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

speeches from one of the Poet’s plays. The Player defends himself by noting that the play was Notes
such a failure with the audience that its run only lasted one night.

Chapter XI

Joseph despairs over the loss of Fanny, prompting Mr. Adams to lecture him on the reasonable
response to grief, which involves patience and submission. In order to demonstrate that he
sympathizes with Joseph, Adams enumerates Fanny’s good qualities and sketches a vision of
their happy life together, then observes, “You have not only lost her, but have reason to fear
the utmost Violence which Lust and Power can inflict upon her.” Joseph must bear in mind,
Adams continues, that “no Accident happens to us without the Divine Permission, and that
it is the Duty of a Man and a Christian to submit.” Understandably, Joseph protests that
Adams has failed to comfort him.

Chapter XII

On the way back to the Hunter’s house, the Captain and Fanny argue about whether the
corrupted luxury that awaits her is a superior or inferior fate to her prospective life with
Joseph. The Captain then advises Fanny to cooperate with the Hunter, who will treat her
better if he does not have to deflower her by force. When a horseman approaches, Fanny begs
for assistance but the Captain convinces him that she is not a victim but an adulterous wife.
Soon two more horsemen, armed with pistols, approach, and one of them recognizes Fanny.
The horsemen stop to confront the servants, and while they are arguing the carriage arrives
that the horsemen are escorting. The gentleman in the carriage, who turns out to be Peter
Pounce on his way back to the Booby country seat, takes Fanny into the carriage and officiously
orders the Captain to be conveyed as a prisoner behind. The carriage continues to the inn,
where Fanny has a joyful reunion with Joseph. Peter Pounce greets Mr. Adams, who naïvely
holds the hypocrite in high esteem, and thus has occasion to observe the clergyman’s spectacularly
disordered appearance: not only is he half-dressed, but he is showing the effects of having
been in the line of fire when Joseph threw the chamber-pot.
Upon seeing the Captain a prisoner, the Player and the Poet make their exit, fleeing on the
Poet’s horse. Joseph gives the Captain “a most severe drubbing,” after which the servants
allow the Captain to go free, thwarting Peter Pounce’s intention of conveying the prisoner
imperiously to the local Justice of the Peace. The servants have brought with them the horse
that Mr. Adams left behind him at the inn, and Adams insists that Joseph and Fanny ride the
horse for the rest of the journey. Joseph, however, insists that Adams ride the horse, and they
reach a stalemate that Peter Pounce breaks by inviting Adams into the carriage.

Did u know? Joseph and Fanny find Adams’s horse too refractory, so they switch horses
with someone else, whereupon the group departs.

Chapter XIII
Mr. Adams and Peter Pounce observe the landscape, with Adams valuing it for its natural
beauty and Pounce calculating its monetary value. They then move on to the subject of charity,
which Pounce considers “a mean and Parson-like Quality”; “the Distresses of Mankind,” he
claims, “are mostly imaginary.” He claims that he is not as wealthy as people take him to be,
that he is barely solvent, because “I have been too liberal of my Money.” He then asks

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