TOM JONES

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HENRY FIELDING

• Henry Fielding was born in 1707 to Lieutenant
  George Fielding and his wife Sarah, who was
  herself the daughter of nobility. Socially, the
  family hovered at the edges of high society, but
  they had decidedly middle-class means. Fielding
  lost his mother in 1718, and his father remarried
  just a year later and began immediately to raise
  a new family. That same year Fielding began his
  education at Eton.

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• Fielding's life took a major turn in 1734 with
  his marriage to Charlotte Cradock. Fielding loved
  Cradock passionately, and their short life
  together was marked by intense affection and, at
  times, intense misery. Fielding's wife Charlotte
  succumbed to a fever and died. Although Fielding
  remained heart-broken, he eventually married Mary
  Daniel, the faithful housekeeper who had looked
  after him and his first wife even in their
  moments of extreme poverty. This marriage was a
  happy one, but Fielding never stopped loving
  Charlotte, and he would model his two major
  female characters, Sophia and Amelia, on her.

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• Finally, due to his devastating health problems
  . leaving behind the children from his second
  marriage, accompanied only by his wife, his first
  daughter Harriet, and two servants, Fielding left
  England in the summer of 1754 and went to
  Portugal. Henry Fielding died on October eight of
  the same year, in Junqueira, near Lisbon.

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• The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling was
  published in 1749. Almost every aspect of
  Fielding's own life is apparent in the novel,
  from the love and reverence he had for his first
  wife to his extensive knowledge of the
  Southwestern part of England. Even Tom Jones
  himself clearly shows the markings of Fielding,
  exhibiting the same careless good nature as well
  as a deeply entrenched awareness of poverty and
  the reversals of fortune.

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• Tom Jones the novel is a panoramic commentary on
  England in 1745 and it is also the story of Tom
  Jones and Sophia Western. Tom and Sophia are
  rebels revolting against the respectably accepted
  domestic standards of eighteenth century society.
  By such standards Sophia should obey her father
  and Tom should be what Blifil thinks him, an
  illegitimate upstart who ought to be put firmly
  in his place.
• For the purposes of the plot Fielding makes Tom a
  gentleman. Tom Sophia fight conventional
  society embodied in the character of Blifil. They
  are not passive in their struggle and that is why
  Tom Jones is not a tragedy but comedy.
• While Blifil is forever on the side of
  conventional respectability. Tom Jones has the
  vigor and spirit at spontaneity. He acts
  naturally and therefore the excesses into which
  his animal spirits lead him are forgiven. Here in
  the novel the natural man and the noble savage
  are pitted against each other. Tom's strength
  lies in the vigor and spontaneity of Tom's
  reactions.

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• Fielding's hero Tom Jones is shown as a
  bewildered young man of great health and spirits.
  He has so much life that it amounts for the
  effect of comedy and application of satire equal
  to him having his own mind.
• Tom Jones is an attractive character quite the
  heroic. But his heroism is tinged with a
  recklessness of youth, which makes him all the
  more believable while he is well meaning he gets
  unintentionally into trouble.
• Tom Jones has one failing--his wantonness with
  women. He cannot resist them and he has more than
  one affair. While his heart belongs to Sophia
  Western he constantly gives his physical self
  away to the pleasures of love.
• But ultimately all the goodness in his character
  pays him rich dividends and he is once again made
  the heir at Squire Allworthy's large estate. He
  even manages to get his ladylove in marriage
  (Sophia Western) and she pardons his numerous
  infidelities.

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• The plot movement follows the curve of extreme
  high and low. Tom comes on the scene as a
  bastard, his reputation and his hopes are
  progressively blackened until he reaches his
  nadir in London. Here he is kept by Lady
  Bellaston and even accused of murder and thrown
  into jail. There is further misinterpretation of
  his character, when he is accused of incest with
  his supposed mother Jenny Jones.With the exposure
  of Blifils malicious machinations and of Toms
  true goodness his fortune sails to the Zenith of
  romantic happiness. He is proved to be of high
  birth and he marries the girl of his choice and
  he inherits wealth.

