Essay on Realism in Fielding's Joseph Andrews

Do you agree with Watt's view that Joseph Andrews is a realistic novel?

Watt’s notion of a realistic novel consists in it being primarily concerned with individual experience. Watt says, in The Rise of the Novel* that “the primary criterion of the novel “was truth to individual experience”” (p.13), as opposed to generality (an example of the latter would be the representation of characters as Virtue, Honesty, Vice, and so on). Particularity is another feature, with actions imagined as occurring at a particular time and place. Related to this is the description of times, places and settings, and characters in detail. The plot, too, is based around individual experience, rather than being based on previous works of “mythology, history, legend, or previous literature” (p.14). The events which make up the plot are causally connected to one another. In terms of style, the language used will be descriptive and denotative, that is, non-figurative.

If Joseph Andrews** was a realistic novel, it would centre on the individual experiences, and the individuality, of the characters in the book. The characters, however, are somewhat archetypal – they fit into a general mould. A good example of such, although it is a character not relevant to the plot, is Leonara’s father, whom is described as being “one of those fathers who look on children as an unhappy consequence of their youthful pleasures” (p.99). He is clearly stated to be a stock character, and it is arguable that the same goes, although in a less clear manner, for all the other characters in the book. The narrator says in one of many moments of self-reflexivity that “several of my readers will know the lawyer in the stage-coach, the moment they hear his voice” (p. 148). He describes the character of Mrs. Two-wouse by saying that “where extreme turbulence of temper, avarice, and an insensibility of human misery, with a degree of hypocrisy, have united in female composition, Mrs. Two-wouse was that woman” (p.148). This way of writing is in stark contrast to, it is polar opposite of, Watt’s idea of realism which is centred on the individual. Watt writes, in reference to the realistic novel, that “the plot had to be acted by particular people in particular circumstances rather than as had been common in the past, by general human types” (p.16). Not only by analysing the characters themselves, but by reading Fielding’s own words, it is clear that Joseph Andrews fits the latter category almost to a tee – it deals with general human types, with “not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species” (p.148), not particular people in particular circumstances.

Particularity is one of the most important aspects of a realistic work as conceived by Watt, possessing “an aesthetic tendency in favour of particularity” (p.17). Despite the internal aspects of a character being somewhat stock standard, their physical aspects are given a lot more attention than in previous novels such as Pamela and Moll Flanders – we have a number of characters whose physical attributes are described in some detail. Fanny, for example, has almost a page devoted to describing her physical attributes (p.119-120), and Joseph about half a page (p.31). The bestowing of unique physical attributes to the characters runs against the stock standard way in which their personalities are depicted – they are archetypal in terms of character, yet physically unique. It is arguable that the two aforementioned characters still fit a certain mould, both being the perfect sexual specimen – Joseph is very strong and fit, “without the least clumsiness” (p.31). Fanny is so attractive that we are to exercise caution in reading her description, in order to avoid a situation where we “might say to our desires, Coelum ipsum petimus stultitia” (p.119); in other words, that we might be led into temptation. Neither character is befitted with flaws and strengths that would be expected from a unique person, but are painted as being perfect. As such, they do, in a way, fit a “general type” as their characters do.

Another of those areas which are expected to deal with particulars is place and setting. Watt says of Defoe (to him a writer of realism), that he “would seem to be the first of our writers who visualised the whole of his narrative as though it occurred in an actual physical environment” (p.27). The same certainly applies to Joseph Andrews, where many places and settings are referred to specifically. This is especially apparent when a character known only as “the gentleman”, in Book III Chapter III, recounts his life story, naming a number of particular places– Mother Haywood’s (upon which we rely on the editor for notes, as the actual name is blotted out), a brothel, St James’s coffee-house and the Newgate prison. One area in which the realism is limited, though, is that the descriptions of such places is extremely thin, if present at all – little to no attention is given to describing the geography of the places where the characters pass by and reside. In this way, it is quite similar to Defoe’s Moll Flanders, in that the places and settings of the novel are important, they are imagined to be occurring in an actual physical environment”, yet the physical descriptions of these places are not given. It is important to note, though, that for Watt, this is not a necessary characteristic of a realistic novel, and as such, in this aspect, Joseph Andrews may still be considered realistic.

