Henry Fieldings Joseph Andrews, Samuel Richardsons Pamela and Daniel Defoes Moll Flanders - Essay Example

The Rise of the Novel Introduction Some of the most respected and extensively studied literary works of the eighteenth century included Henry Fielding’s ‘Joseph Andrews’, Samuel Richardson’s ‘Pamela’ and Daniel Defoe’s ‘Moll Flanders’. They marked the beginning of novels as literary work and genre. The novels were the first ones to be presented in English language. The works explored various elements of masculinity and femininity, especially at the time when artists and the population at large had controversial and debatable perceptions regarding gender (Craft, 2005). Actually, ‘Joseph Andrews’ was the first full-length novel published in English language in 1742 and defined as a comic epic poem in prose. Henry Fielding deals with radically different subjects that create intersection points of low and high, un-heroic and heroic, and femininity and masculinity. His burlesque of heroics characteristically deflate a set of male ethos while giving femininity the prominence and centre stage. Other literary works of this era were ‘Pamela’ and ‘Moll Flanders’, which were authored by Samuel Richardson and Daniel Defoe respectively (Richardson 2012). The rise of the novel marked the development of reading as a personal experience; onset of the increasingly secular nature of written and printed material that reflects the contemporary world; the reflection of the society and focus on individual experience. The rise of the novel brought about societal changes especially on the issues that influenced lifestyles at the time. In other words, the novels reflected and promoted shifts in people’s consciousness about life and potentiality for improvement and self-advance (Richardson 2012). The novel tackled moral issues especially in relation to its effect on female readers. Issues of gender prevailed extensively in the seventeenth century and the novels vividly projected the phenomenon surrounding masculinity and femininity. ‘Moll Flanders’ by Daniel Defoe In the novel: ‘Moll Flanders’, Daniel Defoe explores largely on women’s criminal responsibility and autonomy that prevailed in the 18th century England. Defoe found it natural to come up with a novel whose protagonist was a socially marginal property offender and sexually adventurous, which would have been unthinkable in half a century later. The disappearance of Moll Flanders and her supersession in the chronicles of literary women offenders serve as metaphor for significant changes in the ideologies of gender, selfhood and social order of the eighteenth and nineteenth century England (Defoe 2007). Drawing on literature, law, social history and philosophy, these broad changes justified a profound shift in mechanisms of attribution of responsibility and with decisive implication for women criminalization (Craft 2005). Defoe, as a brilliant author, makes use of the language to project his claims precisely. His language relates to the situations in a harmonious manner that induces exact mental pictures in the readers mind. Even though his work was a fiction, he utilizes many elements of realism that in a contrasting but realistic manner compares his creation to real life situations. He uses less emotion to emphasis on his points. The gender relations that dominated the eighteenth century English community were virtue and vice, crime and punishment, perils of city life and transportation to American colonies. Most criminals were transported to the American colonies and left to survive on a strange land; within a hostile society (Defoe 2007). The novel focuses on an individual that gives it a more defined chronological development in a pseudo-biographical development. Unlike Samuel Richardson ‘Pamela’, which engages readers with feelings and emotions, Defoe maintains on realism and flow of content that appeals to the readers (Richardson 2012). Defoe clearly insinuated one of the most profound and remarkable female characters in English literature: Moll Flanders. She was beautiful, brilliant, resourceful and bold. Traditionally, some characteristics were primarily associated with masculinity. However, Defoe manages to give the female character such traits. Probably, to imply that femininity as well produced some traits that the society had always perceived on males. For most parts of the novel, Moll Flanders primary occupation consisted of chains of unromantic property offences such as stealing from children, swindling and shoplifting. There radical and rigorous behaviour had always remained expected from male members of the 18th century England. She escapes her origin at the centre of criminal underworld in her childhood life, but she became obliged returning to it following the death of her husband (Defoe 2007). The need for wealth and birth prevented her from securing a respectable position in the society. Later, she remained convicted and detained in Virginia with her convicted highwayman husband. Apart from deception and thieving, Moll engaged in a varied love life, of five husbands, encompassing bigamy, incest, fornication and quotidian diversions. She later attains massive wealth after being rewarded for her talents. She had renounced her criminal activities after experiencing a mental collapse (Craft 2005). It is nonetheless incomprehensible for a modern leader to believe her reformation. She develops capitalistic trait that magnifies her wealth immensely. Wealth creation had been a factor associated with masculinity. Once again, Defoe manages to explore masculinity and femininity in a manner that contradicts the actual societal perceptions. She exhibits such contrasting traits; a wife yet a prostitute; a successful thief as well as a successful investor and ‘gentlewoman’. Defoe implies that redemption is usually provided to the true penitent as well as conveying that courage, wit and wit are invaluable traits for a woman. At the time of the development of the novel, the number of women incarcerated was fewer than that recorded for men. A more specific logic for observing the literary development of women’s responsibility and agency lies in the current debate between crime and punishment historians regarding the levels of female criminality. In the criminal justice’s turbulent history, most criminologists would acknowledge that one of the constants across divergent societies is the relatively low number of women among those convicted or accused of crime. This suggests that in England, women represented a small minority of offenders. The whole scenario, therefore, insinuated that women were less aggressive and radical than men were as far as criminal conduct is concerned. Apart from Moll’s case, one can easily conclude that the situation at the time related femininity to weakness, passivity, lack of opportunity, conformity, strong socialization and powerlessness (Richardson 2012). To place things into perspective or derive to a decisive view of the wrongs and rights illustrated in the novel, it is significant to illuminate certain questions by re-examining in the reality of both historical data and literary sources about the changing social position of women. ‘Moll Landers’ explores dynamism in femininity that occurs overtime by the utilization of the female protagonist’s conducts that have always been assumed on masculinity (Defoe 2007). ‘Joseph Andrew’ by Henry Fielding and Richardson’s ‘Pamela’ Gender masculinity and femininity, plays a vital role in Fielding’s moral critique and effeminacy as a means of emphasizing the shortcomings moral shortcomings and problematic variances from cultural and social traditions. Additionally to some extent, it sets up an unavoidable fall for women. Women have the representational burden for Fielding’s disappointment about the relation between external and internal selves (Saintsbury 2004). Culturally, a woman sustains the realms of private life, personal identity and interior feeling unlike the commercial and public world dominated by males. Therefore, she inevitably disappoints Fielding by her reliance on ostentation, ‘harlotry’ of pomp and the drama of self-display when she becomes part of the world. Contrastingly, he fears the alternative fate as a ghost as well though he seems to wish it on her. Masculinity is explored in ‘Joseph Andrews’ and Richardson’s ‘Pamela’ in many contexts (Gwilliam 1995). Strength is an aspect of masculinity that Fielding exploited to imply masculinity in the novel. Joseph is compared to the figure of Hercules: there are numerous references to his power and strength. For instance, Fielding describes Joseph Andrews’s limbs as a mixture of elegance and strength that Hercules would have liked. Joseph’s descriptions had detailed physical views depicting heroines than heroes, which implied that he is pursued as a love interest too. He reflects the aspects of both comic drams and masculine virtue – albeit not necessarily very heroically (Saintsbury 2004). Such classical allusions gave Joseph an air of masculine power and a degree of dignity that makes him attractive to the reader. Virtue and vice, marked by gender are also explored in the novel. Vice offered Joseph a hard life of victorious activity while pleasure/vise offered him a life of luxury. He chooses the path of virtue and refused advances of the wealthy Lady Booby, embodied in Fanny (Goring 2008). It is easy to draw the structure of motifs that are epic, running through the novel. Arguably, the parallel with Pamela is much more significant within both novels thematic and structural frameworks. Femininity is given a touch that slightly contradicts reality of sexual advances in the mid-seventeenth and late eighteenth century England. Masculinity has always been associated with sexual advances, but in ‘Joseph Andrews’, there is a twist of this role. Lady Booby falls in love with Joseph and makes advances instead. Interestingly, Joseph Andrews resists her and follows the path of virtue. She is later obliged to give him up. Female virtue was exclusively defined in terms of chastity. Chastity ostensibly indicated moral qualities, which ultimately ensured women would be pure; hence, their heirs would be legitimate. Chastity was insistently required of ‘gentlewomen’ than those down the social scale where property transmission was less at issue (Gwilliam 1995). Legal double standard, therefore, valorised and encouraged a silent, obedient, submissive chaste wife while allowing men to practice immoral and sinful nature according to their pleasure. Virtue was an important consideration of an eighteenth century English woman as it determined marriage opportunities and economic situation in life and thus, it popularity in novels like ‘Joseph Andrews’, which exploited societal popular concerns (Saintsbury 2004). Women had very limited work opportunities especially when they hailed from upper classes. They were majorly educated to get married rather than do anything for economic empowerment and remained brought up to get married for economic support. Authors like Defoe argued that for this reason, marriage was a kind of prostitution at least for some women. in the novel, men were viewed as monstrous gender and women were warned against them. Miss’ mother instructs her to be vigilant about Master, that he is monstrous animal who will eat her up if she allowed him anywhere near her. Femininity is associated with chaste and prostitution. Pamela was immensely successful. People were alert scared that simply seeking to be pure for moral reasons, young