Comment on Fielding’s treatment of Joseph’s chastity in Joseph Andrews

Or, Comment on Fielding’s treatment of Joseph’s chastity in Joseph Andrews.

Answer: In Joseph Andrews, Henry Fielding propounds a code of ethics based on a higher conception of morality and chastity. He draws a series of characters to materialize his code of a new type of novel where the characters appear like spectacles on the stage.

The novel Joseph Andrews marks a contrast between the chastity of males and incontinence of females through the progress of the novel it has become a continuous story with a greater view to establishing his philosophy of chastity and the code of a hero. Though his main purpose is to go for a burlesque on Richardson’s Pamela where a maidservant is seen fighting against the sexual advance of her employer and in the end, ‘Pamela agrees to marry him. This conventional story is reversed to some extent for establishing a greater purpose.

The story of the novel Joseph Andrews basically starts with chapter 5 where Sir Thomas Booby dies and Lady Booby goes for amorous advances toward Joseph Andrews. The eleventh line of chapter 5, Book one describes, “The lady being in bed, called Joseph to her, had him sit down, and having accidentally laid her hand on his, she asked him if he had never been in love?” In the same chapter, Lady Booby goes further in her advances and says, “La! says in an affected surprise, ‘What am I doing? I have trusted myself with a matt alone, naked in bed; suppose you should have any .wicked intentions upon my honor, how should I defend myself?” But we find Joseph very much firm in his moral point of view and strongly resent the proposal. Joseph protested that he never had the least evil design against her “…. Joseph begged her lady-ship to be comforted. He would never imagine the least wicked thing against her, and that he had rather die a thousand deaths than give her any reason to suspect him.” But Lady Booby becomes crazier and hits the male personality of Joseph by saying, “Are you not a man? And without vanity, I may pretend to some charms.” After the above incidents, readers must praise Joseph’s moral power to resist the temptation because it is very difficult to do such especially in the case of an employer who is of the opposite sex, aristocratic rich, and attractive to some extent. So, we get a contrast between the two characters.

The same theme, the theme of male chastity versus female incontinence may be found in Mrs. Slipslop’s amorous advances. In chapter 6, Mrs. Slipslop invites Joseph with a glass of drinks. Without thinking of any adverse effects, Joseph accepts. But afterward, Mrs. Slipslop’s violent and aggressive advances are noteworthy. In the last stanza of chapter 6, Book One, “As when a hungry tigress, who long had traversed the woods in fruitless search, sees within the reach of her claws a lamb, she prepares to leap on her prey; or as a voracious pike, of immense size, surveys through the liquid element a roach or gudgeon which cannot escape her jaws. opens them wide to swallow the little fish; so did Mrs. Slipslon prepare to lay her violent amorous hands on the poor Joseph, when luckily her mistress bell rung and delivered the intended martyr from her clutches. She was obliged to leave him abruptly, and defer her time” the execution of her purpose to some other time”

The most interesting thing is Joseph was living in a dangerous zone between two ladies Lady Booby, his employer, and Mrs. Slipslop another employee and attendant of Lady Booby, Again, in chapter 7 and in the chapter, Lady Booby becomes amorous for the second time and tries to seduce Joseph. The fifth stanza of stanza chapter 8 discloses “What would you think, Joseph, if I admitted to kissing me?” Joseph replied, that he would sooner die than have any such thought”, Lady Booby goes further and says, “…ladies have admitted their footmen to such familiarities and footmen, I confess to you.” Even, Lady Booby satirizes Joseph by saying “That boy is the brothel of Pamela, and would be ashamed, that the chastity of his family, which is preserved in her, should be stained in him.”

Another example of female incontinence against male chastity is found in chapter 18 of Book One, The sixth stanza unfolds the character of Betty, “Ever since Joseph’s arrival, Betty had conceived an extraordinary liking to him, which discovered itself more and more, as he grew better; till that fatal evening, when, as she was warming his bed, her passion grew to such height, and so perfectly mastered both her modesty and her reason, …….. she, at last, threw down the warming pan, and embracing him with great eagerness, she was the most handsome creature she had ever seen.” The contrast is very clear in their reaction to Joseph. “Joseph in great confusion leaped from her, and told her, he was sorry to see a young woman cast off all regard to modesty; ….. he shut her out of the room, and locked the door.” At the end of the novel, we again find Lady Booby’s strong passion for Joseph. She tries her utmost to stop the marriage of Joseph and Fanny by trying to have Fanny ravished by Beau Didapper. Thus, Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop appeal to be extremely unscrupulous.

To Fielding social crimes are ignorable and trivial in comparison with crimes against basic humanity. Fielding’s comment on Joseph in the seventh stanza of chapter 18, Book One is important, “How ought man to rejoice, that is always in his own power, that if he hath sufficient strength of mind, he hath always a competent, strength of body to defend himself; and cannot, like a poor weak woman, be ravished against all will.

Fielding stresses good works, only faith cannot ensure the essence of goodness. A novelist, as Fielding says, must be able to feel himself and should be successful in enlivening the moral goodness through the characters of his novels. Sol in the above cases, Joseph is seen as firm and chaste before the amorous advances of lust and six in the hands of opposite sexes. Fielding’s ethical sense of male chastity in the face of female incontinence is proved perfectly by the above incidents of Joseph Andrews.