The
title page of Henry Fielding’s first novel reads as, “The history of the adventures of
Joseph Andrews and of his friend Mr. Abraham Adams, Written in imitation of the
Manner of Cervantes, Author of Don Quixote.” The allusion to Cervantes
and his masterpiece Don Quixote is significant as it shows Fielding’s
indebtedness to Cervantes . Parson Adams is indeed a truly Quixotic figure, and
the structure of the book also follows Cervantes’ picaresque model. Joseph
Andrews is a novel of adventures met while travelling on the road. Joseph loses
his employment in Lady Booby’s service in London, on his way home to the
country to his sweetheart Fanny, he meets Parson Adams. Together they run all
kinds of adventures meeting a host of characters from low and middle-class
layers of society: innkeepers, chambermaids, country squires and clergymen.
The
picaresque tradition belongs to Spain and derived from the word “picaro”,
meaning a rogue or a villain. The picaresque originally involved the
misadventure of the rogue-hero, mainly on the highway. Soon, however, the rogue
was replaced by a conventional hero – gallant and chivalric. The comic element
lay in the nature of the hero’s adventures, through which, generally, society
was satirized.
Fielding’s affinity with picaresque model appears first of all in the
representation of rogue and villainous; secondly, in the humorous style which
often takes a mock-heroic turn, and in the geniality of temperament; thirdly,
in the portrait of characters of certain lower classes of men and women; and
finally, in the humorous or satiric descriptions of the contents of the
chapters and the introduction of side stories or episodes into the main
narrative.
Thus,
the journey in Joseph Andrews is not a mere picaresque rambling, a device
solely for the purpose of introducing new adventures such as we find in the
classic picaresque story, , but an allegorical journey, a moral pilgrimage,
from the vanity and corruption of the city-life to the relative naturalness and
simplicity of the country. The picaresque motif helps Fielding to fulfill his
aim of ridiculing the affectations of human beings. The different strata of
society can be represented through the picaresque mode. The travelers meet
squires, innkeepers, landladies, persons, philosophers, lawyers and surgeons,
beggars, pedlars and robbers and rogues. Fielding’s satire is pungent as he
presents the worldly and crafty priests and the callous, vicious and inhuman
country squires. Malice, selfishness, vanities, hypocrisies, lack of charity,
all are ridiculed as human follies.
The
Picaresque novel is the loosest in plot – the hero is literally let loose on
the high road for his adventures. The hero wanders from place to place encountering
thieves and rogues, rescuing damsels in distress, fighting duels, falling in
love, being thrown in prison, and meeting a vast section of society. As the
hero meets a gamut of characters from the country squire to the haughty
aristocrat, from hypocrite to ill-tempered soldiers, the writer is able to
introduce with the least possible incongruity, the saint and the sinner, the
virtuous and the vicious. The writer has a chance to present the life, culture
and morality prevalent in his time, and to satirize the evils.
Fielding
acknowledged his debt to Cervantes, whose Don Quixote is the best known
picaresque novel in Spanish. Like
the Don Quixote and Panza, Parson Adams and Joseph set out on a journey which
involves them in a series of adventures, some of them burlesque, at several
country inns or rural houses. Like the Don, Parson Adams is a dreamy idealist.
But there are differences, too, between Joseph Andrews and the picaresque
tradition, vital enough to consider Fielding’s novel as belonging to the genre
of its own.
The
central journey in Joseph Andrews is not mainly a quest for adventure as it is
in the picaresque tradition. It is a sober return journey homewards. Joseph and
Lady Booby are taken to London and the reader is given a glimpse of society’s
ways in that great city.
It
is in Chapter 10 of Book I that the picaresque element enters the novel, with
Joseph setting out in a borrowed coat towards home. The picaresque tradition is
maintained uptil the end of Book III. Joseph meets with the first misadventure
when he is set upon by robbers, beaten, stripped and thrown unconscious into a
ditch. A passing stage-coach and its passengers very reluctantly convey Joseph
to an inn. The incident gives ample scope to Fielding for satirizing the
pretences and affectations of an essentially inhuman society.
The
Tow-wouse Inn provides a grim picture of callous human beings – the vain and
ignorant surgeon and the drinking parson. Once again kindness and generosity
come from an apparently immoral girl, Betty the chambermaid. With the arrival
of Parson Adams, the picaresque journey takes on a more humorous tone, with
plenty of farce. The encounter with the “Patriot” who would like to see all
cowards banged but who turns tail at the first sight of danger, leads to the
meeting with Fanny. She is rescued by Adams in proper picaresque-romance style
with hero. Several odd characters are met on the way – such as the hunting
squire – the squire who makes false promises. Then comes the abduction of Fanny
– and the reintroduction of something more serious. We
also have the interpolated stories, which belong to the picaresque tradition.
In his use of this device, Fielding shows how far he has come from the
picaresque school.
To
conclude, Joseph Andrews has a rather rambling and discursive narrative, which
makes us to believe that it is a picaresque novel. But, on the whole, it is not
a picaresque novel rather the picaresque mode has helped him in the development
of his comic theory – that of ridiculing the affectations of human beings.