Overview
Joseph Andrews begins as Fielding’s playful response to the moral structure of Samuel Richardson’s Pamela. Joseph is Pamela’s brother, but unlike Richardson’s heroine he is a young man whose chastity becomes the object of a woman’s pursuit.
This title is catalogued in Classics & Literature. Its reading profile is Medium and Moderate, with themes including literature, ideas, humor.
One-Page Summary
Joseph Andrews begins as Fielding’s playful response to the moral structure of Samuel Richardson’s Pamela. Joseph is Pamela’s brother, but unlike Richardson’s heroine he is a young man whose chastity becomes the object of a woman’s pursuit. When Lady Booby tries to seduce him and Joseph refuses, he is dismissed from her household and begins a journey through eighteenth-century England with the kindly Parson Adams. The road novel allows Fielding to satirize almost everyone they meet. Clergymen can be hypocritical, gentlemen foolish, travelers selfish, and supposedly respectable people surprisingly immoral.
Joseph is good-hearted but not perfect, while Adams is intellectually idealistic and comically impractical. The result is a novel about virtue that refuses to make virtue boring. Fielding turns morality into comedy by showing how often social reputation has little to do with genuine goodness.
Key Themes
Literature: This title is tagged with literature as one of its main themes.
Ideas: This title is tagged with ideas as one of its main themes.
Humor: This title is tagged with humor as one of its main themes.