Joseph Andrews: the Story, Books I and II
Chapter Sixteen
Syllabus topic 1.2, "Joseph Andrews - Henry Fielding"
Pages 83 to 86 of 406
In one line
Joseph, a handsome footman, refuses his widowed mistress and is dismissed, is robbed and stripped on the road home, is rescued by Parson Adams, and the two of them travel together through a series of inns, coaches and magistrates that show what happens to poor people who need help.
Book I: London, the dismissal, and the road
Chapters I to III. Fielding opens by discussing the writing of lives, and Pamela in particular. He introduces Joseph Andrews, his birth and parentage, and then Mr Abraham Adams, the curate of the parish, a man of great learning, great poverty and no worldly sense at all, with a wife and six children on twenty-three pounds a year.
Chapters IV to VIII. The Booby household goes to London. Sir Thomas Booby dies, and his widow's mourning is described with heavy irony. Lady Booby then makes advances to Joseph, first through hints and finally directly. Mrs Slipslop, the chambermaid, makes her own attempt. Joseph writes to his sister Pamela that he is being pressed and intends to keep his virtue, which is the parody of Richardson at its plainest.
Chapters IX and X. Joseph refuses. Lady Booby, humiliated, has him dismissed, and Peter Pounce, the steward who lends money to the servants at interest, settles his account. Joseph leaves London on foot with very little money.
Chapter XI. He sets out to walk home, thinking of Fanny Goodwill, the dairymaid he loves.
Chapter XII, the scene every law student should know. Joseph is attacked on the road by two robbers, stripped entirely naked, beaten and thrown into a ditch. A stage-coach comes by, the postillion hears him groan, and the coachman wants to drive on because they are late and have "no time to look after dead men". What follows is dealt with in full in the chapter on law in this novel, but note the shape: a lady refuses to have a naked man in the coach, two gentlemen will not lend a greatcoat, and the only person who helps is the postillion, who gives up his only garment and is described in a parenthesis as a lad who has since been transported for stealing from a hen-roost.
Chapters XIII to XVIII. Joseph is taken to the Tow-wouse inn. Mrs Tow-wouse objects to a guest who cannot pay. Parson Barnabas visits him with religious comfort of a very thin kind. Adams arrives, having set out for London to publish his sermons, and recognises Joseph. The thief who robbed Joseph is caught and then escapes. Betty the chambermaid, whose history closes the book, is kind to Joseph and is dismissed for a fault of her own.
Joseph Andrews: the Story, Books I and II
Book II: the road, the inns, and the magistrate
Chapters I to III. Fielding opens with a comic essay on why authors divide books into chapters. Then the sermons: Adams discovers that the nine volumes he set out to sell in London were never in his saddlebags at all, because his wife had packed shirts instead. He turns back, and the journey home becomes the novel.
They meet two lawyers at an inn who give opposite opinions of the same gentleman, one praising him and one damning him, and both, it turns out, are describing their own interests rather than the man.
Chapters IV to VII, the history of Leonora. A lady in the coach tells the story of Leonora, the unfortunate jilt, who abandons her betrothed Horatio for the richer and showier Bellarmine, and is abandoned in turn when Bellarmine learns her father will give her nothing. It is an inset tale, told in two parts, and its subject is the same as the novel's: people who calculate.
Chapters VIII to X. Adams falls into conversation with a gentleman who talks magnificently about bravery and heroic virtue and offers to do anything for a friend. A scream is heard. The gentleman runs away. Adams goes to the rescue, knocks down a man who is attempting to rape a young woman, and discovers that the woman is Fanny Goodwill, who had set out to find Joseph after hearing he was hurt.
Chapter XI, before the justice. The rescued and the rescuer are both arrested. The attacker accuses Adams and Fanny of robbing him, and their fellow travellers, hoping for the reward, take them before a justice of the peace. The scene is treated in full in the chapter on law in this novel. In short: the justice is drunk and just back from a fox chase, the company make jokes about Fanny, the depositions are sworn without being read, the mittimus is ordered, Adams is refused a hearing, his Greek manuscript of Aeschylus is taken for a cipher in a plot against the Government, and the whole thing collapses the moment a squire recognises Adams and says he is a gentleman.
