Unit 1: Some Aspects of Fiction (PDF)

& --- - UNIT 1 SOME ASPECTS OF FICTION t S ructure 1.2.1 The Novel as Fiction 1.2.2 Fiction as History 1.3.1 Some Problems 1.3.2 Shift to Prose in the Eighteenth Century 1.3.3 The Nov...

& --- - UNIT 1 SOME ASPECTS OF FICTION t S ructure 1.2.1 The Novel as Fiction 1.2.2 Fiction as History 1.3.1 Some Problems 1.3.2 Shift to Prose in the Eighteenth Century 1.3.3 The Novel as a New Literary form 1.3.4 The Ndvel as Comedy 4 LetUsSum Up s the word fiction' poses problems, the aim of this unit is to examine the relationship etween fictional and realistic depictions. The novel can be seen as dealing with uestions, issues as well as with the 'facts' of history. The eighteenth century is the entury of prose as well as the rise of the novel, with both prose and the novel focusing the common ways of life. The novel emerged as a new and significant mode of iting - becoming more than a means of providing entertainment, it became a means of dical questioning that would lead to a change in entrenched attitudes. The aim is to iscuss these questions in the course of this Unit. This is the fvst Unit of the first Block in your course on t'he British Novel. As such, you : will find that we discuss some basic issues here which will help you to understand not just Tom Jones but also the subsequent novels prescribed, so go through each section carefully and critically. Now that you are doing a Master's degree, you will need to read widely and variously. Try and find some of the"books on the novel recommended at the the end of the Block from yo& local library and try to read these alongside this Unit. Its not compulsory for you to read these books but reading them will certainly enhance your understanding of the novel as a literary form. 1.2 THENOVEL 1.2.1 The Novel as Fiction (9).As against imaginative or fictional, the novel is a realistic form. It presents that segment of life and society, in more or less approximate terms, which has been seen and - experienced by actual men and women of a particular period. The concept of mirroring or reflecting an object is more significant in the case of the novel than it would be in the case of poetry or drama. There is indeed the assumption that a social situation with its problems and issues is faithfully recorded in the novel and that the reader does not come across any major flights of imagination on the part of the writer. Also, in the novel, there are no concentrated descriptions that point towards the dark recesses of the mind, the mysteries of the soul, as it were. At the time of writing, the novelist seems to have definitively concluded that his men and women are ofithe day-to-day kind, working, Tom Jones chatting, moving around, without the high furnishings of the soul, psyche or mind. They I seldom poeticise or see themselves in the heroic mould. While pursuing their ordinary goals of securing bread and butter which entails most of their waking hours, the peasants, craftsmen and traders of a specific social world are part of mundane situations. The job of the novelist is to see how these people conduct themselves, enmeshed as they are in their specific surroundings. - While reading a novel, we may feel that we have been transported to z) different world with its own laws, rules and regulations. Towns and villages, markets, streets and pathways hold out as actual places'with their distinct colouring and feel. Yes,the emphasis is on actuality.Not only are the people shown as speaking with their very own mannerisms, but ordinary information about their appearance, condition, opinions and states of mind also is imparted by the author in his or her own voice. This second aspect of the writer's practice implies that the describing person, the novelist, has an opinion and a point of view according to which shehe judges without much scruple the actions of the different characters selected, consciously and with an ostensible purpose, for presentation. The judgement of the writer is biased as all judgements are. The biases obviously indicate that the writer is totally immersed in the overall fate of the characters as well as the effect of their behaviour on the life and nature of the society. In this sense, the writer can be seen as a responsible member of the actual society of that time as well as the society reflected in the novel. The remarks of the author meant clearly for sharing with the reader, lend authenticity to the description in the novel and make the reader accept it as a truthful account. This leads to a state in which the reader is strongly drawn into the ethos of the world of the novel. In the course of reading a novel, therefore, the reader may feel that he or she is witness to an actual happening in which real peoople have been involved. The words in the text do not merely signify something outside of or away from them. Instead, the words are there on the page as a picture or pictures which introduce the reader to their world and bind him or her to its specific aspects. There i; no wonder that the reader of the novel would get fully absorbed in the goings on of the world chosen for representation in the work. This is what I mean by the novel as a realistic form. 'Imaginative' on the other hand denotes an unreal thing, a 'creation' of the mind of a person gifted with an unusually inventive and powerful imagination. It is also suggested that words in a text under the imaginative category have to be taken as tools and that the artist works with their help to fulfil hisher specific artistic, moral or spiritual purpose.. This purpose may be to produce a literary work of exceptional symbolic spiritual significance. What is fictional then? The word "invented" or "invention" is yet more mehingful in this case. It denotes that the account presented in a work bears no relation with the reality of life as we know it - it is imaginative and more, it is 'fictional.' In this sense, fictional would be more appropriate a term for poetry. Isn't fiction a "non-fact," a lie? Most of us wish to leave the existing world of hard routine and drugdery so that we move to another in which we can do what we like, where "wishes would be horses." We also notice that the maker of the lie, a liar, is an interesting person as against one who preaches high morality. Have we watched the behaviour of a liar closely? If we have, we would mark that a liar, a compulsive liar, is one who is mentally alert, and all the time notes changes in the faces of the listeners, who keeps track of their moods, and constantly struggles to find out what his or her audience wishes to hear. The liar accordingly modifies the lie as it is in progress. This is because of the fact that the ligr is highly inventive and imaginative. But there is a difference. While poetry and drama are also invented and imagined, they cannot be equated with a. On the other hand, they are "high truths." Is it not because of this 'lie' aspect that the Some ~ s ~ e & s vel has been associated with fiction? While poetry and drama talk about the Truth, the of Fiction iversal all-embracing wisdom, the novel as a fictional piece may rest content with resenting an ordinary life-situation. In this way, the irony behind the 'fictional piece' annot be missed. Or can it? I.2.2 Fiction as History 8 iction or fictional has come to acquire such strong affinities with the novel that we use e two synonymously. Walter Allen in his book The English Novel has drawn our on in this regard to the issue of artistic representation- the way a writer gives to an experience in herhis work. Characters in a novel symbolise specific attitudes ven society and the writer conveys through them those significant impressions she or he has gathered from the surroundings. Characters and social impressions ge into each other and the end-product strongly binds us to the represented action. the writer does not merely 'gather' impressions from life. What happens is that sions precede characters and are in fact moulded and re-made into characters by uthor. In this sense, they a E truly fictional -moulding and remaking imply that the s imagination has been at work in an intense manner. There is also the problem of ation that the writer is supposed to invent. This means that ers in the novel cannot be constructed and rendered flesh and blood unless they placed in identifiable circumstances of our own world. The men and women in a ur links with the period in which the writer has lived and stand e actual trends that existed at the time. Through Allworthy, Western, Jones y d stance, we gain close familiarity with the developments in d. The process is complex but the truth is quite simple. In a rcumstance, the society of a period becomes a necessary of fiction. Fiction becomes significatft history.. That is how the line between imaginative and the real gets blurred and history intrudes inevitably into fiction. In alter Allen's words: "Perhaps charactery was neyer anything more than a literary exercise, but its ion to novel is obvious. The first magnificent fruit of its marriage with , however, is seen in works of history, especially in the great portrait of Clarendon's History of the Rebellion. This was inevitable. Before the hich must to a greater or less degree be an imitation of the actual world, could be born, there had to be works already in existence which were not imitations, that is not fiction, but faithful descriptions ofjhe actual world. So, among the strongest influences on what was becoming the novel were works of ke Clarendon's and sobedy careful accounts of real life adventure, distant countries, and strange peoples like Dampier's A New Voyage Round the e question posed here is whether fiction comes to gradually resemble history, or to put way, history becomes the all-important subject of fiction. We can take the and say that around the eighteenth century in England, matter of vital interest for the common writer who sets out to do upon the behaviour and problems of ordinary men and women. ever, the novel is different from history in one important respect. History as we see a long continuous process with6ut a clear tangible beginning as well as an end -it s on unfolding itself beyond its specific actors of a period, its men and women who active within it to influence and change it. On the other hand, the novel begins at a icular point of life in society as well as ends at another point. Those two points in the 1, recognised and chosen by the author are extremely significant, because between Tom Jones them lies that segment of social life -captured as it has been through words -which vibrates with meaning at every turn and also contains within itself a totality and a certain truth. It is a significant difference between history, the life of actual people at a given time, and a literary work. In the examination, students are generally asked to comment on the ending of anovel and tell the truth that has been constructed with its help. Why? Because it is assumed, and rightly perhaps, that the end matters in terms of the lesson which the novelist set out to convey to the reader. Replace the word "lesson" with the word "moral" and what we have is a fable which has to establish a useful aspect of human wisdom relevant to the, period in which the writer lived. The reader gains this wisdom by virtue of arduously following the course of events depicted in the novel and sees that the author conscidusly took him on a specific journey in imagination. The same thing can be perceived in an account of history but with less emphasis since the historian is much more answerable to the ac&ality of events, the socio-historical reality of the.