"HIGH" PEOPLE AND "LOW" IN "JOSEPH ANDREWS": A STUDY OF STRUCTURE AND

STYLE
Author(s): Joseph Wiesenfarth
Source: CLA Journal , MARCH, 1973, Vol. 16, No. 3 (MARCH, 1973), pp. 357-365
Published by: College Language Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44328522

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" HIGH " PEOPLE AND " LOW " IN JOSEPH ANDREWS :
A STUDY OF STRUCTURE AND STYLE

By Joseph Wiesenfarth

Joseph Andrews begins with a careful set of distinctions

tween "high" people and "low" people. There are maste
and mistresses (the Boobys, lord and lady) , master serva
(Mrs. Slipslop) and inferior servants (Joseph Andrews) . T
distinctions are carefully preserved in the course of the n
Lady Booby calls Slipslop " a low creature, ... a reptile of
lower order, a seed that grows in the common garden of
tion" (255) ; 1 Slipslop classes Fanny with "the inferior
vants," calls her a " wench," and places her with " trollop
and " sluts " (134) . Miss Grave-airs characterizes herse
Slipslop's " betters " and refuses to ride in a stagecoach w
Joseph because it would be " demean[ing] " (102) .
Speaking to his reader directly, Fielding points to each r
on the social ladder from low to high:
. . . Early in the morning arises the postilion, or some other b
which great families, no more than great ships are without, a
falls to brushing the clothes and cleaning the shoes of Joh
footman; who, being drest himself, applies his hands to the s
labours for Mr. Second-hand, the squire's gentleman; the ge
man in like manner, a little later in the day, attends the s
the squire is no sooner equipped than he attends the levee of
lord; which is no sooner over than my lord himself is seen at
levee of the favourite, who, after the hour of homage is at an
appears himself to pay homage to the levee of his sovereign. N
is there, perhaps, in this whole ladder of dependence, any one
at a greater distance from the other than the first from the se
so that to a philosopher the question might only seem, wh
you would choose to be a great man at six in the morning,
two in the afternoon. (133)

Having presented his categories, Fielding ridicules their

tence: " if the gods . . . made men only to laugh at th
there is no part of our behaviour which answers the end

1 Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews , ed. Martin C. Battestin (Boston: Hou

Mifflin Company, 1961); all page references are to this edition.

357

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358 Joseph Wiesenjarth
our creation better than this " (138) . He especial
in ridiculing the " high " people (from the squire up
people of fashion : " in reality, nothing more was
meant by a person of fashion than a person who dr
in the fashion of the times; and the word really and tr
fies no more at this day " (132) . None of the " hig
in Joseph Andrews suggests " a conception of birth
plishments superior to the herd of mankind " (132)
the " high " people in the novel are " a set of wret
while they are a disgrace to their ancestors, who
and fortunes they inherit . . . , have the insolence to t
with disregard who are at least equal to the founde
own splendour." Indeed, they are " a scandal to t
species " (160-61) .
In " a land of humanity, and, what is much mo
tianity " (185) , Fielding shows that recognition by
book is absurd if one's name is not an indicator of worth or
merit. But as Ronald Paulson has shown, the world of Joseph
Andrews is not a world of humanity and Christianity.3 Its
great people are " a set of wretches " who put humanity and
Christianity to the test. Such a world needs examples of good-
ness to reform it; thus, the epic proposition of Joseph Andrews:
"A good man ... is a standing lesson to all his acquaintance . . ."
(13) . In the course of the novel, Fielding shows that a good
man is measured by neither his title nor his words; a good
man - a true Christian - is measured by his deeds. With chaste
and charitable deeds as the standard of the Christian hero,4
Fielding turns the social ladder upside down and makes his
lowest people socially (Abraham, Joseph, and Fanny) his
highest people morally.5 He carries out this moral revolution