Chapters XII and XIII. Joseph and Fanny are reunited at an inn. Mrs Slipslop, travelling in a coach, refuses to know Fanny, and Fielding writes a mock dissertation on high people and low people, which is one of the sharpest things in the book: the ladder of contempt runs all the way down, and everybody is looking down at somebody.
Chapters XIV to XVII. Adams, out of money, walks to the house of parson Trulliber, a fellow clergyman who keeps pigs, to borrow fourteen shillings. Trulliber first takes him for a pig dealer, then, when he learns Adams wants a loan, throws him out and tells him he is no Christian. A poor pedlar, who has almost nothing, then lends Adams the money. Later, a gentleman promises Adams a living, horses, and every kindness, and vanishes before morning.
Joseph Andrews: the Story, Books I and II
The pattern of Book II, and how to use it in an essay
Notice that Fielding builds the same shape three times.
| Who is asked | Who has the means | Who actually helps |
|---|---|---|
| The coach passengers, Book I chapter XII | Two gentlemen, a lady, a coachman | The postillion, who has one coat |
| Parson Trulliber, Book II chapter XIV | A clergyman with land and pigs | A pedlar with almost nothing |
| The promising gentleman, Book II chapter XVI | A man offering horses and a living | Nobody; he disappears |
That table is worth reproducing in any answer on charity in the novel. Fielding's argument is not that the rich are wicked and the poor are good. It is that professions of goodness are worthless and that only conduct counts, and he proves it by putting the same test three times to different people.
What beginners get wrong
They tell the Pamela joke as though it were the whole book. It is Book I. From the moment Adams turns back for his sermons, the novel belongs to him.
They forget the inset stories. Leonora in Book II and Wilson in Book III are set in examinations, and a candidate who cannot say what they are about has read half the novel.
They treat the justice scene as farce. It is funny, and it also shows a man being committed to gaol on unread depositions and saved only by being vouched for as a gentleman.
A worked answer
Question. Reference to context: "that he would rather ride in his shirt all his life than suffer a fellow-creature to lie in so miserable a condition."
The two-sentence answer. These words are sworn by the postillion of the stage-coach in Book I chapter XII of Fielding's Joseph Andrews, as he strips off his only garment to cover Joseph, who has been robbed, beaten and left naked in a ditch, after two gentlemen, a lady and the coachman have all refused him a greatcoat. Fielding adds in a parenthesis that this lad has since been transported for robbing a hen-roost, so that the single act of real charity in the scene is performed by a person the law has since punished as a thief.
The examiner's likely follow-up. Why does Fielding mention the transportation? Because the whole novel argues that goodness is shown by conduct and never by profession, and this is the sharpest possible instance of it.
Quick revision
Book I: Joseph in London; Lady Booby's advances and Mrs Slipslop's; the refusal; the dismissal; Peter Pounce; the robbery and the coach; the Tow-wouse inn; Betty.
Joseph Andrews: the Story, Books I and II
Book II: the sermons left behind; the two lawyers; the history of Leonora; the boasting gentleman who runs from a scream; Adams rescues Fanny; the arrest and the drunk justice; the mittimus and the Aeschylus manuscript; the reunion; high people and low people; parson Trulliber; the pedlar's loan; the gentleman of promises.
The pattern: three times somebody with means refuses help and somebody with nothing gives it.
Test yourself
1. Why does Adams turn back from London? Because he discovers that the nine volumes of sermons he meant to sell were never in his saddlebags. His wife had packed shirts instead, thinking he would need them more.
2. What happens to Joseph in Book I chapter XII? He is attacked by two robbers on the road, stripped naked, beaten and thrown into a ditch, and is picked up by a stage-coach whose passengers argue about whether to take him in, none of whom will lend him a coat except the postillion.
3. Who is Trulliber, and what is his function? A fellow clergyman with a farm and pigs who refuses to lend Adams fourteen shillings and tells him he is no Christian. He exists to be compared with the pedlar, who has almost nothing and lends the money.
4. Who rescues Fanny, and what happens next? Parson Adams, who knocks down her attacker. The attacker then accuses Adams and Fanny of robbing him, and both are taken before a justice of the peace.
5. What is the history of Leonora about? A young woman who abandons her betrothed Horatio for the richer and more fashionable Bellarmine, and is then abandoned by Bellarmine when he learns her father will settle nothing on her. It is told by a lady in the coach, in two parts.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.