- perio4under study. In history, moral lessons can be noticed as merelyscattered, and the person, the historian, if he chose to clearly underline these morals, can be accused of violating laws of objectivity. He may face the accusation of allowing subjective biases to play the decisive role in the presentation of the historical account. Yes, there are lessons in history, but they are the tentative creations (of course, no useful study of history is possible without them) of the perceiver 6r the interpreter, not of history as such. For instance, a specific 'understanding' of history can be countered by 'another' understanding. You can see contrasting lessons conveyed by another interpreter of the pame period in history. This is becalhse history is no single person's or group's creation. -in fact, being a bigger continuum, it is not the creation of any person, group or, even, the whole society of the specific period. Simply taken, it is found there when we are born and it would, hopefuly, be there when we die. In contrast, the novel is an author's creation -it entirely belongs to him or her. If the individual so wished, the writing of the novel could be indefinitely deferred or the idea altogether discarded. Such is'the grip and bind of the author on the novel, on its writing. Starting fiom the idea of the fictional piece, the author gives it slant and direction. One can go to the extent of saying that the author has a large number of alternative strategies to choose fiom. This means that the shaping of the novel involves a great deal of flexibility. 1.3 THE EVOLUTION OF THE NOVEL 1.3.1 Some Prablems It is useful to go into the h o r y or genesis of the novel in England. There are a rage * number of books on the subject that provide good information about prose works ip the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The idea in these books is that the prose works of the earlier period can be clearly linked up with the novel in the eighteenth century. The common point between the two seems to be prose. Then, there are the stories of discovery, exploration and adventure, which also have laid claims to parenting this modem literfvy form. It is suggested that the spirit of curiosity necessitated a loose fictional form which provided enough scope to the writer to collect information as well as to question, analyse and assess the new material. These stories centred around 'the wandering rogue,' a rootless, un-tied persona whose fascination for new and unknown places could hold immense appeal for the pader. Add to them the imaginary, totally 'fictional' pieces written by their authors i# different countries of Europe to entertain the reader, taking him or her on an imaginary voyage to the world of mystery, wonder and magic. In these, nothing 'real' was intended for projection, their fundamental motive being to give pleasure. Curiosity, suspense and story-telling were supposed to bring these. writings closer to the novel. In this context, all one can say is that important as these imaginative efforts are in their respective languages and periods, they scarcely enlighten u s about the emergence of the novel. All that has come in the wake of such a venture is  guesswork. In fact, the fault in such a genesis-tiacing exercise is that it is based on Some Aspects concept of literary history. The term 'literary history' denotes that there is a of Fiction ct linkage within literature between works written in the past with those written later, that, in a manner of saying, literature produces out of itself. There is also a tendency ure these days of going to the philosophical writings of the in which specific literary works were composed. This is done with a view to ing how a particular writer's sensibility was moulded by those philosophical and trends. The suggestion is that apart from the literary works already existing, hilosophical tendencies which produce new literature. Under this scheme, the merely seen as moulding the available literary material to suit hisher cultural s and of extending the literary horizon a bit further. This assumption should gone into and examined. Literary history, or even history of literature for that is a concept that requires careful handling by the student of literature. I am not that there cannot be a history of the novel theoretically speaking, but that it cannot dependent of that larger history with its specific struggles to break free from les. It is really disappointing to see that reference to actual events, economic and political ones, is missing in discussions about the I 1..2 Shift to Prose in the Eighteenth Century ldom been a medium of serious creative endeavour before the eighteenth. Barring a few exceptions, writers of the past chose verse -longer poems, of definite or indefinite length -to share their views, e audience. That is how it had to be, since the audience the selected few. Till the middle of the seventeenth century, poems could circulating among the narrow circle of friends and fellow writers because presumed to appreciate imaginative work. The idea of the mass of Id be approached through the printed word emerged only in the ry. Why? Did something peculiar happen in the later period? in the eighteenth century came to locate some new issues in society and d them with a seriousness hitherto unnoticed. As said above, one of these issues was more than a subject of debate through the presentation of which the o critique a particular relationship. Earlier, the act of marriage reminded ions of social propriety, class distinction and religion -it was truly instance, the Restoration marriage, the marriage encountered in the comic Restoration period, was between those men and women who came largely m. The would-be partners in marriage talked with some self- ought of choice, need and purpose) and finally joined each other in matrimonial schedule-their background and social upbringing to rethink or breach the social code of the male-dominated family. -established institution essentially reflecting the nature of the older s could not invest much thought in an isssue which remained f the partners in marriage were bold and courageous, narrowly ould be seen only around the seventies of the previous century the impact.of.recent upheavals or changes. But matrimony could not be considered ificant point of living, confined as women were to the home. The higher plane of d itself with such vital priciples as honour, privilege, acquisition things changed radically in the first quarter of the eighteenth e to consider marriage as a whole set of new considerations- ge, commitment. And what stood in focus was not merely the us, alert and honest, but the woman, the new womaq who was ce in society, who saw that new horizons of fulfilment and  liberty had opened in the wake of the socio-political churning England had gone through a few decades before. The epithet 'middle class' is not to belittle or denigrate the worth of these people on whom it had fallen, tb fearlessly as wqll as intelligently, confront the mighty world of privilege. They were the common people of England who had moved upfront by dint of hard labour and industry and who not only asserted their right to equality but also influenced the,policy-making of the nation. They led the lower masses in thought and attitude and e&ctively resisted the Ways of old tradition. Their kind of sharp rational questioning, self-assurance and vigour found a true medium in prose. The ' common people of England, particularly the middle classes, wanted to know and understand. They enjoyed talking. For them, dialogue was more important than statement since it provided to them an opportunity to question and disagree. They also aspired to theorise and philosophise and evolve through tliis a new way of responding to the environment. They took pleasure in crackingjokes and playing with language. Far from being complacent about popular norms, they happily shocked their friends and critics alike. All this required larger accounts and representations. Fielding particularly exemplifies this activated mass of people in England and he lets them talk in their natural style which is prose, the medium through which life in the market, the street, on the road, at the inn, conducted itself. 