2 Fielding admits of exceptions in life in bk. Ill, ch. 1, p. 160. Battestin (p. 315)
tentatively identifies these great people who are also good as Philip Dormer Stan-
hope, Fourth Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773), and Ralph Allen, a philanthropist
and patron of letters (1694-1764), who was the model for Squire Allworthy.
8 Satire and the Novel in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1967), pp. 72-84.
See Martin C. Battestin, The Moral Basis of Fielding's Art: A Study of
" Joseph Andrews " (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1959).
5 Both Adams and Andrews are at times victims of vanity, but they are never
hypocritical. When put to the test, they act as they should - as basically good men
do. George R. Levine accurately indicates that neither is ever the subject of
Fielding's corrosively verbal irony, which aims " to undermine character by constant-

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 "High " People and " Low " in " Joseph Andrews " 359
in a structure that is reductive and in a style that is often
ridiculous.
Fielding begins to remove the false distinctions between the
ranks of society by showing that Lady Booby and her waiting-
gentlewoman, Slipslop, act in the very same way. In Book I
Mrs. Slipslop tries to ravish Joseph - " to lay her violent
amourous hands " on him (26) ; dismayed by her failure, she
then tries to have Joseph dismissed. Next, Lady Booby at-
tempts to seduce Joseph; failing, she orders him out of the
house. Dramatically, chapters 6 and 7 (Slipslop's) are equated
with 8 and 9 (Lady Booby's) ; 6 : 7 : : 8 : 9, so Lady Booby
is nothing more than a high-class Slipslop. Both are unchaste,
both are hypocritical, and both want revenge. The parallelism
also suggests that Lady Booby is as spiritually ugly as Slipslop
is physically ugly; that both are human and subject to vice -
class distinctions being unimportant in elemental drives; that
social distinctions are superseded by moral equations. In this
set of chapters, Slipslop is (as Lady Booby later says) her
mistress's " echo " (253) : both women pursue Joseph Andrews,
a " low " person; " high " and nearly-" high " seek to be one
flesh with " low " (with a footman) .
Set in the context of Mr. B's social situation in Pamela , Lady
Booby further lowers herself because she admits to sexual pas-
sion before marriage and because she contemplates, in her later
psychomachy (IV. i. 237) , marriage to a man below her social
level: " a woman, though ever so nobly born, debases herself
by a mean marriage." 6 Lady Booby saves her social reputation
in spite of herself because Joseph marries Fanny; but morally
she turns out no better than Betty at the Dragon Inn. When
Betty could not have Joseph, she settled for Mr. Tow-wouse
(71-72) ; when Lady Booby cannot have Joseph, she settles for
" a young captain of dragoons " (298) . By her actions, the
lady shows herself no better than a chambermaid.

ly discrediting what seems on the surface to be creditable, and, ultimately, to reflect

the fundamental hypocrisy and affectation of those people on whom such irony is
lavished." Henry Fielding and the Dry Mock : A Study of the Techniques of Irony
in His Early Works (The Hague: Mouton, 1967), p. 117.
6 ". . . A man ennobles the woman he takes, be she who she will; and adopts
her into his own rank, be it what it will: but a woman, though ever so nobly born,
debases herself by a mean marriage, and descends from her own rank to his she
stoops to." Pamela (New York: W. W. Norton, 1958), p. 447.

