Tom Jones: the Foundling

The History of Tom Jones: A Foundling by Henry Fielding 

I heard of this novel when watching the film Becoming Jane about Jane Austen.  Her love interest tells Jane that if she wants to be the equal of a male writer she must be able to write truthfully about experience.  And, in order to do that, she must experience things.  

This is a novel about many of the possible experiences in life.  Tom Jones is a bastard child taken in by a wealthy landowner, Allworthy, and raised by him.  Allworthy is also raising his nephew and the two grow up side by side and very different.  

Tom Jones is a free spirit.  Very hot-tempered, quick to react, loves the ladies, fickle-natured, but has the desire to do good by others.  It just doesn't always work out that way.  He falls in love with Sophia, the daughter of his neighbor: Squire Western.  The Squire likes Tom, but as soon as he begins to desire Sophia, the Squire locks his daughter up in the house.  

Tom Jones is forced to leave Allworthy's house due to a deception by the jealous nephew.  Allworthy writes Tom off & sends him out into the world without any protection.  He withdraws his good opinion of Tom and his support.  Tom is adrift.

And all manner of things happen to him: conscription, fighting, sex, and meetings with strange characters.  In this way, the book is a philosophical tale similar to others of the time (for me it reminded me of Voltaire's Candide - only much, much longer).  Through a fictional tale that asks how do you make sense of the cruelty of experience and of people, of injustices, of the many opinions you hear others espouse during your travels, of temptations, of that which glitters but is not gold, and of the twists and turns of trying to love another - the novel is a challenge to learn for the reader. To learn without having to be the one immediately experiencing the twists and turns.  

Tom's journey, though very drawn out at times, is therefore very interesting to follow & I think it's still applicable to modern experience in many ways.  And I like that Tom errs, he actually errs quite a lot.  He gets involved when he shouldn't because he's a willing participant - a recipe that can make one very beleaguered very quickly if it goes on too long.  He always learns what he learns the hard way.  That might be helpful for a writer creating a character - but for a person trying to live it is actually very inconvenient.  But despite getting into trouble more often than not, Tom somehow keeps a good, carefree attitude through most of his wanderings.  I liked that.

I also liked that Fielding discusses the treatment of women in this novel.  Sophia is heavily controlled by her father who is himself a drunkard and very reckless.  While she is intelligent and careful, he thinks that her only value is in keeping her "fresh" for a good and wealthy husband.  Oddly enough, Sophia is very concerned about this too, but much more intelligently.  Squire Western is a hot-head who thinks it can always be solved by simply locking her up and guarding the key no matter how unhappy it makes Sophia.  She wants to have access to living and men, but doesn't believe that they will do well by her simply because they're attracted to her.  She questions and challenges Tom to be more honest about how he feels and this counteracts his tendency to simply fly by the seat of his pants.  This is a quality I admired in Sophia and wish I could employ on my own behalf.  

Then there's another couple that Tom meets while he's living in London.  The man throws the woman over and it's clear how little the woman was left with once she was abandoned.  Then others get involved and try to get the man to do the right thing.  Again, showing that woman have to almost marshall men...or to focus their energies that often are simply hectically trying to attain their prize.  The woman must give that process meaning, probe it and test it to make sure it's in earnest, and that there's an art to this that is different than being coy or just appearing and disappearing at random.  And without this art life is harder for a woman.