1.3.3 The Novel as a New Literary Form We have to think about the factors which inspire a writer to choose a particular form from those already existing or, as happened in the eighteenth century, evolve a new one so that it served as an appropriate vehicle for his purpose. The process of the evolution o f a form is highly complex because one can see in it a concrete dialectical interaction between a writer's 3rge to communicate and an environment which on its part iq hardly passive, which persists in its ilireatening posture wit11 the exisqng modes of expression. I particularly want to stress the presence of women, a whole lot of them, in'the eighteenth century society who had the leisure to relax at home with a book or periodical in hand as well as the inclination to know how to dress, walk and converse but also to contemplate upon the questions of right and wrong in life. They were no ordinary women. They were the wives of those men who had become more productive than members of any other social group in the economic field, who organised manufacture from procurement of raw material and employment of artisans to work with it to making available space for collective activity and looking after the deployment of correct methods that the artisans would use to turn out finished goods. More than this, they arranged money for all this activity which saw them through in the final activity of selling the goods in the market so that profits came flowing in. It appears to be a simple activity of the economic kind on the surface but is actually a highly challenging and problematic social activity affecting life-conditions as a whole. This is because in the course of this endeavour, the involved men who were also creating a new value pattern, a novel way of makink sense about tendenciesthat were thrown up in the life in the market. Still more, the market as a new powerfbl centre of activity spread out to cover all vital areas of existence including ideology and spirituality. Some significant developments could be seen in the early eighteenth century ip England on the literary-cultural plane. One of these was the rise of the periodical -a magazine or pamphlet which sought to engage the average person in useful conversation. This average person was the middle class city-dweller, the gentleman proper or the gentleman in the making who had an interest in the daily occurrences of life, who did not want to merely put two and two together but to also develop a no-nonsense pragmatic understanding to guide him. Such needs were earlier fulfilled in tlie case of the lower masses by the village parson who interpreted the age-old principles of life and behaviour for the benefit of the common person. However, the difference between the need of the new middle class city- eller we have in mind and the common person with whom the parson communicated Some hpecta in their social positioning -the former also asking for pleasure while receiving of Fiction uidance. Naturally enough, this new gentleman-in-the-making looked elsewhere service in the direction of a non-religious, secular agency. Hence the fulfilment ed by the periodical - an instrument which did away with the compulsion of a specific place at an appointed hour and instead provided the service at one's. Of course, for availing oneself of the service, one had to meet the precondition. This the particular individual could well afford in the given social. In its infancy, the novel incorporated some of the functions and traits of the e Novel as Comedy in the eighteenth century differed immensely from that in the seventeenth.It became lighter in vein and dealt wit11 those issues which could be easily ake the case of social manners under whose overall perspective questions such and love were considered by the writers. The relationship of love became portant in social discourse in which great emphasis was laid on individual an and the woman together took the decision to marry and thus set at ssures of family and society. As a consequence of this empllasis in the century on decision-making by the individual, norms and principles of came under severe criticism. One of the reasons why an ordinary person associated wi@ heroic qualities such as courage and fearlessness was that an segment of society, the middle class to be precise, stood to gain from protest ince that weakened the hold of the privileged sections on social behaviour. c, marriage became a means for the middle class to question the values used by entrenched interests. The focus on social manners takes us away serious%pestions of work, shelter and upkeep to be provided by a society to its. Only those who have solved the problems of bread and butter think of evolving iour. The issues of virtue, goodness, morality and kindness which fall ry of ethics and manners are of great interest to the progressive s. Further, the discussion of manners suggests that the members of this ally capable of improving their behaviour, that they have lose look at their norms and principles in ordzr to adopt a strategy to progress and improvement. In this sense, the improvement in manners is y a question of active choice. The individual in such circumstances is expected to of histher social environment so that slhe can then take guidance from the environment can be inimical and become an ction is something that is beyond the imagination of this highly e perspective of manners as we understand them, can we adequately define love iage? Well, love in such a case would be a relationship between two persons latively free from social constraints. Society can certainly cause problems to would not prove more than a mere inconvenience. On the other hand, love for d the woman involved would be a challenge they have to meet in order to ish - love offers them scope to draw upon their inner resources and assert, s of meeting it, their selfkood. say that froni such a love, the journey to marriage is a more or less smooth union between the young people, even when they are socially unequal - one m a poor background and the other belonging to the upper. social stratum - ising of eyebrows and some clever scheming by a few to thwart it. But the m orthodox quarters may at the same time inspire some other members in Tom Jones society to stand in support of the lovers. This clash ending in merely the ruffling of a few feathers, therefore, does not lead to dangerous hostility and violence as it did in the past. Were love and marriage challenges in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for the individuals who were involved in the relationship? The answer is obviously no. Neither love nor marriage could be separated from the social structure of the time. It was a bond that decisively affected the elite in their pursuit of power, prestige and honour. Both were "social" and "political" events - they made statements about the families, the dynasties ,md the important streams of traditional behaviour to which the specific persons belonged and which came into play when certain individuals decided to take the "law" in their own hands 1.4 LET US SUM UP One of the points on which the middle classes of the eighteenth century were exercised was transition. 'fie question these sections confronted was : How to interpret the change that was taking place around them in the world of manners and attitudes consequent upon the economic power they had come to acquire. There is no doubt that change was desirable. But could it be pursued with vigour which is possible only when one is sure about the positive outcome? Obviously, history could not be rolled back as the entrenched interests of the landed gentry wished and whom the village parson in his religious wisdom tended to serve. We come across innumerable arguments against an&in support of change in the books written in the eighteenth century in which 'modem' was a much criticised word. At the same time, we notice a definite shrillness in the words of those who opposed change. Perhaps, they were fighting a losing battle. On the other hand, change in itself did not denote anything specific and tangible. Because of this, one could clearly discern a vacuum iri the 'spiritual' temtory. It so happened that the writer stepped forward to fill this vacdurn through the mould of 'conversation in prose.'.I Introduction.2 A Reading of ~ o k ~ o n e s 2.2.1 ALookatTom'sStory 2.2.2 Problematic Nature of Squire Allworthy 2.2.3 The Philosopher and the Clergyman: Their Comic Nature happenings in life since his purpose as a writer is not to offer explanations and revolt and Sophia's adamant posture notwithstanding, the final picture emerging. Toin Jones Of course, we see a movement against hindrances. However, problems multiply with each new development. This results in the regrouping of the forces hostile to the peculiar social_energyI talk of. The reader is given to feel that this energy is not properly harnessed. In fact, narrow orthodox formations (the moral-religious system, patriarchy, etc.) create serious obstructions in its way. As the novel progresses, the reader helplessly watches that the agents of the status quo (Blifil, Square, Thwackum and Squire Western) consciously thwart any possibility of challenge to the interests of property and privilege. A clear sense of dismay is discernible at the end, with Fielding failing to offer any 'real' answer to the questions posed in the novel. In such a situation, the author could perhaps provide only a 'comic' solution. The question I want to pose is : Is this a success or failure of the author? 2.2 A READING OF TOM JONES 2.2.1 A Look at Tom'; Story The novel has been given the title Tom Jones. At the obvious level, the book is a story of Tom's life from the time he was born till the time he married Sophia. Let us take a glance at some important points raised through the depiction of Tom's life. The novel opens with the discovery of a young male child on the bed of Squire Allworthy. The child is given the name Tom Jones and is referred to as a bastard, an obvious object of ridicule, rejection and condemnation. The discovery puzzles and confuses the moralistic- traditional society of the time. The disturbed individuals and families of the place fail to adopt a sympathetic attitude towards Tom -Mr. Allworthy being the only exception to the rule. This great benefactor accepts the child as his own and gives good reasons in support of his decision. Allworthy's nephew Master Blifil and Jones share the geneiosity of the benefactor equally. The treatment that the two get bears testimony to Allworthy's sound principles of Christian behaviour and the reader is reassured that Jones would receive proper upbringing and care. The answer, therefore, to Jones's problem of preservation comes, as we see, from a good and understanding Christianity which unhappily is beyond the scope of most of the inhabitants of the place. What also strikes us is that Mr. Allworthy, because of his privileged position, could alone rescue the helpless foundling from difficult circumstances. It would have been totally different if Mr. Allworthy, the good Christian and an example of moral rectitude, were an ordinary person. We witness that Allworthy's decision to adopt the child starts off a whole series of loud and not-so-loud protests as well as suspicions about his motives. The question emphatically asked many a time in the novel is: Isn't Tom Mr. Allworthy's own son since, to the questioning and ever-suspecting people of the household, nothing else can explain the latter's action? Allworthy's decision to adopt Jones is undoubtedly an act of transgression in traditional- moral terms. More, it clearly touches upon economic aspects such as the inheritance of land and money. The world of landed property and privilege has so far used Christianity to legitimise its existence and has pushed higher virtues beyond the purview of common people. Allworthy shocks the privileged group by consciously selecting the contrary way of interpreting his religion. 