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360 Joseph Wiesenjarth
In Book II Fielding continues this process of le
using the two parts of the story of the Unfortuna
" high "-life story) as a frame for Adams and Slips
fight with the innkeepers in chapter 5. Besides sho
vanity of Lenora, the Unfortunate Jilt emphasizes s
shows that decisions depend on money, and ends
The incident at the inn offers a parallel: it begin
word " betters," is caused by money, and ends i
Furthermore, a vocabulary of sprezzatura (a " high
tue) is used to describe punching and hair-pulling (a
vice) .
. . . The host . . . scornfully repeating the word " betters," flew
into a rage, and, telling Joseph he was able to walk out of his
house as he had been to walk into it, offered to lay violent hands on
him; which perceiving, Adams dealt him so sound a compliment
over his face with his fist, that blood immediately gushed out of his
nose in a stream. The host, being unwilling to be outdone in
courtesy , especially by a person of Adam's figure, returned the
favour with so much gratitude , that the parson's nostrils began to
look a little redder than usual. (99: italics added)
The fight continues as Adams's " countenance " is " saluted "
by the hostess with a pan of hog's blood, which leads the " good
gentlewoman," Slipslop, to join in and give the hostess " several
hearty cuffs in the face . . . with a good grace" (99-100).
Through parallel action and an intermingling of high and low
style, the world of the Unfortunate Jilt becomes equal to the
world of the inn: the frame merges into the picture. Indeed,
it is finally impossible to distinguish a Bellarmine ("You will
certainly believe me, madam, incapable of delivering this triste
message, which I intend to try the French air to cure the con-
sequences of ") from a Slipslop (" But pray, madam, what
became of Our-asho? ") . Both are from the same strange coun-
try where language is affected, italicized, and incomprehen-
sible (108) .
The style of Joseph Andrews further blurs the distinctions
between classes by making " low " people truly heroic in stature.
Joseph is so described that he appears a perfect Aeneas (30-31) ;
and he fights with the epic weapon - a properly commemorated
crabstick (202) - so bravely that Fielding interrupts to say that
Joseph's "friendship, courage, youth, beauty, strength, and

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 " High " People and " Low " in " Joseph Andrews " 361
swiftness " are beyond any comparison he can find: " Let those,
therefore, that describe lions and tigers, and heroes fiercer than
both, raise their poems or plays with the simile of Joseph An-
drews, who is himself above the reach of any simile " (203) .
Playfully, making a footman into a hero, Fielding raises Joseph
to a grace beyond the reach of art. He does the same for Fanny,
his epic heroine (128-29) , whom women envy and men attack:
" she had a natural gentility, superior to the acquisition of art,
and which surprised all who beheld her " (129) .
If Fielding must strain to describe his hero and heroine, he
does not have the same problem describing his " high" people.
When Joseph opposes his virtue to Lady Booby's inclination,
she is turned into a statue of Surprise, unsurpassed in ghastli-
ness (32) . Beau Didapper, momentarily mistaken for a " per-
son," is quickly recognized as a " thing, that hopped after Lady
Booby " (269) . The infamous squire is a dog: " he was a
great ' hunter of men ' : indeed, he had . . . followed the sport
only with dogs of his own species; for he kept two or three
barking curs for that use only " (201) . Slipslop, in pursuit of
Joseph - whom she describes with an appropriate malapropism
as " a strong healthy luscious boy enough " (28) - is turned
into a " hungry tigress " and a " voracious pike " (26) .
Fielding's style shows in another way, too, that " high ' peo-
ple are much lower than they think they are. They are affected
and do not recognize the vanity and hypocrisy that produce
their affectations and that make them ridiculous. Fielding,
however, adapts his style to his characters as they really are.
He creates a truly Ridiculous style. Lady Booby's pursuit of
Joseph, for instance, is given first from her point of view and
then from Fielding's: "... The little god Cupid, fearing he had
not yet done the lady's business, took a fresh arrow with the
sharpest point out of his quiver, and shot it directly into her
heart; in other and plainer language, the lady's passion got the
better of her reason " (28-29) . The great apostrophe " O
Love " shows that what is thought to be love is really passion,
and it equates Love's transforming power with that of " the
great Cibber," who " hath so distorted the English language
as thou dost metamorphose and distort the human senses "
(29) . The apostrophe " O Vanity " is used only " to lengthen
out a short chapter " (57) . Nature gives those " predestined

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 362 Joseph Wiesenjarth
to command armies and empires " skulls that are
solid " (116) . The squire who rides " manfully up
and Adams after their epic battle " first called his fri
him, as guards for safety of his person " (204) . In
Fielding blows up a verbal balloon with a classical
and then sticks a pin in it with plain English. He
real thing beside the phony. This simultaneous pres
both creates his Ridiculous style - his verbal correlate
tion.
This Ridiculous style exists in other ways too, especia
Fielding shows a character's projection of his own se
self at the same time that he shows the reality
facade. The description of Lady Booby's relationship
after her husband's death provides an excellent ex
She would now walk out with him in Hyde Park in a m
when tired, which happened almost every minute, wou
his arm, and converse with him in great familiarity
she stept out of her coach, she would take him by the
sometimes, for fear of stumbling, press it very hard; s
him to deliver messages at her bedside in a morning, l
at table, and indulged him in all those innocent free
women of figure may permit without the least sully of
(20-21)

