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Fiction

Notes they simply believed the convincing performance of Fanny’s assailant and hoped to get a
reward out of it. As a crowd gathers at the Justice’s home and the bystanders begin throwing
in their two cents, the situation grows increasingly confused: “chaotic as the situation is,”
remarks Macallister, “nobody is particularly responsible, and it is just this that gives a nightmare
quality to the scene.” The episode is perhaps too mundane even to merit the phrase “banality
of evil,” as human nature reveals itself in the psychology of the crowd and the nonchalance
of the Justice.
At length, of course, providence intervenes in the form of an anonymous gentleman who
recognizes Adams from across the room. The readiness and even politeness with which the
Justice backs away from his resolution to send Adams and Fanny before the Assizes is both
uncanny and naturalistic: once his mistake is clear to him he becomes what he has always
been, namely a very average man, conscious now of his inadequacies and rather conciliatory.
At this point even the lying assailant simply melts into the night as if he had never been.
Fielding’s world, then, is on the one hand reassuringly providential, as there is no disaster
that the benign hand of the omnipotent novelist cannot avert. On the other hand, however,
Fielding’s world has a dimension that is quite dark, for when deliberate malice is not operative
in the story, “the accidental Consequences of some human Frailty, or Foible” can always pick
up its slack.

3.3 Book II, Chapters XIII through XVII

Chapter XIII

Fielding clarifies that Mrs. Slipslop has not forgotten her old coworker Fanny Goodwill but
has merely asserted her social prerogative in cutting her. He goes on to explain, with a facetious
display of logic, the social gradations separating High People from Low People, or People of
Fashion from People of No Fashion. Mrs. Slipslop, being near the top of the servant class, has
adopted many of the attitudes of Lady Booby, who is near the bottom of the gentry class.
Those who have any kind of status in this scheme will “think the least Familiarity with the
Persons below them Condescension, and if they were to go one Step farther, a Degradation.”
Mr. Abraham Adams, who has no conception of these prejudices, believes that Mrs. Slipslop
has actually forgotten Fanny and seeks to jog her memory, whereupon Mrs. Slipslop utters a
slur on Fanny’s virtue. Adams defends Fanny, expressing his wish “that all her Betters were
as good,” and tells the story of his rescuing her from the rape attempt. Slipslop disparages the
unclerical behavior Adams displayed during that episode and then, hearing that the storm has
passed, sends for Joseph Andrews, with whom she intends to proceed. He will not leave
without Fanny, however, and eventually Slipslop goes on without him. She bitterly regrets the
presence of Fanny, and Fielding slyly remarks that Joseph, no less than Fanny, has been in the
presence of a would-be rapist this evening.
Adams, Fanny, and Joseph sit all night by the fire, where Fanny finally confesses her love for
Joseph, prompting him to wake the curate and ask to be married on the spot. Mr. Adams
refuses, however, on the grounds that they have not published the banns, as the forms of the
church require. Fanny, blushing at Joseph’s haste, backs up the clergyman. When the sun has
been up for several hours, they all prepare to set out but are thwarted by a seven-shilling bill
that they cannot come close to paying. After a few minutes Adams comes up with the idea to
seek the wealthy clergyman of the parish and borrow the funds from him.

Chapter XIV
Parson Trulliber is a parson only on Sundays and a farmer on the other six days of the week,
and he is as fat as the hogs he tends. Mrs. Trulliber mistakenly introduces Mr. Adams as a

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