2.2.2 Problematic Nature of Squire Allworthy However, we become conscious of a certain kind of pompousness in Allworthy. We note that he stands alone in the novel and enjoys a status high enough to be accepted as a moral judge of everything happening in his neighbourhood. Standing alone is not a happy - situation -it denies to the person concerned a sense of involvement and participation in the common occurrences of life. Placed at a distance fiom everyone, Allworthy would  ow only that which he perceived in others. This can create problems of comprehension As we First d consequent taking of decisions. There is no denying that he may carefully go into the Read : Tom ues,faced by the people at large and offer sane advice to them. But this, as we have Jones ,places him on a high pedestal by virtue of which he preaches to others (rather than ng with them) the high principles of morality. Earnestness and sincerity of purpose him a sense of superiority by which everyone at Somersetshire remains overawed. at I wish to emphasise is that interpreting situations in the light of Christian goodness benevolence is Allworthy's forte and an active principle in his behaviour. On the ther hand, standing apart from common action (disinterestedness and an impersonal de, come to mind in this context) and judging on the strength of reason and kind ion was indeed a value in the age of enlightenment. We become a bit puzzled, erefore, to see that Allworthy misjudges things quite frequently in the novel. When he does this, we become acquainted with that great irony of which Fielding is an acknowledged master. Consider for instance this statement of Allworthy : You know, child, it is in my power, as a magistrate, to punish you very rigorously for what you have done; and you will, perhaps, be the more apt to fear I should execute that power, because you have, in a manner, laid your sins at my door.... for, as no private resentment should ever influence a magistrate, I will be so far from considering your having deposited the infant in my house, as an aggravation of your offence, that I will suppose, in your favour, this to have proceeded from a natural affection to your child... I should indeed have been highly offended with you, had you exposed the little wretch in the manner of some inhuman mothers, who seem no less to have abandoned their humanity, than to have parted with their chastity. It is the other part of your offence, therefore, upon which I intend to admonish you, I mean the violation of your chastity. A crime, however lightly ittmay be treated by debauched persons, very heinous in itself, and very dreadful in its consequences. The heinous nature of this offence must be sufficiently apparent to every Christian, inasmuch as it is committed in defiance of the laws of our religion, and of the express commands of Him who founded that religion (66). re, the author has deliberately chosen to withhold from Allworthy the true information ut Tom's parentage. Having clone this, he has given full freedom to the speaker to upon the ills and evils of immoral behaviour. In addition, phrases such as doned their humanity,' 'violation of your chastity,' 'Him who founded that eligion,' etc. underscore the pomposity of Allworthy unmistakably. We should also keep mind the fact that the novel as a whole is to take a sharp critical look at chastity, stancy, humaneness and kind sympathy, with Jones seen as learning about them in the as he grows up. The author administers a series of shocks through Jones's conduct in cult life-situations. In fact, under the broad scheme of the author, Allworthy is going be thoroughly manipulated by Blifil, an aspect designed to show the hollowness of bstract principles which we uncritically adopt. I..2.3 The Philosopher and the Clergyman - Their Comic (?) Nature rom here, we move on to the situation in which the job of imparting moral-intellectual dance to Tom is assigned to Square and Thwackum by Allworthy. The author has eived and drawn these two comically. While Square projects the secular atheistic lays stress on correct and consistent human behaviour, Thwackum everything in strictly religious terms. They are so much given to a representation of principles and ideals that every remark they make amuses e reader. Fielding uses them to a plan which is to provide through them an entertaining scourse on trivial as well as important matters that Tom and Mr. Allworthy face from sffering analysis that they never once sit back &ponder. Instead, they rush in to offer ,a:t simple predictable views. This is an example of how educators come to obstruct the ~~ental'growth of a pupil. On his side, ironically, Mr. Allworthy feels quite satisfied with ine arrangement he has made for the moral education of Tom and Blifil. The writer's plan under which Square and Thwackum work has another aspect to it. As the two teachers go about their business of leading the pupils on to the path of enlightened behaviour, they gradually come to serve a purpose other than comic and begin to seriously influence the action in the novel. This compels the reader to think that the consequences of thqir 'real' conduct could be sinister. For instance, their attempt at " winning the attention of Mrs. Blifil is not merely comic. It is true that in this venture, both Square and Thwackum prove to be foolish while Bridget emerges as a clever manipulator. Still, the episode is too damning for the philosopher as well as the preacher. Can such people fulfil the charge which Mr. Allworthy has given them? In fact, combined with the conspiratorial skills of Blifil, the practice of Square and Thwackum can quite comfortably 'mislead' Mr. Allworthy himself who apparently is the reigning deity of the novel. Till the end of the novel, ~ l l w o r t keeps h ~ the reader impressed byhis "all-worth" and sharp intellect. And yet much remains unachieved. In fact, Blifil almost brings about the destruction of Tom and sets at nought the happy prospects of Sophia. We, therefore, conclude that Square and Blifil become part of the big evil machine of the novel and that their 'comic' nature turns more and more dangerous and, therefore, un- comic as events unfold in Tom Jones. ' 4 What does Tom symbolise? Tom's character stands out in the novel as one which i~ entirely 'unformed.' He appears to be a mere lump of clay. He has that classic inability to adhere to a given code since he would not understand its worth or relevance. It is a different thing that by nature he is kind and generous. Yes, 'nature' is the word. Therefore, good is not good or desirable per se in his case. Instead, it is 'natural' for him to be good. As the reader sees, Tom suffers a great deal for being naturally good and selfless. It is entirely understandable, therefore, that conventions, traditions and norms do not mean anything to him but as so many rr~inorhurdles in the way. We are particularly struck by Tom's attitude towards women. Tom always treats women, irrespective of their social standing, as equal to men. His behaviour in this context is not influenced by that exploitative attitude under which the malesare supposed to manage. the affairs of soc'iety and women have to merely act as their appendages. He contains within himself the purity of a 'human' than the distinctive traits of a 'male' which can be taken as a gender construct of a given society. This 'human' in Tom constitutes the essential good qualities both of menmd women. In fact, in some respects, one can see anore of 'the woman' than 'the man' in him -the softer, purer, more honest and empathy-prone aspects that we have come to historically associate with a woman's *emperament.Apart from this, he can scarcely apprehend that people would act under ?anow considerations of profit and on that account take advantage of anyone's gullibility :a.~d innocence. But,'= noted above, innocence is Tom's strong point. It is this which sets him apart from those people, of high as well as low birth, who have become un- innocent in the process of living. Still a n a e r trait of Tom's character is that he isgreatly courageous and fearless and has the requisite strength to go ahead in the business of 5ghting. He would more often than not be able to conquer his enemy if engaged in a fight aith him. 30 many qualities can be rarely visualised in an individual. It is this which suggests that Tom emerges in the novel more as an idea and a spirit than a flesh and blood character. I - 3 'idee,' not an 'idea! ' The latter has connotations of 'fmishedness', something which  ready there for the human beings to look up to, something like that we find in Mr. As we First orthy's case. No, Tom is not that kind of an ideal. On the contrary, Tom exemplifies Read : Tom idea of 'spontaneity' and 'natural behaviour.' As an idea, Tom also critiques that Jones ch is detrimental to the naturally good aspect among people. If Tom's character is to reted thematically, he can be viewed as that idea of spontaneity which remains of constant struggle with a pre-existing structure of norms and conventions. I, 2.3 RELATIONSHIPS IN THE NOVEL 2.3,l Tom and Sophia in Togetherness and Contrast o we compreheild Tom's fascination for Sophia? We know that he has mate with Black Partridge's daughter, Molly Seagrim. Is it merely that tiful, elegant and has a goddess-like quality about her charm? No, Sophia re than this ideaiised version of a woman. Her social helplessness against her r's ways is not an ordinary occurrence and leaves a deep impact on her personality. g threat of a marriage with Blifil lifts her up from an abstracted existence her the horrors of certain doom. Sophia is so entirely convinced of her Blifil as husband that when Mrs. Honour, her maidservant, mentions Blifil ,sweet, handsome man," Sophia angrily remarks, "Honour, rather than wife of that contemptible wretch, I would plunge a dagger into my the response of that doll-like figure who always moved about in sweet and urroundings. After Sophia runs away from home in the company of Mrs. see her more and more as a