To what extent is Joseph Andrews a picaresque novel?
Or,
Would you consider Joseph Andrews as picaresque novel? Give reasons for your own answer.
Or,
Evaluate Joseph Andrews as a picaresque novel? [NU. 2004]
Or,
Would you consider Joseph Andrews as an adventure novel? Give reasons for your answer.
Or,
How are the ‘revolutions and discoveries’ portrayed in Joseph Andrews?
Or,
Write a note on the importance of the journey motif in Joseph Andrews.

Answer: The picaresque novel has its origin in the sixteenth century in Spain, as a reaction against the romance of chivalry. The word ‘picaresque’ has been derived from the Spanish word ‘Picaro’ which means a ‘rogue’ or ‘knave’. Originally, the picaresque novel was a type of romance that dealt with rogues or villains. It presented a series of adventures and misadventures, mostly on the highways, sometimes on the sea. The picaresque novel was loosely constructed; it had no well-organized plot. It was a tale of the adventures or misadventures of a picaro or rogue who wandered from one place to another, from one setting to another, from the town to the country, and from the country to the town. While the rogue hero was wandering, the novelist got a chance of introducing a variety of characters and incidents of painting a society as a whole.

The object of the Picaresque novel then is to take a central figure through a succession of scenes, introduce a great number of characters, and thus build up a picture of society. This is exactly the pattern that the story of Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews follows. The hero is taken through a succession of scenes and situations and has a number of adventures on the roads and inside the inns. He meets persons of different types and tempers. In this way, a picture of society is gradually built up. The novel which follows this design is known as the picaresque novel.

A picaresque novel has the following chief features:

(i) It has a picaro or semi-criminal as its central figure, who brings has to shift for himself to earn his living, and has many adventures in different social settings. As Diana Superman in her book The Novel and Society says, “He is born of poor and degraded parents or he is illegitimate, and has, therefore, to shift for himself early in life.”

(ii) The plot consists of a series of thrilling events only loosely connected together by the fact that the same central character figures in them all. The plot is loose and has no end except the ingenuity of the novelists to invent fresh adventures for the hero. The plot is episodic, and the incidents, are thrilling or sensational.

(iii) There is an immense variety of social settings, or incidents, and of character. Characters from all levels of society are dung and thus introduced.

(iv) A picture of contemporary society is thus presented very realistically and completely.

(v) The novelist may satirize various faults of character or the corruption of society, but his purpose is to entertain and delight the readers.

(vi) He is not concerned, to any great extent, with moral issues. The Picaresque novel is not moral in its intention. 

Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews is widely considered a picaresque novel is written in the form of Don Quixote of Cervantes. The Picaresque tradition belonged to Spain and this word was derived from the word Picaro which means a rogue or a villain. A novel of such type is the loosest in plot-the hero is literally let loose on the high road for his adventures. The novelist of this tradition, however, is not required to organize his plot and structure into a regular, rounded, and coherent whole. The framework of Joseph Andrews also seems to be loose-it is a peregrinating story on Cervantes’s model in the same. Like Don and Sancho Panza, Parson Adams and Joseph set out on a journey, which involves them in a series of adventures.

The central journey in Joseph Andrews is apparently a quest for adventure as it is in the Picaresque tradition. It is a sober return journey homeward. Many characters are introduced while still in the countryside. Joseph and Lady Booby are taken to London and the reader is given a glance at society’s ways in that great city. Lady Booby’s effort at seducing Joseph occurs, closely followed by a parallel scene of Mrs. Slipslop’s attempted seduction of Joseph. The scenes are made partly instrumental in the dismissal of Joseph and that prepares the situation for the journey and its adventures.

In Joseph Andrews, the Picaresque aspect enters the novel with Joseph’s setting out in a borrowed coat toward home. This tradition is maintained until the end of book III. Joseph meets with the first misadventure when he is set upon by robbers, beaten, stripped, and thrown unconscious into a ditch. A passing stagecoach and its passengers very reluctantly convey Joseph to an inn. The incident gives ample scope to Fielding for satirizing the pretenses and affectations of an essentially inhuman society. Elegance and supposed respectability hide callous ugliness and a gleam of kindness emanates from a crude and poor peripheral.

The Tow-Wouse inn provides its own set of callous human beings-the vain and ignorant surgeons and the drinking person. The domineering Mrs. Tow-Wouse sums up her opinion on Christian charity- “Common charity, an f-t”. Once again, kindness and generosity come from an apparently immoral girl, Betty, the chambermaid. With the arrival of Parson Adams, the Picaresque journey takes on a more humorous tone, with plenty of farce thrown in. The encounter with the patriot who turns tail at the first sight of danger leads to the meeting with Fanny. She is rescued by Adams in proper Picaresque romance style with mock trials and hearings. Then, with the abduction of Fanny comes and the reintroduction of something more serious, with Parson Adams jumping out of the carriage of Peter Pounce, the Picaresque nature of the novel comes to an end.

The Picaresque motif helps Fielding to fulfill his aim of ridiculing the affectations of human beings. The different levels of ridiculing can be represented through the picaresque mode. The travelers meet squires, innkeepers, landladies, parsons, and philosophers. lawyers and surgeons, beggars, pedlars, robbers, and rogues. Particular social evils prevalent in the day and follies and foibles of human nature, in general, are effectively exposed. Fielding’s satire is pungent as he presents the worldly and inhuman country squires. Malice, Selfishness, vanities, hypocrisies, and lack of charity all are ridiculed as human follies.

However, the above discussion should not mislead a reader to conclude that Joseph Andrews is a pure Picaresque novel. It is only partly that it is a Picaresque novel. Though it does incorporate in its structure the major characteristics of the picaresque form, the spirit of the novel is epical; its scope is wider than that of a picaresque novel. Fielding brings his major characters in contact with different strata of society-country, squires, divines and philosophers, lawyers and surgeons, landladies, beggars, and highway men-and exposes the contemporary social evils as well as human follies and foibles of a more general nature. General human weaknesses that Fielding holds to ridicule are lack of charity, malice, vanity, selfishness, and hypocrisy of the people who are held in high esteem. Furthermore, its hero is not a rogue. He is essentially generous and kind. The aim of the novelist is definitely moral whereas the aim of the writer of the picaresque novel is purely to provide entertainment or to give a picture of society.

Joseph Andrews has a rather rambling and discursive narrative, which gives credence to the contention that it is a picaresque novel. One cannot, however, classify it as a regular picaresque novel, for, Fielding employs elements of this tradition in an exposition of his own theory of the Ridiculous. He was writing a “Comic epic poem in prose.” He adapts the picaresque tradition to his own theory of the novel, which shows the influence of various other literary forms besides the picaresque.