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Fiction Digvijay Pandya, Lovely Professional University

Notes
Unit 7: Joseph Andrews: Character Analysis, Comic
Epic in Prose and Plot Construction

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
7.1 Character Analysis of Joseph Andrews
7.2 Plot Construction
7.2.1 Setting and Historical Background
7.3 Summary of Joseph Andrews

7.4 Joseph Andrews: Comic Epic in Prose
7.5 Summary
7.6 Keywords
7.7 Review Questions
7.8 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit, you will be able to:
• Discuss the character analysis of Joseph Andrews
• Know about plot construction and historical background

• Explain comic epic in prose.

Introduction

Whatever pleasure may be derived from the reading of Joseph Andrews, the Plot of the novel,
in the sense of an ordered sequence of causally related incidents, is not one of its main
sources. In the most extensive and most significant part of the narrative, the central section,
it is too tenuous and produces too little expectation to act as an effective organizing factor, the
development of the action as a whole has a definite air of arbitrariness about it, and the story
fails to acquire a balanced shape in spite of its tendency to formal symmetry. In comparison
with the much-celebrated organization of Tom Jones, Fielding’s first novel is less contrived
but also much more inconsistent, and the character of the plot contributes to this effect considerably.
The unsatisfactory arrangement of the story is a symptom of its inferior position in the structure
of the novel.
The thematic pattern of the book is brought out by the way in which the characters are
presented assisted by the inflection of the narrator’s voice and his occasional comments. The
characters do not develop, but our knowledge of them increases as the protagonists and some
of the minor figures acquire new dimensions in the process of accretion, refinement, or change.
Most of the action aims at supplying us with such knowledge, and as the characters operate

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