph’s
frequent admiration of Fanny’s physique against lewdness. In contrast, the author rejects the rapacious
sexuality of Lady Booby, Beau Dapper, and Mrs. Slipslop.
Fielding has cast the hero of Tom Jones
after the likes of Achilles of the classical world; physically he is extremely
attractive and most of his qualities are of a well-bred gentleman. Tom’s flaws
are his sensuousness and impetuousness. The novel traces the reversal of Tom’s
fate (peripeteia); his acknowledgement
of his weaknesses (anagnorisis); and
the subsequent efforts made in order to overcome them.
In a letter to Astraea and Minerva Hill
Richardson states that Fielding has made Tom illegitimate as a sign of his disapproval of what he stood for. This
statement highlights the narrowness of Richardson’s petty middleclass concept
of the qualities that determined the worth of a man and in no way a reflection
of how Fielding looked at Tom, the protagonist of his novel Tom
Jones. On another
occasion Richardson states that “the virtues of Fielding’s heroes were the
vices of a truly good man” (qtd. in Cross 159). However, in Tom Jones, whenever
Tom goes astray as in his trysts with Molly and Lady Bellaston, Fielding makes
sure that the hero is exposed to humiliation and vulnerable to his enemies. In
fact, it is the painful outcomes of his many transgressions that compel Tom to make
an effort to outgrow his flaws. Thus, it is quite obvious that Fielding does
not aid and abide by villainy. Hence, Richardson’s statements go only as far as
to demonstrate his own limited understanding of Fielding’s interpretation of the
term virtue.
As illustrated by Tom and Blifil, Fielding
sees virtue as a combination of qualities inherent in the character of a
person. The half-brothers have been
brought up by the same family; yet, while Tom is intrinsically good, Blifil
lives up to his baleful heredity. Tom’s native virtuousness prevents him from
hiding his misdeeds; consequently, the hero becomes a victim of his own
goodness. Blifil, however, makes an art of concealing his diseased personality
behind a veneer of virtuousness. The writer is more critical of the covert breaches
of good conduct than the overt ones committed with no malicious intents.
Tom believes the best of everyone until
proven otherwise, and even then is quick to forgive. Hence, despite his many
peccadilloes, the youth never loses readers’ sympathy. Similar to Shamela and Joseph Andrews, in Tom
Jones, too, the acidic satire is reserved for the malicious hypocrites like
Blifil and Lady Bellaston. The sheer number of the ‘bad’ characters in the
novel implies that they are the norm and people like Tom, Alworthy, and Sophia
are the exceptions. Once again, in Tom Jones too there are morally
ambiguous characters like Partridge, Nightingale, and Fellamar who defy outright
categorization.
Fielding and Richardson show a marked
difference in their interpretation of female virtue as well. Richardson’s women
are of two types - virtuous or vicious – and no grey in between. Pamela is the
epitome of virtue who said to have been taught from the cradle to prefer death
before dishonour; Mrs Jewkes who criticises Mr B for his vacillation on
ravishing Pamela, on the other hand, is the very picture of wickedness. Fielding’s concept of ideal female virtue is a
blend of moral excellence and
chastity. Thus, Lady Bellaston and Lady Booby who lack both qualities are
completely immoral. The writer’s ideal woman is the modest, sensible, and
beautiful Sophia. Yet, Fielding does not equate female virtue to complete
passivity. Sophia runs away from home and Allworthy, the kindly magistrate,
supports her by stating female virtue need not extend as far as to submit to a
forced marriage.
In conclusion, the differences between
these two contemporary writers’ interpretation of the term virtue are rooted in the differences in their personalities as well
as their socio-political backgrounds. Fielding who had received a traditional
classical education, though impoverished, was a member of the aristocracy. His
counterpart, in contrast, belonged to the newly emerging middleclass that was
trying to sink its roots into the established social strata of the 18th
century English society. As a writer, Richardson, like Defoe, had been entrusted
by the watchdogs of his class with the task of legitimizing the existence of
the middleclass in the eyes of the rest of the British society. According to
Andrew Wright in Henry Fielding: Mask and the Feast, the clash between
the two writers is actually a clash between a “world consisting of middleclass
ambitions” against an “ampler world in which getting and spending are
subordinate to civilization” (17).
Fielding’s interpretation of virtue is by
no means ideal. In both Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones men can be
rakes and still reform to be virtuous. But society, he implies, is quite unforgiving
to ‘fallen women’. If that is so, then Fielding is actually challenging the norms
of his society by raising Nancy Miller and Molly, both ‘soiled’ women, to
respectability. It must be noted that in the cases involving Jenny and
Partridge as well as Molly and Tom, Alworthy punishes not only the women but
the men as well. However, Fielding insists on his heroines – Sophia in To Jones and Fanny in Joseph Andrews – being chaste. This could either be
taken as a concession made to maintain the element of romance in the novel or a
sign of double standards. None of his characters are completely free of flaws –
Parson Adams is vain; Joseph is naïve; Alworthy is gullible; and Tom is both
sensuous and impetuous. Yet, they uphold as Butler demands “what is right and
reasonable, as being so; in a regard to veracity, justice, charity, in
themselves” (OED 675). Therefore, out of the two interpretations, Henry
Fielding’s reading of virtue stands
as broader and more honest.
Works Cited
Cross, Wilber. The History of
Henry Fielding. London:
Yale UP, 1918.
Downs, Brian. Richardson. New York: George Routledge, 1928.
Fielding,
Henry. An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews. Berkeley:
California UP,
1953.
Fielding, Henry. Joseph Andrews
and Shamela. London:
Random House, 1998.
Fielding, Henry. Tom Jones, A
Foundling. London:
Random House, 1991.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. Henry Fielding. London: Home & Van
Thal, 1947.
Richardson, Samuel. Pamela. Oxford: Oxford
UP, 2001.
“Virtue.” The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Vol.
XIX. 1989.
Wright, Andrew. Henry Fielding:
Mask and Feast. London:
Chatto & Windus, 1965.
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An excellent analysis on the subject of virtue presented by Fielding and Richardson.
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