A Brief Note on Henry Fielding's Narrative Style
Examining the Realism That Would Prefigure Tom Jones
Mar 3, 2009
Ian Watt claims, in The Rise of the Novel, that Fielding’s “patent selectiveness of vision destroys our belief in the reality of report, or at least diverts our attention from the content of the report to the skill of the reporter” (377). Although Watt uses Tom Jones as an example in his essay, to what extent does Joseph Andrews both anticipate and define this tension between Fielding’s style and subject matter?
When Adams is attacked by a squire’s hounds, Fielding begins to describe how Joseph jumps to the parson’s defense. But the author pauses for a moment: “Reader, we would make a Simile on this Occasion, but for two Reasons: The first is, it would interrupt the Description, which should be rapid in this part. . . . The second, and much greater Reason is, that we could find no Simile adequate to our Purpose.” (208)
Rhetorical Flourishes and Asides
Fielding’s purpose is not only -- not even primarily -- to describe Joseph and how he beats back the hounds with his cudgel. Rather, the author uses a discussion of the inadequacies of language to indirectly emphasize the “Friendship, Courage, Youth, Beauty, Strength, and Swiftness . . . which blazed in the Person of Joseph Andrews” (208), inserting a rhetorical flourish where figurative language would normally seem most appropriate.
In this way, Fielding shifts the narrative emphasis from what is happening in the story to how hard it is to describe someone as excellent as Joseph, diverting our attention from content to style. Later in the text, Adams, Fanny, and Joseph obligated to have dinner with the squire who owned the hounds.
Fielding's Brand of Realism
When one of the squire’s butlers spikes Adams’ ale, Fielding notes: “had it not been for the Information which we received from a Servant of the Family, this Part of our History . . . must have been deplorably imperfect; tho’ we must own it probable, that some more Jokes were (as they call it) cracked during their Dinner; but we have by no means been able to come at the Knowledge of them" (213).
At first, this aside seems akin to the sort of realism-strengthening moves Defoe makes in Robinson Crusoe, in which ship’s papers, star charts, and other “reliable” sources are used to maintain a sense that it is a documentary novel. Similarly, Fielding claims that this part of Joseph Andrews was almost lost to spiked ale and time, suggesting (as he does intermittently throughout the text) that the novel was constructed largely from eye-witness accounts.
These two brief instances reflect the sort of emphasis Watt talks about, the sense that Fielding is as concerned with how his story is presented as he is with the content of the story, its events and characters. While Fielding’s work does not show a complete departure from the “new” realism of authors like Defoe and Richardson, his infatuation with style and rhetoric produces fiction that is as much about the author as the story.
References:
Fielding, Henry. Joseph Andrews and Shamela. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1967.
Watt, Ian. “The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding.” Theory of the Novel: A Historical Approach. Ed. Michael McKeon. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2000. 363-81.
