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Fiction

Notes spells of venereal disease are any indication. Wilson’s London career of course contrasts with
Joseph’s in this regard, and Fielding indicates that this moral degradation had its origins in
Wilson’s “early Introduction into Life, without a Guide,” as he had no Parson Adams to
mentor him. Religious heterodoxy then compounded this faulty education, with the young
Wilson joining a club of freethinking deists and atheists. Like many frivolous young men,
Wilson kept expecting “Fortune” to smile on him, hence his purchase of the lottery ticket; his
long acquaintance with adversity, however, would teach him that redemption comes not through
luck but through charity, which Harriet Hearty helpfully embodied.
Wilson’s journey, like Joseph’s, takes him from town to country, from the life of folly and vice
to the life of chaste love and cheerful industry. The geographical symbolism is deliberate, for
as Martin C. Battestin remarks, “in a book whose satiric subject is vanity, provision had to be
made for a long look at London, always for Fielding the symbol of vanitas vanitatum.” In their
rural life, it is true, the Wilsons can temper the classical ideal of detachment and solitude with
the Christian ethic of active benevolence, living out of “the World” and yet not abstaining
misanthropically from charitable deeds; their way of life provides Joseph and Fanny with an
example of how to settle down after marriage. Nevertheless, the abduction of the Wilsons’
eldest son demonstrates that vice knows no geographical boundaries: the country may be the
georgic site of contented retirement, but even here sin and sadness can intrude.

4.2 Book III, Chapters IV through VI

Chapter IV
Mr. Abraham Adams speculates about the fate and identity of Mr. Wilson’s abducted son,
suggesting that he might now be a German adventurer or a Duke. Wilson replies that he
would know his son among ten thousand, due to the distinctive mark on the left side of his
chest. Soon the sun comes up, and Adams and Wilson rouse Joseph Andrews for a walk in the
garden. The garden, which Wilson tends himself, is functional rather than ornamental. Wilson
explains the family’s daily schedule and expresses his respect and affection for his wife and
his devotion to their children. Soon they go in to breakfast, where the Wilsons admire Fanny
Goodwill’s beauty and the guests commend the Wilsons’ charity toward their neighbors.
Soon, however, a dog belonging to the Wilsons’ eleven-year-old daughter comes limping in
mortally wounded, having been shot by the young Squire from the nearby manor. The Squire,
apparently, is a petty tyrant who routinely kills dogs, confiscates guns, and tramples crops
and hedges.
Joseph and Fanny are eager to return home and have their wedding, so the travelers decline
the Wilsons’ dinner invitation and continue on their way.

Did u know? When Joseph and Fanny leave, Mr. Adams declares “that this was the Manner
in which the People had lived in the Golden Age.”

Chapter V
As the travelers walk along, Mr. Adams and Joseph discuss the first part of Wilson’s story,
which Joseph heard before falling asleep. Adams designates Wilson’s public school education
as the source of all his youthful unhappiness: “Public Schools are the Nurseries of all Vice and
Immorality.” Joseph, says Adams, may attribute the preservation of his virtue to the fact that
he never attended a public school. Joseph protests, however, that Sir Thomas Booby attended

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