One of fiction’s more irreverent and likable characters, the title character of Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones has entertained readers and viewers of the multiple dramatic forms he later assumed for centuries. What has become familiar to 21st-century readers proved an entirely new approach for those of the 18th, as Fielding wrote whole chapters to introduce each of the novel’s 18 books. He used those introductions to explain the purpose of fiction and suggest for readers the way they might judge the narrative, touching on the moral purpose that Fielding’s contemporaries believed literature should have.

As Tom himself proves a most immoral protagonist, that Fielding could convince his readers proved a delightful feat. Fielding’s readers recognized in Tom the 18th-century ideal of a natural goodness in man that could, with encouragement, be revealed even in the most mischievous human. He represents a prototype of the playboy hero that would appear in later fiction.

Much of the novel’s enduring success is due not only to Tom’s likability as a flawed hero but to the shaping of the heroine, Sophia Western, free of stereotype, as well as of the detestable Blifil, Tom’s antagonist and a disreputable aristocrat that readers loved to hate. The well-drawn characters and dramatic tension counter the sometimes-contrived coincidence and mistaken identity on which much early drama and fiction turned, an inheritance from classic romance.

As suggested by the novel’s subtitle, Tom is literally found as an infant, discovered by the good and wealthy Mr. Allworthy, whose name is only one of several symbolic names in the story. He elects to raise Tom along with his nephew and heir, the detestable Blifil, already a spoiled, self-centered brat who lives to torture Tom with the help of their tutor, the aptly named Thwackum and the so-called philosopher Mr. Square.

While Tom prefers keeping company with common folk, including poachers on Mr. Allworthy’s property, Blifil is too good to mingle with the ordinary man. The gamekeeper’s daughter, Molly Seagrim, likes Tom, but he loves Squire Western’s daughter Sophia, who has already been pledged to Blifil. Sophia first feels affection for Tom when he attempts to help her with a bird, symbolic of Sophia herself, a creature Blifil simply wants to kill. She first voices that Tom possesses a noble character, assuring readers that nobility will triumph in the end.

Tom can get into enough trouble on his own, without being framed by Blifil, but the conflict between the two escalates until they become young men. Tom’s first sign of honor occurs when Molly announces she is pregnant, and he agrees to take responsibility for his actions and marry her. He is freed of that commitment when he learns that she has slept with several men and there is no way to know the identity of the father. However, Blifil ensures that Tom’s reputation is ruined with Mr. Allworthy, who sorrowfully ejects him from his home. Tom plans to join the army and travels with a teacher companion named Partridge.

Tom is surprised to encounter Sophia traveling with her maid, Mrs. Honour. She is fleeing to London to escape the arranged marriage with Blifil, a fact that thrills Tom. When he discovers her lost pocket book, he vows to deliver it to her in London, but has several adventures along the way in the tradition of the classic romance. Each proves his honorable intentions, some of which are lost in mischief and the passion of the moment.

He engages in a sexual affair in London with Lady Bellaston in return for her support. Sophia again enters the plot when Lady Bellaston plans a meeting for her with her friend Lord Fellamar, leading the horrified Sophia to discover Tom’s illicit relationship with his mistress. All hope for establishing a relationship with Sophia seems lost, and after Tom’s participation in a duel in which he believes he has killed his opponent, Bellaston and Fellamar have him arrested for murder.

Although he spends a stint in prison, he has not actually killed anyone, and so is released. Despite Tom’s best attempts, his actions continue to be misunderstood and misjudged. Even so, Sophia continues to pursue Tom, even when she understands he has taken yet another lover in Mrs. Waters; she leaves her hand muff on his bed with her name pinned to it, informing Tom of her continued interest. That Sophia remains on Tom’s mind is evident when he refuses the attentions of yet another possible conquest, the Widow Hunt, choosing to commune with the muff, and by extension Sophia, instead.

Tom’s fortunes return when Mrs. Waters explains to Mr. Allworthy that Tom had “rescued” her from the hands of a “villain.” She testifies, “he is the worthiest of men. No young gentleman of his age is, I believe, freer from vice and few have the twentieth part of his virtues; nay, whatever vices he hath had, I am firmly persuaded he hath now taken a resolution to abandon them.” After being proclaimed a gentleman, Tom is proved one when Allworthy learns from Mr. Dowling that Blifil had hidden a letter intended for him that revealed Tom’s true identity as the son of Allworthy’s sister Bridget, and thus his nephew.

Following this revelation, Blifil earns his just desserts. Tom becomes heir to Allworthy’s fortune and recipient of his blessings, and he at last is worthy of Sophia, who is in love with him.

All schools of criticism find much to study in Fielding’s novel. Feminist critics are interested in Sophia’s stance as the novel’s moral center and also in Fielding’s sexual allusions, as in his vulgar implications in discussions of Sophia’s muff and the control it exerts over Tom, one of several inferences in the novel that also interest psychoanalytic critics. New Historicist critics find of interest Fielding’s stance on issues of the day such as copyright, and the definitions of history and truth, as they pertain to writing; and Formalists look to this early novel for development of narrative and unified plot.

Modern readers enjoy Tom’s rebellious personality and the fact that he is rewarded for his ultimate honesty, although Fielding commented that the quality of one’s inner being is worth little without actions that support it. Despite that statement, only when Tom is proved a member of the wealthy class does he earn his reward, a condition totally acceptable to readers of Fielding’s age, when fiction that featured the commoner as protagonist had not yet developed.

Bibliography

Allen, Walter Ernst. Six Great Novelists: Defoe, Fielding, Scott, Dickens, Stevenson, Conrad. Folcroft, Pa.: Folcroft Library Editions, 1971.
Bissell, Frederick Olds. Fielding’s Theory of the Novel. New York: Cooper Squares, 1969.
Hipchen, Emily A. “Fielding’s Tom Jones.” The Explicator 53, no. 9 (Fall 1994): 16–18.
Lawrence, Frederick. The Life of Henry Fielding with Notices of His Writings, His Times, and His Contemporaries. 1855. Folcroft, Pa.: Folcroft Library Editions, 1976.

Categories: British Literature, Literature, Novel Analysis

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