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Unit 3: Joseph Andrews-II: Detailed Study of the Text

in the French Fashion.” Their union cannot last, however, despite (or because of) the complementarity Notes
of their affectations: Leonora and Bellarmine lack the one thing needful, not love in their case
but money. In this they represent the negative converse of Joseph and Fanny, but other
correspondences with the main story exist as well. For instance, Leonora provides a variation
on the conduct of Lady Booby, particularly in how her swerving between suitors echoes Lady
Booby’s mood swings. Leonora’s volatility, however, is both less dramatic than Lady Booby’s
and more reprehensible because its outcome is preordained: her decision-making process is
not genuine psychological turmoil but is itself an affectation designed to foist responsibility
onto her Aunt, whom she can and does blame when eventually the scheme blows up. By
contrast, Horatio shares characteristics with the virtuous characters of the main plot: like Mr.
Adams and Joseph, Horatio is a straight shooter who is not averse to fighting any man who
has wronged him, and accordingly Fielding’s comic providence looks out for him and brings
about his ultimate triumph. Not only does Horatio get the better of his duel with Bellarmine,
but he goes on to prosper in his law practice (differing in this, one might add, from Fielding
himself) and is, one imagines, probably better off without Leonora, notwithstanding his nostalgia
for her name and memory.
The long-awaited introduction of Fanny Goodwill occurs in these chapters, and Fielding’s
detailed physical description of her in Chapter XII contrasts her strongly with Lady Booby by
emphasizing her rural origins and unaffected simplicity. Her arms are “a little reddened by
her Labour,” and her figure is robust and “plump” rather than fashionably delicate: she is
“not one of those slender young Women, who seem rather intended to hang up in the Hall of
an Anatomist, than for any other Purpose.” Fielding is careful also to note physical imperfections,
such as the slight unevenness of her teeth and a pox-mark on her chin, details that paradoxically
heighten her beauty by rendering it natural and credible.
The “natural Gentility, superior to the Acquisition of Art,” which Fielding notes at the end of
the description, is justified thematically; in his opposition to affectation, Fielding inevitably
propounds a sense in which straightforwardness substitutes for the social graces of the sophisticated
upper classes. In suggesting, however, that this “natural Gentility” is Fanny’s most striking
attribute, such that it “surprised all who beheld her,” Fielding betrays the basic gist of the
whole description and indeed of his presentation of Fanny throughout the novel. Again and
again he will draw the attention of his both his characters and his readers not to any abstract
quality of “Gentility” in Fanny’s bearing but rather, as here, to her luscious physical presence.
The fact that he does so, moreover, seems important to his presentation of the relation between
sex and virtue. As Richard J. Dircks observes, Joseph and Fanny complement each other
because both are vibrant natural creatures who embody the reality of sex “without the suggestion
of the lustful extravagance of Slipslop and Lady Booby, who appear in marked contrast to”
Fanny. The mutual attraction of Joseph and Fanny is full of “attractive innocence” rather than
“pretense and hypocrisy”; the novelist’s frank acknowledgment of Fanny’s sexual appeal,
which does not require the certification of gentility in order to be legitimately attractive, is
crucial to the presentation of a love that is both virtuous and robustly physical.

The scene of Adams and Fanny’s trial before the negligent Justice is an excellent and sinister
example of those minor vices, “the accidental Consequences of some human Frailty, or Foible,”
which the Preface indicated would be the main object of Fielding’s satire. As Hamilton Macallister
observes, Fielding’s “satire is usually directed against some form of the arrogant abuse of
power: the petty power of innkeepers, or the greater power of squires and justices.” Here, the
Justice who very nearly sends Adams and Fanny to prison for the very crime of which they
themselves were nearly victims (namely assault and robbery) is not actively and deliberately
malevolent; he merely wants to finish his dinner and afterward is in no mood to give the case
careful attention. His lack of seriousness is deplorable, but it is not malicious. Further diffusing
the Justice’s culpability are the young men who apprehended Adams and Fanny and presented
the Justice with a skewed case. No more than the Justice are these young men actively wicked:

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