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• At the end Blifil's treachery is revealed and
  Squire Allworthy realizes rightly the good nature
  of Tom Jones. One cannot condemn Squire Allworthy
  for entertaining doubts about Tom Jones
  previously, as he does get involved in amorous
  relationships with other women. But common to all
  his relationships is that it is always the women,
  who do the running. Another fact to be mentioned
  is that it is only towards the end of the novel,
  that Tom feels himself to be worthy of marriage
  to Sophia.
• Tom Jones does obtain Sophia eventually and their
  love is finalized in marriage. The blustering
  careless Tom Jones converts into a responsible
  and faithful husband. He is one of the few heroes
  in English literature, who is represented
  realistically as having negative traits, as well
  as positive charms.

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TOM JONES

• Tom Jones, Fielding's imperfect and "mortal"
  hero, is the character through whom Fielding
  gives voice to his philosophy of Virtue. In
  contrast to the moral philosophizing of many of
  Fielding's contemporaries, Fielding does not
  suggest that Tom's affairs with Molly Seagrim,
  Mrs. Waters, and Lady Bellaston should reflect
  badly on his character. Rather, keeping with the
  Romantic genre, Fielding seems to admire Tom's
  adherence to the principles of Gallantry, which
  require that a man return the interest of a
  woman. Interestingly, all of Tom's love affairs,
  including his relationship with Sophia, his true
  love, are initiated by the woman in question,
  which is Fielding's way of excusing Tom from the
  charge of lustful depravity.
• .

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• Moreover, the fact that Tom's lovers include a
  feisty, unfeminine wench and two middle-aged
  women suggest that his motives are various. Tom
  also treats women with the utmost respect,
  obliging their desire to be courted by pretending
  to be the seducer even when they are seducing
  him. Tom refuses to abandon Molly for Sophia and
  is plagued by his obligations to Lady Bellaston.
  Nonetheless, Tom's refusal of the tempting
  marriage proposal of Arabella Huntwhose last
  name underscores the fact that Tom is hunted more
  often than he is the hunterindicates that he has
  mended his wild ways and is ready to become
  Sophia's husband. Tom's gallantry reveals itself
  in his relationships with men as well as women,
  however. This spirit is evident in Tom's
  insistence on paying the drinking bill for the
  army men at Bristol, and in his gallant defense
  of himself in the duel

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• Sophia Western  -  Sophia Western is Fielding's
  beautiful, generous heroine and the daughter of
  the violent Squire Western. Like Tom, Sophia
  lavishes gifts on the poor, and she treats people
  of all classes with such respect that one
  landlady cannot believe she is a "gentlewoman."
  Sophia manages to reconcile her love for Tom, her
  filial duty to her father, and her hatred for
  Blifil through her courage and patience. Sophia's
  natural courtesy can be contrasted with her Aunt
  Western's artificial manners.

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Quotations
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• I intend to digress, through this whole History,
  as often as I see Occasion Of which I am myself
  a better Judge than any pitiful Critic whatever.
  And here I must desire all those Critics to mind
  their own Business For, till they produce the
  Authority by which they are constituted Judges, I
  shall not plead to their Jurisdiction (chapter
  II of Book I)

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• we are obliged to bring our Heroe on the Stage
  in a much more disadvantageous Manner than we
  could wish and to declare that it was the
  universal Opinion of all Mr. Allworthy's Family,
  that he was certainly born to be
  hanged.( Chapter II of Book III)

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• Thus a Swarm of foolish Novels, and monstrous
  Romances will be produced to the great Loss of
  Time 3133 in the Reader nay, often to the
  spreading of Scandal and Calumny, and to the
  Prejudice of the Characters of many worthy and
  honest People.(chapter I of Book IX )

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• So Sophia found such immediate Satisfaction
  from the Relief of those Terrors she had of being
  overtaken by her Father, that the Arrival of the
  French scarce made any impression on
  her.(Chapter VI of Book XI)

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• To paint the Looks or Thoughts of either of
  these Lovers is beyond my Power. And the
  Misfortune is, that few of my Readers have been
  enough in Love, to feel by their own Hearts what
  past at this Time in theirs.(chapter XI of Book
  XIII)

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• no matter what the subject is, if there is a
  woman, just remember the word submission and
  know how to shut up.
• M. Zeki ÇIRAKLI

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FIRAT KESKIN

• Thanks for your patience..