concretised individual struggling to move away dise' that was her home. She becomes more and more 'real' in this process. e from that w e a l world strangely prevents her from becoming an ordinary all-accepting individual who would get reconciled to anything because out in the particular circumstance. At the same time, she is definitely not ntaneity or naturalness. But she has that which Tom doesn't -a sense of needed and an inner life which is a product of introspection and self- e strength of this, she finally becomes a truly thinking individual. Mark that she writes in London to Jones : A promise is with me a very sacred thing, and to be extended to everything understood from it, as well as to what is expressed by it; and this consideration may perhaps, on reflection afford you some comfort. But why should I mention a comfort to you of this kind? For though there is one thing in which.1 can never comply with the best of fathers, yet am I firmly resolved never to act in defiance of him, or to take any step of consequence without his consent. I equired to compose a totality of understanding which as a idual to proceed towards virtue and goodness. I consider that vigou would soon weaken and lose themselves in anarchic and sustained by a rational self-appraisal. And the trait of be 'acquired' with effort, it is not 'spontaneous.' Fielding, a conscious and an analysing-commenting artist, shares with the perspectives of Tom and Sophia and indicates a meaningful linkage He seriously believes that the two perspectives complement each other of a significant totality. Torn Jones Though apparently dissimilar, the attitudes of Tom and Sophia have some common points. For instance, kindness and generosity are qualities they share. Again, both have the capacity to rise above their immediate personal interests. There is no denying that Tom is deeply in love with Sophia and would sacrifice anything to win her hand. Still, he decides many a time to sacrifice this wish if that ensured her safety and preservation. Sophia, too, places personal happiness far below her duty towards her father -she would not marry anyone if Squire ~ e s t i m did not approve of it. The only point she sticks to, and it is a high point of her self-assertion -is that Squire Western would not choose a husband for her. She makes it abundantly clear that if that happened, she would leave all and run away to the farthest corner of the world to preserve that highly personal and sacred temtory of conscious choice. This is a trait of individual self-assertion. But we should not lose sight of the basic morality of this position. This can also be considered an attitude of self-abnegation that an individual adopts with a sense of conscious choice. Tom and Sophia seem to be moving in the direction of this attitude which they finally come to symbolise. It also imparts a unique value to their characters and transforms them into inspiring examples of conscious activist behaviour. Particularly in the case of Tom, self-abnegation corn> out to be his strongest redeeming feature, strangely in one who apparently loved easy pleasures and indulgences and scarcely observed the high principle of cznstancy. But such is life! 23.2 Tom as Squire Western's Companion and Friend In one important respect, Tom is closer to Squire Western than he is to Mr. Allworthy. There is no doubt that Tom has always remained attached to Mr. Allworthy as an obedient child. He has been brought up under the affectionate and indulgent gaze of a virtual parent. The essential spirit of this phase lasts in Tom's behaviour till the end of the novel. But there is no easy sense of give and take between Tom and Allworthy - they do not interact at the level of 'equality.' The one speaks with dignity and the other listens with reverence. On the other hand, Tom is a friend to Squire Western. They hunt, dine and laugh together. When Western learns of Tom's various affairs with women, he is pleased no end with his pal's successes. Western is conscious that Tom is of doubtful parentage, a bastard, mixing up with whom may violate the norms of social intercourse. More fundamentally, Squire Westem is full of that raw energy with which Tom himself is abundantly gifted. However, the difference between the two is equally immense -Squire Western is. nature's own to the extent of being a beast. Bereft of true education in the ways of social -- conduct he has rarely, if ever enjoyed the benefit of advice from others -Western continues to remain till the end a wild and untamed animal. Mark the way he decided to leave the pursuit of his daughter midway as he caught sight of a hunter wiQ a pack of hounds venturing out into the forest. There is still more crudity in his imposing strict physical restrictions on'sophia. Worse, he cares little for Sophia's right to choice in marriage and doesn't mind employing force to get her acceptance. Tom's attitude towards Sophia, as we know, is opposite to that of Western's. What can Tom make of such a friend as Squire Western? A good person, though thoroughly impulsive and unpredictable. 2.33 The Father-Daughter Angle In fact, one should have a second look at Squire Western's 'goodness,' something by which his dear daughter stands befooled, born, as she thinks, to fulfil daughter-like duties to a 'great' father. She associates fatherhood with sanctity and quite strongly feels that the father should belong to an altogether different category. She has her way at the end of the novel but the terms of her vi~foryvis-A-V~S her father are highly 'emotional' and,  ,restrictive (for the disadvantaged female) as against rational and realistic. An As we Fimt f this kind in the daughter does not make sense to the reader because of the Read : Tom on involved. In her c&e, it has been always been a one-way affair. Jones Western is a picture of fondness, yet his love for the daughter is of a nthinking. At the time of the final resolution of Sophia's marriage in 11, the reader may be swept off by the force of sentiment oozing from the doesn't have in mind Squire Western the man but the mythical father who his child into being. It is in this sense that I say Sophia is 'befooled.' The concept ful daughter fulfilling her filial obligation would hardly cohere with Squire 's long and oppressive history of subjugating a wife because she was a woman, ,born to remain servile. Or maybe she sees the gap between the father and Western and wishes that the two images join. It is interesting to note that only character in the novel who openly opposes a woman's right of en and unabashedly preaches women's suppression. ability should look out of place in such a character and I wonder as to ould harp on his innocence and sweet foolhardiness. He appears 'comic' helplessly with his sister on account of Sophia's marriage. But we also ntext is different and that the brother is mindful of the money and estate dd to this the fact that the sister is a political being with opinions that feminist even today. Fielding seems to have consciously visualised le vis-a-vis her brother in that Squire Western is raving mad most of ster is the right counter-force (her education, conduct and politics a14 at e) to check him. But Squire Western can also think of mundane ers like money even as he is an amalgam of folly, vigour and uncontrolled energy. unds his role as a woman-hater. 2.4 LET US SUM UP \ ppears to be the story of Tom and Sophia. But Tom has a benefactor, f teachers and a number of friends. He also has quite a few enemies. Sophia is not merely an individual with that name but also a e. She also has a confidante. The situation of love in which Tom and rings many other people into play. All these people have their own om what they do towards the novel's central pair. I have given some unit. In the next one, I would go further into the ramifications of the as been built around Tom arrd Sophia U 2.511 GLOSSARY t Soc 1 energy: The general emotion that affects and activates large groups of people at a particular time. Such an emotion is generated in transitional periods in history. 1 Pat ' rchy: A specific mode of social organisation in which the male-dominated family structure is the rule. It particularly suppresseswomen economically socia7ly and legally. Tom ones , *a 5 , Inner life: The point or solitude m a person's life in which emotions and feelings sustain the individual in situations of distress. This idea works behind expressions such as the thinking being. Significant totality: Georg Lukacs's concept. The unified experience that a writer captures in hisfher work. The act of capturing implies that the writer considers the experience fully reflective of the nature of his society. Individual self-assertion: Quite close to "expression of individuality." This is seen in the case of a character who takes a bold stand, silent or vocal that works contrary to the interests of a group, an institution. 2.6 QUESTIONS 1. As a novel, Tom Jones is deceptively simple, with a story that makes no significant demands on the reader. Do you agree? 2. Do you see the projection of a moral viewpoint in Tom Jones as one through which the author aims at correcting distortions in human behaviour? Discuss..2 Varieties of Female Representation -fiom Low to High Strata 3.2.1 Bridget as an Intelligent User of Skills 3.2.2 Molly Seagrim and Mrs. Waters 3.2.3 Lady Bellaston's Degradation & Vacuity.3 Fieldings Narrative Strategies 3.3.1 Role of the Narrator.4 Let Us SumUp is unit, I shall acquaint you with the complex nature of Tom Jones. Yes, we should cio-historical developments within its ambit. I say this because Fielding is more than a lear not merely fiom the prefatory chapters he has added to each book in the novel b ~ t uations. I plan here to focus more upon the behaviour of characters and the situations which they find themselves. across as a repository of wisdom and Tom as an eager though inconsistent learner. We also saw that there always remained a great distance between the two at the 1 of communication. How about Tom vis-a-vis other characters? I took up this Tom Jones 3.2 VARIETIES OF FEMALE REPRESENTATION-FROM LOW TO HIGH STRATA We are struck by a great variety of women characters in the novel. It is indeed surprising how Fielding assigns such clear and distinctive traits to each one of them. He must have had a large fund of social experience to draw upon and a keen eye to set apart one type of female existence from another. I say this because unlike men, who have a share in the power-structure at different levels in the world of the novel, women have to be largely restricted to their sexuality. 