The moral labyrinths of Henry Fielding's fiction

Abstract

Henry Fielding was an avowedly moral writer. In each of his principal works of fiction, he repeatedly affirms that the work is intended to improve the morals of his readers, thereby benefitting society. This dissertation sets out to examine the motives which impelled Fielding to articulate mortality as he did in his works. While attempting to show that (for all the moral outrage with which the publication of Tom Jones was heralded) Fielding's morality, in its tolerance and sympathy for those most prone to transgress, was more compassionate and sincere than Richardson's; this dissertation also demonstrates that Fielding's plots, in their identification with and flattery of the landed classes, and in their anxiety to safeguard the political status quo, were no less politically biased than those of his rival. Since, in Fielding's works, men and women are at once moral and political beings, with the relationships which develop between them being given both a moral and a political valuation, it was felt that the best way in which the examination of the writer's morality could be conducted was via an analysis of his depiction and development of character. It is for this reason that much importance has been given to women characters, in the novelist's treatment of whom his morality evinces certain interesting ambiguities. This is especially the case in the novelist's often contradictory approach to the complex issue of the possible political repercussions of a real increase in legal rights for women. The conclusion assesses the real potential of Fielding's work, and his moral outlook, to improve his society.