women would calculatedly utilize purity for financial gain. Women targeted wealthy men for marriage in order to attain financial favours. The belief that chastity and purity were key qualifications in this effect was every woman’s perception (Craft 2005). ‘Joseph Andrews’ is therefore a logical progression in a debate (fictional) concerning virtue. On the other side ‘Pamela’, is a satirized ‘Shamela’ in feminine form and again, in a masculine presentation in Joseph (Gwilliam 1995). The humour in Joseph is predicated on the absurdity of a man worried about his chastity. The debate about virtue or masculine honour had was centuries old. The masculine equivalent to chastity, female honour that protected a family unit was to defend the family’s name actively. Masculine virtue can be traceable to traditions of heroism and epic tales normally presented as something similar to hotspur’s heroic and romanticized concept of humour in I Henry IV play by Shakespeare and often deriving its expression in duelling. Hercules would also fit into this context of masculine, active strength. Fielding lampoons his supposed sister Pamela in Joseph, but also brings the social concepts of virtue into question. Joseph chooses to dress simply like Pamela. He borrows Squire’s clothes. The same applies to Pamela who got some clothing from her mistress. Joseph appears a little vain just like Pamela. In a neat parody of Pamela’s conduct, Joseph denied Lady Booby sexual advances. Lady Booby lay naked on bed and told Joseph that she only trusted herself with a man alone. Joseph fatuously protests that he never had any evil design against her. His letter directed to Pamela parallels her letters directed to her family in Richardson’s ‘Pamela’. Unlike in Daniel Defoe’s ‘Moll Flanders’ where vulgarity an immorality is explored, chastity is the explored theme in ‘Joseph Andrews’ (Gwilliam 1995). Joseph, in his protagonist role effectively tackles the morality of sexual conduct. He is approached by three women including a morally hollow yet wealthy aristocratic widower, a young good-hearted servant and an icon of purity and chastity who was his love, Fanny. Fanny and Joseph share some characters and chaste values. He is a man of mental acuity and attractive physique that makes him an extremely sexually arousing person. He easily stimulates the opposite sex and by establishing his quality as the key character or protagonist force that Henry Fielding elaborates his claim for the significance of sexual forbearance before marriage and using these same challenging class notions of character and morality (Goring 2008). Utmost sexual responsibility that conforms to Godly demands such as engaging in sexual activity after marriage expresses masculinity. This is directly opposite to how femininity is expressed in ‘Moll Flanders’ where sexual immorality is the order of the day. Moll easily engages in extramarital affairs. She has five husbands and additionally, her conduct entails a construct of illicit patterns like thieving and prostitution (Saintsbury 2004). Joseph is positioned as a serious commentator or advocator of virtue, which is undermined by his presentation (comic). He argues that he is Pamela’s brother and would be ashamed if his family’s chastity, which is preserved in her, is stained in him. This projection would be obvious to a reader of the time (eighteenth century) that the stain he referred to is attached to his patrilineal inheritance (Goring 2008). The greatest absurdity in his statements is that as a chaste male, he would fail to bear heirs and, therefore, would eventually have no family to be stained by his absurd behaviour. The views the ‘stain’ as moral and Fielding seems to be sympathizing with this but it is socially absurd and legal. When Josephs commented that what honours, riches or pleasures can make men amend for loss of innocence, he broke down into Pamela’s parody, which rendered her argument as amusing other than convincing (Craft 2005). Fielding recognizes the significant difference between his situation and situations. As a male, his chastity is in his own power whereas a female chastity lied on the powers of societal expectations. When Betty’s passion mastered her reason and modesty, he takes her in his arms and shuts her out of the room. The definition of virtue in secular and biblical contexts is thoroughly questioned in ‘Joseph Andrews’, vividly bearing its basis in mind. Sometimes seriously or playful, Fielding advocated the significance of male virtue in the context of Christianity, long-suffering, charity and even chastity (Goring 2008). Both literary works revolve around the issues of sexuality in the eighteenth century Europe, specifically England. They were among the first novels that marked the beginning of novel as a genre. Even though the stories were fictional, they touched on realism through theme setting and characterization. Richardson re-oriented the narrative perspective that delineated private experience and domestic life of the characters. His circumstantial descriptions applied to sentiments and people as compared to Defoe whose description applied to objects (Goring 2008). Bibliography Craft-Fairchild, C., 2005. Masquerade and gender: Disguise and female identity in eighteenth-century fictions by women. Pennsylvania: Penn State Press. Defoe, D., 2007. Moll Flanders (Vol. 31). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH). Goring, P., 2008, Eighteenth-century literature and culture. New York: A&C Black. Gwilliam, T., 1995. Samuel Richardsons fictions of gender. Redwood: Stanford University Press. Richardson, S., 1811. Pamela; or, virtue rewarded. New York: Messrs Rivington & Osborn. Saintsbury, G (Eds.)., 2004. Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University. Read More