3.2.1 Bridget as an Intelligent User of Skills As noted above ,Bridget Allworthy, in spite of her superior social status, is 'wooed' ( a mild form of being sexually approached) by a number of people at different points of time. She is not good-looking. Still, marriage with her can be planned by aspirants such as Captain Blifil, and the senior Blifil. Square and Thwackum, too, consistently try to win favour with her. What is clear is that these four have always hoped to attain money or power through sexually exploiting, and more pertinently, subjugating her. Bridget knows it quite well and thinks of using it to further her own ends -a quite 'legitimate' way in the circumstances to use her position as a woman. In Fielding's view, "So discreet was she in her conduct, that her prudence was much on the guard, as if she had had all the snares to apprehend which were laid for her whole sex" (54). She cleverly manipulates the philosopher and the clergyman and reduces the two to the level of abject seekers of sexual favours. We should also not forget that it is Bridget who is the firsr woman in the novel to violate the code of matrimonial sanctity, by which her great brother swears so much, and gives birth to a bastard who, as we see, raises her role of committing ever-new violations of the sexual-matrimonial code to a different level altogether.'And ironically, the dead Bridget has had her way in the end in so many different senses. She is able to do so largely because social privilege protected her from crude encroachment by any of the males. Also, she is less gullible because of superior upbringing and education than other women in the novel. Be that as it may, we are presented through her with an attitude of counter-violation of the all-suppressing patriarchal code by a woman. This planned act of negation by her can be appreciated 'comically' and 'heroically.' 3.2.2 Molly Seagrim and Mrs. Waters Molly Seagrim attracts the reader's attention more compellingly as a symbol of aggressive female sexuality. Fielding seems to be deriving a great deal qf fun from her depiction, but the laughter of 'comedy' is seldom at her cost. Instead, he clearly upholds Molly as a powerfblusymbolof human vigour and raw sexual power. Molly has none of the prudish, hypocritical sense of chastity of which Fielding accused the heroines of Richardson's novels. In fact, Fielding visualises Molly in excessive animalistic terms. It occurs to us later that this wild, unrestrained, almost overflowing sexuality becomes in the novel a sharp comment onLady Bellaston's promiscuous behaviour. We see Lady Bellaston planning her affairs cynically with different men on the strength of skills and home-work. In the latter's case, sexuality changes into a sick routinised behaviour. Tom himself loses much of his dynamism and gusto as he interacts with her. Her morally debilitating influence upon Tom is comprehended quite well by Sophia herself. This is reflected in her certain rejection of Tom till things reveal themselves in a radically different light at the end.  rs yet another variety of female behaviour. She has a long history of Important a1 harassment. The two harassments can't in fact be separated. But we Thematic Areas in distorted sense of values regarding relationships. Perhaps, her affair with Tom Jones military officer with no rootedness in settled existence, has left an n her -a mark of easy utilitarian relationship. Any new male can a series of such happenings may eventually land her in a I surface, we may note a few similarities between Mrs. Waters and Tom in their e to sexual morality. But a close look would reveal that insofar as the relationship een the two is concerned, Tom is an object of seduction, to which he undoubtedly umbs rather easily, while Mrs. Waters is the seducer. More, we have seen Tom ly in all situations unlike Mrs. Waters who can't be called innocent. seems to be to confront the reader with the disastrously unsettling idea ge. In fact, we do not become entirely free from the horror of Tom ng possibly gone to bed with his own mother. In this case, chance only helps. But ce or no chance, the situation is such, with Tom's recklessness and lack of serious spective and Mrs. Waters's worse than amoral ways (we have to distinguish between two), that the protagonist of the novel might as well have been his mother's partner in hance, it is the omnipotent narrator who rejects the option and des to make the novel an epic and, therefore, pull Tom out of the possibility of incest. e author's decision were to make the work a tragedy, the novel would be a repetition us. But that is not the genre to which Tom Jones belongs in its basic spirit and rs. Waters helps us see the enormity of unscrupulous sexuality -it mes crude and excessive in her case with the passage of time. In this way, the ose behind the introduction of Mrs. Waters in the novel is not merely to contribute to the plot but to offer another variant of female behaviour. With its help, nanity of Mrs. Fitzwater, whose sob-story appears episodic and narrow scope as well as the cynical disregard for ethics and scruples behind Lady Bellaston's ell-orchestrated operations. Ig !.2.3 Lady Bellaston's Degradation and Vacuity (?) ielding considers Lady Bellaston in strictly moral terms and finds her deficient in re' as well as 'education.' She is presented as actively participating in masquerades re the men and women of the upper stratum of society entertain themselves. The ene is typically eighteenth century and reflects a growing amount of laxity in morals ng people in higher London circles. When Tom, innocent as he is, is exposed to this osphere, he does not see the moral degradation and vacuity underlying it. On her part, Bellaston is struck by the looks of Tom and plans to keep him as her lover. A cool r of games in fashionable London, Lady Bellaston employs clever stratagems to ep Tom away from Sophia and uses her social standing as well as money to ensure that remains firmly in her grip. t of her personality in which this projection of Lady novel. Here, I refer to Lady Bellaston's inherent fears as an secure woman in the presence of Sophia's sweet and dignified ways. Lady Bellaston is t individualistic, self-centred and mean. We hardly see any idealism or moral sense I hand, Sophia is driven by a superior sense of love. We perceive intense urge in her to self-question. Sophia is tom apart between her lover and filial things have all along remained alien to Lady Bellaston. In this clash of is bound to lose. The presence of a superior sensibility has made a woman totally reassured of winning Tom's love. The sense of Bellaston points towards that whole boredom of the stagnant life (the formation) into which the upper stratum of the English society has TomJones fallen and which denies its women the pleasures of being honestly and loyally related to the members of the opposite sex. If we look back fiom the scenes of London life to the way people went about their business in Somersetshire, we realise that the high and mighty as well as the poor and helpless remained firmly rooted in a life of relative stability and honesty there. On the other hand, the London atmosphere is too cynical and cold to allow simple pleasures of natural give and take. Lady Bellaston becomes acutely aware of the growing loneliness and uncertainty in her existence as a woman.This is specifically caused by her watching Tom as totally absorbed in the thought of joining with his beloved Sophia. The only way Lady Bellaston can assert herself in the situation is to thwart the efforts of the two lovers to join each other. Where does the novel'come to an end -in Book seventeenth or eighteenth? It is again a difficult question to answer. Fielding seems to be keeping the two options open and inviting the reader to make hidher own choice. Looking at the novel @oma close realistic angle (words such as convincing, acceptable and logical come to mind in association with 'realistic'), we feel that Tom has become too helpless and weak (he cannot fight the whole structure single-handed) to even wiggle out of the situation in the given circumstances. The 'logic' of events in the novel strongly suggests that Tom is destined to fail, which in his specific case means losing Sophia as well as all connections with Mr. Allworthy. This points towards the likely success of Blifil's sinister plans, who operates in the novel in the manner of Fate, out to systematically destroy Tom's prospects of fulfilment at the end of his journey. 9 The narrator says as much in the seventeenth book and calls Tom's situation desperate. But this kind of 'realism' does not seem to go well with the spirit of the novel. Instead, Fielding sets much store by the 'comic approach' which stresses the vital significance of human intervention moved by the urge to change. It is this urge and attitude which inspires the narrator to continue into the eighteenth book and tell the reader confidently that Tom and Sophia were not born to fail. 3.3 FIELDIN%'S NARRATIVE STRATEGIES , 3.3.1 Role of the Narrator I shall discuss at length the question of narration in a separate unit. This is essential since the importance of this fictional device is immense. However, a brief comment is necessary here. - I see a kind of omnipotence in the narrator of Tom Jones. He can do whatever he wants to. He can, for instance, give a specific direction to the course of events and influence decisions of characters. More, he can defend his actions with the force of argument. This serves a useful purpose in the novel and compels us to think about the identity of the protagonist. Normally, the author is himself the narrator. However, we come across many authorial comments that are to be accepted by the reader as such and those others where the author talks tongue-in-cheek. The problem is further compounded when we see the narrator at work not in the sense that he narrates a saga but that he creates a saga after his own liking and judgement, and narrates it in the very process of creating it. The author himself combines this kind of role in ToqJones. Still, as the action unfolds, we see a distancing between the narrator and author as well as the creator and author. This has happened because the 'history' called Tom Jones has been conceived in the broadest - possible comic mould a serious