Page 74 - DENG404_FICTION

Fiction

Notes Fanny Goodwill

The beautiful but reserved beloved of Joseph, a milkmaid, believed to be an orphan. She
endures many unsuccessful sexual assaults.

Sir Thomas Booby
Sir Thomas Booby is the recently deceased master of Joseph and patron of Mr. Adams. Other
characters’ reminiscences portray him as decent but not heroically virtuous; he once promised
Mr. Adams a clerical living in return for Adams’s help in electing Sir Thomas to parliament,
but he then allowed his wife to talk him out of it.

Lady Booby
Sir Thomas’s widow, whose grieving process involves playing cards and propositioning servants.
She is powerfully attracted to Joseph, her footman, but finds this attraction degrading and is
humiliated by his rejections. She exemplifies the traditional flaws of the upper class, namely
snobbery, egotism, and lack of restraint, and she is prone to drastic mood swings.

Mrs. Slipslop

Mrs. Slipslop is a hideous and sexually voracious upper servant in the Booby household. Like
her mistress, she lusts after Joseph.

Peter Pounce

Lady Booby’s miserly steward, who lends money to other servants at steep interest and gives
himself airs as a member of the upwardly striving new capitalist class.

Mr. Booby

Mr. Booby is the nephew of Sir Thomas. Fielding has adapted this character from the “Mr. B.”
of Samuel Richardson’s Pamela; like Richardson’s character, Mr. Booby is a rather snobbish
squire who marries his servant girl, Pamela Andrews.

Pamela Andrews

Joseph’s virtuous and beautiful sister, from whom he derives inspiration for his resistance to
Lady Booby’s sexual advances. Pamela, too, is a servant in the household of a predatory
Booby, though she eventually marries her lascivious master. Fielding has adapted this character
from the heroine of Samuel Richardson’s Pamela.

Mr. Andrews
Mr. Andrews is the father of Pamela and, ostensibly, Joseph.

Mrs. Andrews

Mrs. Andrews is the mother of Pamela and, ostensibly, Joseph.

68 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY