Fielding Henry

He was aristocratic: so, his values were different from those ones of middle classes.
He read the classics: these taught him the importance of unity and balance. He
prevails plot over characterisation: characters are more representative of universal
assumptions rather than individual; they are from all social classes and their
behaviour language is associated to the social class they come from. He started his
literary career as a playwriter: he wrote comedies meant to make people laugh (he
brought the vividness of characters and the directness of dialogues of the dram to
novels).

Tom Jones
The novel is divided in 3 parts, each part is consisting of 6 books, and each book is
divided into numerous chapters. In the first part, Tom Jones was an orphan that
spent his life at the house of Mr All-worthy, who adopted him and loves him
because he is an amiable person (he also loves him more than his hypocritical
nephew Blifil). Tom falls in love with Sophia, whom father doesn’t want their
marriage because he is a foundling. Blifil wants to marry Sophia, but she doesn’t,
and to prevent Tom marriage with Sophia, Blifil spread lies about him. The second
part of the novel deals with the adventures that Tom must face in the way to
London. Sophia escapes her home to search for Tom in London and not to marry
Blifil. In the third part, the two lovers finally meet; Tom founds out being the
illegitimate son of My All-worthy’s sister. Discovering his real identity, he can marry
Sophia and Blifil is compelled to leave the house.
It is defined as a comic epic poem: comic because it is funny, epic because Fielding
has studied the classics, so it is an adventure “in comic epic poem, its action is more
extended and comprehensive, containing more incidents (more actions and number
of events) and more variety of characters”. There’s no psychological insight. The
narrator intervenes giving details, clarifying certain aspects. He drew his inspiration
from the classic’s poems, even though here we don’t find the classic hero of epic
poem; and from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, which represents the
prototype of the picaresque novel: it describes the life and adventures of rogues
who managed to win the sympathy of the reader, even if they live a dishonest life.

A robbery
At dusk, a man approaches Tom and partridge, tom’s friend, and asks them
permission to travel with them because he was alone, Tom accepts because the
road was full of highwayman. On the way to London, they talked about robbery and
tom stated he had nothing to lose, so he had nothing to fear; Partridge argued with
saying that he would have a hundred pound bank note, like Tom had, he would be
sorry of losing it (he revealed to the stranger that tom had a lot of money); then he
added that they shouldn’t be afraid of robbers because they are 3 very big men.
Later, the stranger took a gun out of his pocket and threatened to kill them if they
didn’t give him the bank note. Tom answered that the money he was carried wasn’t
his, so he turned out his pocket and offered him his own money (3 guineas), of
course the robber didn’t accept. The highwayman threatened tom by putting the
muzzle of his gun near his breast (intention of shooting him), but his hands trembled
because he was afraid of what he was doing. Tom held the muzzle of the gun and he
moved him away from his breast and he turned it to the robber; he fell from his
horse and tom was upon him. The highwayman admitted having no intention in
killing Tom, in fact his gun was unloaded and that it was the first robbery he was
attempted (he was very poor, and he was so desperate to commit such a crime).
There is then a comic situation because Partridge didn’t realise the situation had
changed: Partridge fell from the horse, was laying on the ground with his face facing
the ground, and he was expected of being shot from the robber. When he got up, he
realised that his master prevailed over the highwayman (he had the situation under
control), and he encouraged him to kill the villain. The robber luckily run into a
generous man (Tom) and after Tom ensured that the gun was unloaded, he started
to believe the robber. The robber told Tom about his condition life (very poor life)
and about his five children; he also added he could also bring them to his house to
prove his story. The man appeared sincere, and the story was true, so Tom returned
the gun and a couple of guineas.