One of the areas in which particularity is to be adhered to is that of time, that the work has an “insistence on the time process”; according to Watt, the “novel in general has interested itself much more than any other literary form in the development of its characters in the course of time” (p.23). Watt says of a realistic novel that “the novels’ plot is also distinguished from most previous fiction by its use of past experience as the cause of present action: a causal connection operating through time” (p.23). A plot based on causality, one that is made up of a series of causally connected events, is therefore a crucial element of the realistic novel. Joseph Andrews is a story about a servant, Joseph, and his experiences as he travels across the country. The actions which causes him begin his journey are the sexual advances made on him by Mrs. Slipslop and Lady Booby. From hereon in, most of the story is taken up with causally connect events – Joseph is mugged while walking on the road at night, which leads him to the fortunate meeting with Parson Adams. Upon leaving the inn at which they were staying, Adams finds (thanks to Joseph) that he left behind his sermons, and as such needs to return to the inn to find them, which leads to further complications, which in turn leads to further complications, and in this way the plot of the novel is made up. The plot, as such, is therefore made up of causally connected events, and as such, meets Watt’s criteria for a realistic plot.

There are, however, quite frequent times in the novel when this causal pattern is disrupted. The first chapters of the first three books, for example, have little to do with the story, but are discourses on writing written self-reflectively by the narrator. There are other moments which lack this self-reflexivity, yet still deviate largely from the plot. Book III Chapter III, for example, is concerned with the life story of a gentleman, which could be considered a plot in its own right, and does not fit into the causal stream of events at all. In Chapter V of the same book, we get “a disputation on schools” (p.179), and then in Chapter VI, “moral reflections by Joseph Andrews” (p.182). The best example of such a deviation from plot, though, is in chapter X, which the narrator describes as “a discourse between the poet and player, of no other use in this history, but to divert the reader” (p.203). Such random departures from the plot of the novel do serve to compromise its realism.

The style of writing used in Joseph Andrews is primarily prose, the language being, for the most part, non-symbolic and referential. In other words, it is being used to explicitly describe events, actions or thoughts as they are happening, rather than through figures or tropes. This is one of Watt’s defining characteristics of a realistic novel, who says that “the function of language is much more largely referential in the novel than in other literary forms” (p.31). There are instances, however, where Fielding strays from this style. At the beginning of Book I, Chapter VIII, the narrator uses similes reminiscent of a Homerian epic:

Now the rake Hesperus had called for his breeches, and having well rubbed his drowsy eyes, prepared to dress himself for all night; by whose example his brother rakes on Earth likewise leaves those beds, in which they had slept away the day. Now Thetis the good housewife began to put on the pot in order to regale the good man Phoebus, after his daily labours were over. (p.30)

This is an example of a highly figurative piece of writing, and although it is a rare one, does show a deviation from the standard prose which realistic novels, according to Watt, are supposed to be written in (there is another such an example on p.108, used to describe the actions of Fanny’s attacker). Still, Watt does not completely preclude writers of realism from indulging in the occasional figure or trope, saying “[figurative language] is much rarer in the prose of Defoe and Richardson than in that of any previous writer of fiction” (p.29) – he does not say that a realistic work must be solely written in prose. For that reason, it is fair to say that despite the odd deviation into figurative language, Joseph Andrews does meet this part of Watt’s criteria for realism.

There are some areas in which Joseph Andrews would be considered by Watt to be realistic – the particularity of time and place, the causally connected series of events which make up the plot, and the prose style in which it is written. On the other hand, there are a number of areas where the novel does not meet Watt’s criteria for realism – the novel deviates frequently from its plot in order to engage in various religious or moral discourses, and the narrator engages in self-reflexive passages which are unrelated to the outcome of the story. Most importantly, though, the characters are stock standard, based on certain types of character rather than focussing on individualities. This is Watt’s “primary criterion” of the realistic novel, and having not being met; it is therefore not feasible to claim that Joseph Andrews is a realistic novel, despite possessing some of the characteristics of such.

* all quotes from Ian Watt are taken from The Rise of the Novel (London: Chatto and Windus, 1957), thanks to Bill Walker’s Engl2108 lecture on 27^th July, 2005.

** all references to Joseph Andrews are to the 1987 Norton edition (New York).