Joseph Andrews Essay

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Joseph Andrews’ Celibacy and Interpolation What would you articulate about the personality of a man who has been attempted to fondle (pursued) by his master’s wife and a servant? It is the role of a handsome young footman- Joseph - - that Henry Fielding portrays in his novel “Joseph Andrews” moreover there are three intercalated tales. Through his actions, Joseph exemplifies a vow of celibacy. Fielding delineates Joseph as a very prim and proper even when he, himself realizes Lady Booby’s treatment of language and soliloquies to lower his character. Analogously, Mrs. Slipslop attempts same but vigorously as the narrator says “so did Mrs. Slipslop prepare to lay her violent amorous hands on the poor Joseph” (p. 34). But as his broad hints about Joseph and Fanny’s euphoric wedding night suggest, Fielding has a fundamentally positive attitude toward sex. In the mutual attraction, they demonstrate the virtuousness of their love in their eagerness to undertake a lifetime commitment (marriage). Because Joseph follows Mr. Adam as narrator tells “He [Mr. Adam] says he never knew anymore than his Wife, and I shall endeavor to follow his Example” (p. 46). Here Joseph’s “male-chastity” is somewhat contradictory, given the sexual double-standard, even militant chastity is vastly preferable, however, to the loveless and predatory sexuality of Lady Booby and those like her: as Martin C. Battestin argues, “Joseph’s chastity is amusing because extreme; but it functions nonetheless as a wholesome antithesis to the fashionable lusts and intrigues of high society.” The three interpolated tales in Joseph Andrews are: Leonora or the Unfortunate Jilt, Wilson’s and the story of Leonard and Paul. A recent book-length study on Henry Fielding tells that “The time has come when critics are ready to acknowledge that the interpolated tales in Joseph Andrews belong, are made to belong in
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