The " when tired," " fear of stumbling," " innocent freedoms,"
and " least sully " are the language either of Lady Booby's
delusions or of her hypocrisy. But actions speak louder than
rationalizations. Fielding treats Slipslop's vanity in the same
way. The famous description of her grotesque ugliness is
sprinkled with her sense of herself: " not . . . remarkably hand-
some," but a " fair creature " with " allurements of . . . native
charms " (25) . Slipslop herself dramatizes this same vanity
when her stupidity is made to speak less learnedly than she
realizes. Fielding sometimes allows her triple errors, like Our-
asho for Horatio, and sometimes complex ones, as when Joseph
thinks of her as his mother, not his lover, and she exclaims,
" Barbarous monster! how have I deserved that my passion
should be resulted and treated with ironing ? ' ' (26) . Slipslop
is insulted by the irony of events, and the result is that her
passion has been flattened by Joseph. Resorting to direct
attack, Slipslop becomes a tigress and tries to devour the

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 " High 99 People and " Low 99 in " Joseph Andrews 99 363
luscious Joseph. The woman who would speak learnedly makes
a pre-Freudian slip that shows a more active sexual than intel-
lectual appetite.7
Fielding achieves a like effect with the prude in the stage-
coach. Once Joseph, wearing only the postilion's coat, is allowed
inside the coach, the lawyer turns his wit on the prude: " If
Joseph and the lady were alone, he would be more capable of
making a conveyance to her, as his affairs were not fettered with
any incumbrance ,ě he'd warrant he soon suffered a recovery by
a writ of entry , which was the proper way to create heirs in tail;
that for his own part, he would engage to make so firm a settle-
ment in a coach, that there could be no danger of an eject-
ment . . ." (44-45) . The lawyer's use of double-entendres that
apply to both law and sex shows him keeping up a surface of
respectability and revealing something below the surface too.
The respectable prude refused Joseph the hospitality of the
coach, yet she did not refuse to ogle him. In the lawyer's lan-
guage of legal respectability and sexual innuendo, Fielding pro-
vides a vebal correlate of the prude's peeping through her fan at
the naked Joseph (43) .
In the case of each stylistic device analyzed, Fielding shows
that many socially " high " people are in fact morally lower
than they profess to be. Through his style he lets us see what
their vanity and hypocrisy blind them to: he shows us what
they are and what they want others to think they are simul-
taneously.
Fielding carries his satire of spurious social superiority into
the professions too. Here one is impressed not so much by his
stylistic pyrotechnics as by the venality of the characters he
creates. He equates those in the professions by reducing their
motives for action to the least common denominator - avarice.
The surgeon, the parson, the lawyer, the judge: all act for
money. It is the single most powerful force in society: " the
men of pleasure tearing one another to pieces from emulation
of spending money, and the men of business for envy in getting
it " (188) . Getting and spending men appear " high." What

7 Fielding makes an explicit connection between sex and food when he directs
the attention of certain readers from the scene of Joseph and Fanny kissing:
" If prudes are offended at the lusciousness of this picture, they may take their
eyes off it . . (131; italics added) .

