Humour is
defined as that quality of action, speech or writing which excites amusement,
the faculty of perceiving what is ludicrous or amusing. Humour arises from the
perception of the incongruities of life, from the writer’s awareness of the
discrepancy between what is and what ought to be.
Henry
Fielding, the father of English novel, is one of the greatest humourists in
English Literature. Fielding’s humour is wide in range. It arises from the
coarsest farce to the astonishing heights of the subtlest irony. Joseph Andrews
which started as a parody of Richardson’s Pamela, ended as an excellent work of
art in its own right.
There is
plenty of humour in the novel. A number of characters are definitely humorous
in their conception. Parson Adams and Mrs. Slipslop’s characters are the true
sources of pure comedy. In fact, Parson
Adams’ character is fully exploited by Fielding. His very appearance is ridiculous.
No body can believe that he is a parson. “He possesses a comical face, with bearded
chin and deeply wrinkled cheeks, a fist rather
less than the knuckle of an ox, with a wrist which Hercules would not have been
ashamed of. His legs are so long that they almost touch the ground when he
drives on his horse’s back. He usually wears a tattered old cassock and a
periwig on his head”. We are
also given funny sketch of Mrs. Slipslop’s appearance:
“She was
not at this time remarkably handsome; being very short, and rather too
corpulent in body, and somewhat red, with the addition of pimples in her face.
Her nose was likewise too large, and her eyes too little; nor did she resemble
a cow so much in her breath as in two brown globes which she carried before
her.” In spite
of all that she considers herself a lovable and rebukes Joseph when he does not
reciprocate her love.
Fielding’s professed aim in Joseph Andrews was
to tear the veils of hypocricy and affectation. In his Preface to
“Joseph Andrews", Fielding concludes that affectation is the source of the
ridiculous, springing from vanity or hypocrisy. Fielding intends to laugh
mankind out of its follies and foibles. Fielding, thus, employs ironical and
satirical humour in several places.
Joseph
Andrews has a large variety of humour. Farce is not excluded. Farce is
humour arising from situation, and it evokes loud laughter. The keynote of a
farce is exaggeration to excite boisterous laughter. Joseph Andrews is a string
of farcical situations. Several situations such as the fight
scene at the inn, Joseph falling from his horse and hurting his knee, Joseph
sitting by the fireside while the hostess of the inn rubbing his knee, Parson
Adams in a pan of hog’s blood, Parson Trulliber, mistaking Adams as a hog dealer
and sending him into the hogs’ shed where he is thrashed by the hogs,
the hounds of the Squire tearing at Parson Adams’ cassock, Mrs. tow-wouse discovering
Betty in Tow-wouse’s bed, Didapper
mistaking the room and entering Mrs. Slipslop’s room and Adams mistaking
Didapper for the distressed lady and getting hold of Mrs. Slipslop as the
attacker, punching her mercilessly till Lady Booby arrives on the scene with a
lighted-candle; Adam’s taking a wrong turn in Fanny’s bed and going to sleep;
all these scenes are farcical.
There
runs a fine streak of irony as well. For example, the patriot who
boasts of his patriotism and wants to hang all the cowards , himself turns the tail
and runs away in a critical situation. Even Adams himself is not spared of
ironical humour. Adams’ learned advice to Joseph on moderation and
philosophical acceptance of misfortune is thrown to the winds when his own son
is reported to be drowned. He is vain enough to consider his
sermon a masterpiece. There are, of course, sharp touches of irony in Mrs.
Slipslop’s portraiture and Lady Booby’s affectation.
Fielding
develops the satirical theme most effectively in the scene where each of the
coach passengers is stripped spiritually naked in their confrontation with
naked Joseph.The lady’s false delicacy, the old gentleman’s selfishness and the
lawyer’s professional cautiousness, are all exposed in Fielding’s humourous
tone.
Joseph
Andrews abounds in humorous characterization. The most remarkable figure in
Joseph Andrews, Parson Adams is a
creation of pure humour. He is eccentric, forgetful, absent-minded,
and impractical man. He leaves for London to sell his sermons but forgets the
precious manuscripts at home. Then he marches away completely forgetting the
horse itself. In addition to his absent-mindedness, he has odd gestures and funny mannerism. Adams never
loses his dignity, however much of humour is involved in his portraiture – that
speaks of Fielding's skill as a comic artist. Mrs. Slipslop is another entirely
humorous character. Rearing pigs and being with them continuously has made Parson
Trulliber appear increasingly like a pig.
In
Joseph Andrews there is plenty of burlesque in diction. The mock-heroic
technique produces plenty of humour in the novel. The funny situation of the
bloody fight in which Parson Adams gets doused in hog’s blood is described in
Homeric terms. Similarly Joseph’s encounter with the dogs let loose on Parson
Adams is also described in epic-style. The discrepancy
between the high style and the ridiculous situation produces laughter.
Summing
up, Henry Fielding is a master of
various forms of humour—farce, satire, irony, humorous characterization,
and the parody. At the same time, his humour is very much spontaneous. Humour
arises naturally; it is never contrived. Coleridge is right when he compares
Fielding’s humour with that of Richardson: “There is a cheerful, sunshiny, breezy
spirit that prevails everywhere strongly contrasted with the close, hot,
day-dreamy continuity of Richardson”. He grips the attention of the
readers by his amusing situations and humour. He has been very appropriately
called “a laughing philosopher”.