analyst and commentator wearing a comic mask has taken upon himself to 'create' a 'history' according to the law of probability and convenience. Nay, this serious-comic voice does not accept any discipline for itself and,  t, rides rough shod on territories of morality, religion, ethics, love, beauty, carnal Important. ~y S, meannesses, etc. Thematic Areas in Tom Jones se who see the narrator as the author himself, would face the difficulty of proving the whole unfolded 'drama' in the novel can be no more than an extension of ess -that the unifying element in the novel is the author's This goes against the clash of perspectives in the novel with Fielding n d to provide coherence to a number of discordant voices. Tell me - Mrs. Waters, Allworthy, Bridget, Tom? What I think is that the nstitutes a dramatic interplay between various pa& and these parts existence independent of the author's consciousness. Yes, in the absolute sense, or has been conceived and created by the author but once that has 4 s beg'ilh influencing and determining the course of happenings. If we do not accept the concrete existence of the ors in Tom Jones, we would be hard put to comprehend those points in the ss where things stop 'moving.' We notice that wherever this happens, the ely explaining many things, but invents arguments, situations, appenings, and even total reversals of fortune. The narrator never fights shy of e for such interventions and bravely moves on to tell unbelievable things. the joke is practised invariably under the pretext of 'histoyy.' I feel that the serious entator has withdrawn himself many a time from behind the mask or, ,allowed the mask to be peculiarly shaped by the comic intention. then, are masks. In either case, Fielding the author seems to watch ent of the action. 3.4.2 P h c a as Segments of Life :the Country, the Road, the City important thematic aspect of the novel is the division of life in segments. These' ular representations bear the stamp of the place to which they belong. Together, concrete segments bring to life the whole diversity as well as interrelatedness of enth century English life. As a faithhl observer of contemporary situations, ng presents the true picture of his surroundings, doing it with the intensity and of a creator of history. re are three distinct places in the novel -Somersetshire, the road (paths, towns and spread over the distance between Somersetshire and London), and the city of ncerned, these three represent distinct.phasesin his r instance, Somersetshire stands for a dull and stagnated existence. In arned men, Square and Thwackum (who interpret situatione lace has been managed and governed since a long time by narrow ief. Magistrate Allworthy uses his intellectual might just to help people ey commit. Squire Western quarrels or socialises with neighbours on nary principles. The common people - men and women - fight it out s whenever a disagreement between them takes place. Others steal or its, they also cheat. Among the clever ones, Blifil mixes truth and at he can outwit the best of men. But what we largely see is a movement is circular - you come back to the point from where r attention to Sophia's mother who married the wrong man. The going to marry a wrong man (Blifil) under circumstances that are ink of another detail, Partridge, the supposed father of Tom, is lace and Jones is equally well forced to run away from it. This s that movement and liberation lies elsewhere though Tom and is consciousness do not know where and how exactly they is certain is that Somersetshire holds no hope.  1 Tom J0'iu.s The s 4 n d place, the road, stresses Tom's need to move and explore. The road also gives Tom scope to reach another place where joining with his beloved may be possible. It holds our hope. On her part, Sophia becomes gradually aware of the value of marriage with a person gifted with natural goodness. This 'road' is rough and difficult, both literally and metaphatically. But it is here that the action is. There is no place better than the road to present the vibrant life of eighteenth century England. Fielding gives us a rare view of the people on the move. The reader sees the soldiers going to fight for causes that may determine the political nature of the country. But these soldiers, in their amorphous military formation behave as individuals with whom the common reader can easily identify, and whom our hero joins for a short period. In fact, Tom thinks for a while to become a soldier - the only difficulty with him is that a career in the military will take him away from his other 'destination,' Sophia. Fielding persists with the depiction of fights, journeys, escapes, etc. in the Man of the Hill episode also. We can imagine, too, the variety of social life that the England of the eighteenth century contained - the innkeepers,travellers in stage-coaches, doctors, priests, barbers, or the gypsies making merry in a secluded part away from the road. The 'road' as a phase of Tom's search and exploration, as mentioned above, is not smooth or straight and can give unexpected jolts to the traveller. The city of London offers a radically different picture. There is 'life' all right but no movement, apart from *at which is noticed on%e surface. The world of intrigue and scandal is seen to engulf everyone. We also perceive a conflict between the country squire ( Allworthy, Western) and the lord (Fellamar) in London. For Western, it is unthinkable to.have Lord Fellamar as son-in-law - the two worlds of status and privilege(of the countryside and the city) being in a state of antagonism. As Lady Bellaston and Lord Fellamar become active to tame and ensnare Sophia, one feels that there is no chance whatsoever of Sophia and Tom uniting. Here, Fielding raises the question of Tom's efficacy as a hero struggling for survival in an atmosphere fraught with threats and dangers. Still more serious is the issue that contending groups converge upon London, a world which itself is quite crisis-ridden, to find a solution of their problems. As we have discussed elsewhere, the city of London makes the possibility of 'comedy' extremely narrow as the fighting faculties of Tom gradually decline. 3 3 3 Breadth of Fielding's Realism It is easier in the case of Tom Jones than most other English novels to move out of the presented situations. The narrator remains insistent that Tom Jones is not a fictional work but history. The division of the description into three clear parts takes us into the manner in which the countryside and the city coexisted and reflected upon each other. Coexistence is a weak word since the relationship between the two social segments was anything but kind and pepceful. The metaphor of the city in Tom Jones signifies a moribund lifemode and the sooner it is replaced or wiped out by the country (Tom- Sophia intervention), the better. The writer could not adopt a harsher attitude towards the social set up of his time. Understandably, it evoked a violent response. i Fielding's sense of realism stands further enhanced by his view of the countryside which, as he sees it, contained a large amount of the natural and spontaneous. In spite of this, Fielding offers a thorough-going critique of the good as well as the negative characters in the countryside by persistently presenting them as targets of ridicule or irony. He does not seem to be sufficiently sure that the vigour and zeal of the simple people can see the society through. In many cases, Fielding understands the ills and evils of Somerset to be entirely insurmountable.  more of the political aspect to it as against the social. Here, the current of Important nger. Rebellion by a section of society and the effort of others to quell it is a Thcmatlc Area point of reference. What England seems to need is a check on lawlessness but in in Tom Jwd 's view, this check should contain in large measure the support of the common Tom's gusto is quite akin to Molly's. Fielding's prpscription is not narrowly an entertainment through fiction that makes the kader aware of the follies, evils of human behaviour through deployment of technique. This is what most and American criticism is preoccupied with. Instead, the prescription is political which Tom Jones shocked the eighteenth century reader. If Johnson tended to immoral and 'vicious,' he did so because he understood-it as going against * norms. For Johnson, these forces were of morality and decency in life. we move on to the higher plane of social history. The novel is not merely but history. Tom signifies the emergence of a new group of people in the ntury English society. This group took independent positions and enjoyed rejecting whatever obstructed its social progress. The group had an outlook sm and constructive intervention. This approach marked the behaviour of s such as Tom and Sophia who were enlightened and modem in the true sense ever, Fielding finds the scope of their onward journey in the novel e see in the novel a fine interplay of actual, fearsome conditions on one rvention on the other. lose sight of the fact that human initiative may not succeed ly. The energy and dynamism of individuals is to be tempered by a great deal of f successfully countering the challenge of orthodoxy acd social e an alternative strategy of action. 'Nurture' is to play an important strategy, meaning thereby that people like Molly, Partridge, Mrs. Miller and be left behind in favour of those who would acquire genuine moral ellectual daring and economic power. Fielding is strongly - may help us reflect upon the hypocrisy and callousness of Bocieties, nations es in the modem world and inspire the reader t? fearlessly critique them. and action. Most of the criticism coming from western countries seems to k this aspect. This practice of academic criticism quite rampant in clouds ow,understanding of such fictional classics as Tom Jones. Tom Jones. Our job as students and teachers is to struggle for a fresh human-centred perspective. ,' More thw others, Fielding needs to be rescued from such vastly influential considerations as plot-structure, irony and artistic authenticity. 