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Unit 4: Joseph Andrews-III: Detailed Study of the Text

Certainly the Hunter of Men is barbaric in his valuation of dogs above humans and, later, in Notes
his pleasure in subjecting Adams to a series of nasty practical jokes, and it may be tempting
to conclude that Fielding, insofar as he expects the reader to laugh along with the Hunter of
Men, has descended to barbarism as well. What seems more likely, however, is that Fielding
did not in fact intend for the dogs’ attack on Adams to be humorous in itself (though whether
it is humorous in the manner of its telling is a separate issue, on which see more below);
rather, the episode allows Adams to recover some of the sympathy that he forfeited during the
recent exposures of his vanity and naïveté. If Adams’s characteristic foible, usually endearing
but recently exasperating, has been his willingness to become a dupe and victim of the vicious
world, here the vicious world victimizes him so cruelly that the reader’s sympathies cannot
help but return to him. As Goldberg puts it, “Here the world’s baiting of Adams, which began
with his entrance into the Dragon Inn, is carried to its savage extreme.” The Hunter of Men
exemplifies the vices of the world because, unlike most of the people who have victimized
Adams and his companions, he is not self-interested in the ordinary way; his pleasure, like
that of the false-promising Squire (only more darkly and violently), is to perpetrate mischief
for its own sake.
Fielding tempers the unpleasantness of the incident, however, by rendering it in humorous or
burlesque diction. The battle with the hounds, in fact, constitutes the lengthiest application of
mock-epic diction in the entire novel; it spoofs elaborately a number of conventions of epic
combat, including the invocation of the Muse (“who presidest over Biography”), the Homeric
epithet (“the Plain, the young, the gay, the brave Joseph Andrews”), the minute description
of the hero’s weapon (“It was a Cudgel of mighty Strength and wonderful Art,” etc.), the brief
biographies of fallen warriors (“Ringwood the best Hound that ever pursued a Hare, . . .
Fairmaid, a Bitch which Mr. John Temple had bred up in his House,” etc.), and, almost, the
epic simile (“Reader, we would make a Simile on this Occasion, but for two Reasons . . .”).
All of this ironical classicism exemplifies the Preface’s definition of “burlesque” as “appropriating
the Manners of the highest to the lowest,” and it does so more dramatically than does any
other burlesque passage in the novel. Whereas a more conventional burlesque passage would
describe a lowly human brawl in terms appropriate to heroic combatants (the hog’s-blood
battle is a good example of this approach), the battle with the hounds takes burlesque to
another level by using the same heroic terms to describe sub-human combatants, a pack of
dogs.
One of the effects of this verbal humor is to impart a sense of narratorial oversight: the counter
intuitively funny presentation of violent actions calls attention to Fielding’s ability to frame
his tale, modulating his own and the reader’s reactions to it, and thereby reminds us that all
events are under the novelist’s control. In turn, the use of mock-epic diction implies the
presence of a benevolent designer, with Fielding functioning as a substitute deity who watches
over his characters even when they seem to be in the most danger. Aside from being funny,
then, Fielding’s burlesque diction fits violent events into a comic frame and reassures the
reader that, notwithstanding the shocking depravity on display in this scene, providence has
not ceased to operate.

4.3 Book III, Chapters VII through XIII

Chapter VII
Mr. Abraham Adams sits down to dinner with the Hunter of Men while Joseph Andrews and
Fanny Goodwill dine in the kitchen. The Hunter’s has plan is to get both Adams and Joseph
drunk so that he can have his way with Fanny. Fielding summarizes the Hunter’s biography.
He received his education at home, where his tutor “had Orders never to correct him nor to

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