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364 Joseph Wiesenjarth
heredity cannot give, money can buy. But money m
who pursue it less than they are called to be: mo
the bookseller interested in plays, not sermons,
" mere drugs " (66) ; it makes Barnabas an incompet
man and Trulliber a parson of pigs; it makes a surge
Joseph and a judge accept unsubstantiated testimon
Adams and Fanny; it makes Scout a tool of Lady Bo
Pounce a gouging steward, and Frolick one of " his
justasses " (247) . Money is as important to parson
geons, booksellers and stewards, lawyers and judge
a highwayman and his keeper, a constable named S
Avarice reduces the professional classes to the level o
inal, just as lust reduced a Lady and her waiting-ge
to a common ordinary Betty. Fielding gathers the l
in an epic simile that recalls the heroic style at the
that it mocks the modern manner:

Suppose a stranger, who entered the chambers of a lawyer, being

imagined a client, when the lawyer was preparing his palm for the
fee, should pull out a writ against him. Suppose an apothecary,
at the door of a chariot containing some great doctor of eminent
skill, should, instead of directions to a patient, present him with a
potion for himself. Suppose a minister should, instead of a good
round sum, treat my Lord - , or Sir - , or Esq. - with a good broom-
stick. Suppose a civil companion, or a led captain, should, instead
of virtue, and honour, and beauty, and parts, and admiration, thun-
der vice and infamy, and ugliness, and folly, and contempt, in his
patron's ears. Suppose, when a tradesman first carries in his bill, the
man of fashion should pay it; or suppose, if he did so, the tradesman
should abate what he had overcharged on the supposition of wait-
ing. In short - suppose what you will, you never can nor will
suppose anything equal to the astonishment which seized on
Trulliber, as soon as Adams had ended his speech. (140)
Adams, it will be remembered, had asked Trulliber - who ex-
pected to sell him a pig - for a loan of seven shillings. Abraham,
the good shepherd, is then summarily dismissed by Trulliber,
the specious shepherd turned parson of pigs.
Vanity and hypocrisy disguising lust and avarice have pro-
duced " the Christian specious " (215) . This speciousness is the
affectation of Christianity - especially of the chastity and charity
that characterize Christianity in Joseph Andrews. The truly
charitable and the truly chaste are the " low " people. The final

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 " High " People and " Low " in " Joseph Andrews " 365
nakedness of Adams, Joseph and Fanny is an affirmation of
these virtues, as Mark Spilka has shown.8 And if the postilion
is transported for theft and if Betty is less than chaste, they at
least help to feed the hungry and clothe the naked - as do
other " low " people like the hostler, the pedlar, and the sailor-
innkeeper. They take the Sermon on the Mount, which Adams
reaffirms against Pounce, to heart: " hunger and thirst, cold
and nakedness, and other distresses which attend the poor, can
never be said to be imaginary evils " (233) . These real evils
the " low " people in Joseph Andrews alleviate and the " high "
people exacerbate.
" 'Are all the great folks wicked then? ' says Fanny. ' To be
sure there are some exceptions,' answered Joseph " (198) . But
those exceptions are carefully excluded from the novel. True
greatness resides with Adams and Joseph and Fanny, who are
greeted like majesty when they arrive home in Book IV: " In
short, no three persons could be more kindly received, as, in-
deed, none ever more deserved to be universally beloved "
(236) . It is true that as the novel comes to an end the heroes
and heroine achieve both financial and social stature; but
neither changes them. Adams as the " servant of the Highest "
rebukes Mr. Booby and Pamela while marrying Joseph and
Fanny (296) ; and although he receives a living from Mr.
Booby, he places a curate in it and shares the income with him
rather than leave his own parishoners (298) . Fanny is given
two thousand pounds by her brother-in-law and becomes a
gentleman's wife, but " all her charms " remain " the gifts of
nature " (297) . Joseph finds himself the son of a gentleman
and the husband of a wife with a dowry; nevertheless, he retires
from the world. Having structurally and stylistically destroyed
every value that Pamela stood for, and having symbolically
severed Joseph's blood relationship to Pamela, Fielding, with-
out qualm, kills the first daughter of Richardson's imagination
with a last deadly shot in the last phrase of the last sentence
of his novel: Joseph will not " be prevailed on by any book-
sellers, or their authors, to make his appearance in ' high-life
University of Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin

8 " Comic Resolution in Fielding's Joseph Andrews' ' College English , 15 (1953) ,
11-19.

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