3.5 GLOSSARY Significances: The word is popular with modem critical theorists. The plural in the termmbliberate since this is supposed to critique the validity of one, all-important meaning. "Significances" in a novel relate to the different characters and situations. Privileges in a society have a logic and a pattern which evolve from the fact of birth, money etc. Politics, religion and moraliJy manifest the interests of entrenched sections who together constitute such a stmcture. Sexuality: This particularly refers to female sexuality which is sought to be curbed and undermined in terms of morality and tradition. The word denotes a natural physical urge in both males and females. Animalism: Animal-like behaviour in human beings. Tom Jones and Molly Seagrim are good examples of it. Even though the term is positive if contrasted with hypocrisy, by itself it locks in "culture" and developed human traits. ~tarian: Not related to ideas or morals. According to it, things are understood in terms of their narrow usefulness. A bourgeois trait. Narrator : The idea behind this word is that the author's opinion or voice may be different from that of the teller of the tale. 3.6 QUESTIONS 1. In what way do the women characters in Tom Jones appeal to you? Have they been set apart from men in the world of the novel? Give reasons in support of your answer. 2. What is the significance of places in Tom Jones? Do they stand for different sets of codes prevalent in the eightienth century English life? Discuss.  1 UNIT 4 CHARACTERS AS CHARACTERISATIONS 1 Objectives 1 Introduction i Problems of Characterisation 1 4.2.1 Point of View in Fielding 1 4.2.2 Typical and Individual Characters 1 4.2.3 Jenny Jones's Character ) 4.2.4 Social Dimension of Incest I Realistic and Comic Characters 1 4.3.1 Jenny Jones - a Character in the Realistic Mould 1 4.3.2 Characters in the Comic Mould i Let Us Sum Up Olossary Questions I1 4.d 1 OBJECTIVES TheJaimis this unit is to give you an insight into Fielding's attitude to society as exe bplified in his portrayal of comic and realistic characters. 1 4.1 INTRODUCTION t Th Problem in fiction refer to actual men and women in society. They are visualised r in human and social terms. While reading a novel, you would have come scriptions of the appearances and habits of important characters. The es information about their age, station in life and relationship with one er, very soon we start hearing them speak in the first person which means h m the descriptive mould. The dialogue assigned to them puts them in which they have to carry out their specific plan of action. This 'plan of ly called the plot of which all characters are a part. ,then, is a plan or sequence of incidents which is important for us I ~ g e l y it has men and women in it. Good writers pay great attention to the visualisation men. They work and rework them to make the account appealing s~selectthose aspects of society for depiction which directly relate aspects of the world captured by the author combine so well with work gains an identity of its own. This is the problem. It is to separate one part of a work for consideration while others are kept isibility of a Wo; k re parts or segments in a literary work which can be understood in separation? My is that a literary work can be considered a complete and unified whole and may the reader as such. We can go to the extent of comparing'the work with a living ism to stress its oneness and integrity. There is a point in saying that a book cannot p in parts unless we want to "murder it." Harsh words these, but we know that Tom Jones the effect of a literary piece on the reader is of a different kind than that of a philosophical treatise. One way to explain this difference is to say that a novel or a poem is indivisible and has what can be called its inviolability. But what do we make of the fact, while reading a book, that a specific aspect of it draws our attention more clearly than the others? To put it differently, how does it happen that in our discussion about texts, certain areas get exclusive emphasis while the rest are more or less entirely ignored? Some of these areas can be identified as characters, the opening and ending as well as the process through which the action moves inexorably towards the ending, one or more recurring references (symbols, metaphors, myths) and the specific presence and role of the author. I am talking of the class-room discussion or the seminar format under which the 'serious' readers exchange their individual impressions about a work with one another and assess the validity of one impression against the other. When I say "in our diskussions," I have to be aware of the significant encroachment the serious student of literature makes on the work's territory, its world with diverse segments of life, meaning thereby that "divisions" and "separations" of the kind reflected in "impressions" actually take place not in the text but in the mind of the reader. All discussions about literature, the whole critical enterprise stands upon this exertion and effort of the reader to "make sense" of a book in her or his individual context. A consideration of "aspects and parts" - they are arbitrary divisions - of a book helps us as its critical readers to enter into its nature and spirit. No doubt the divisions contribute mightily to our comprehension of the author's urge to share his or her response to the prevailing environment. It is this urge, this response of the particular author, which constitutes the work's distinctiveness or inviolability -the unifier of the work being its maker. We understand a lot more acutely the author's world, social and cultural, through his work, his particular response to it. The Common Reader versus the Critic But there is another format, that of the comprehension of a literary piece by the "common reader," the educated sections in the larger society, as different from the "specialist reader," the student of literature and the critic. The common reader may not be "professionally" interested in seeing those nuances which presumably take our response to a higher plane, he or she may instead seek a direct link of the work with the world surrounding him or her. This happens many a time in the case of the works which reflect specifically on contemporary issues. The common reader may feel that the book in question - the poem, the novel, the play - contains a message and a statement about the actual situation of the time. The question is : How do we as serious "uncommon" readers of literature deal with such an attitude? In my view, the idea of literature as cahying a message should always be cherished, * though we notice that most of the criticism coming from the western academe has discarded it. The academy in the first world, that is how they have to be called by us, tends to divide the human creative-intellectual endeavour in separate compartments~ economy, politics, philosophy, print and audio-visual media, ideology, literature, theatre, linguistics, the arts, etc. Under this scheme, the message has been assigned to politics, ideology or the media. Literary criticism, on the other hand, has come to gradually constitute the "internal areas," the linguistic-textual aspects of a book. But can we, the members of a third world society which stands deprived of even the basic means of subsistence, afford the luxury of a class-room or seminar format? In fact, Raymond Williams reminds the reader in the developed world of the west that literature should be firmly placed "in society."  Characters as 4.2 PROBLEMS OF CHARACTERISATION Characterisations ,characters afford important clues to the author's attitude and response. They about the way the author's mind works in the process of understanding nality within a particular system. But before I comment on a character or a ers in Tom Jones from the angle of human personality, I wish to state that a work of fiction is always a symbol, a concretised pattern of social hat I imply is that social behaviour can be a good subject of comment - you iour good, bad or just acceptable. This goes against the notion not be analysed except in psychological terms An individuality novel has nothing to do with a flesh and blood human being - it is a dividuality, not an actual one. Let me explain further. A character's or what is called characterisation reflects essentially upon (tells about) its creator - the author - and not upon that 'personality' which a novel tain within itself. Arnold Kettle struggles with this idef throughout his An Introduction to the English Novel. But Kettle does not resolve the what he calls "life" and "pattern" and merely settles down to accept two separate types of fictional works under the categories of "life" and as argued that there can be a certain type of character which engages reader in realistic-experiential terms - the reader feels the way the d that the reader enters the emotional world of the character'. For this is "life" as captured by a novelist. Kettle's category of "pattern" the opposite the author's moral or social viewpoint. To my mind, it does not er whether a character has more or less of "life" in the sense Kettle. I also add that recognition of "life" in a character in fiction may to unnecessarilyexplore his or her "psychological depths." How does a critic course, we read a number of books which analyse a character's mind, going, for sons why Maggie in The Mill on the Floss decides to run away with er, the question is whether we explore her mind or study the iety, family, etc.) that influenced her perception. Such a critical ut Maggie but George Eliot. I reiterate that the character in fiction an extension of the author's consciousness. On the other hand, the reader, in the 1, gets acquainted with the author's understanding Bnd point of 4.2. 1 Point of View in Fielding 's case, identifying the attitude is not a problem. Unlike most English ielding clearly states his'socio-ideological position. When he as an author a particular character or is critical about an issue, he offers sharp comments approval. Of course, while doing so, he adopts the comic mode and we have his repertoire of comic devices is immense. Nevertheless, none among the r left in doubt about the author's critical stance, If found unacceptable, people are ridiculed and exposed unambiguously in his works. It is also to be at more than the comic devices and dramatic presentations of events and is Fielding's remarks which enlighten and alert the reader. To say that ays ironical and sel *3mforthright in his remarks is wrong. The fact is that largely informed by that deep commitment to virtuous conduct which strong involvement in social affairs. Consider the 'non-comic' and quite is statement : "I would not willingly give offence to any, especially to in the cause of virtue or religion. I hope, ther