Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding

 Joseph Andrews

     Joseph Andrews is the main character of the novel Joseph Andrews written by Henry Fielding. He is shown as son of Gaffar and Gammer Andrews in the expository part of the novel. Pamela stands to be her sister who is married with Mr. Booby because of her resoluteness with the sanctity of her chastity. Excellent cudgel player, Joseph Andrews was an apprentice with Sir Thomas Booby on his shire. He was bird keeper there. His voice was so musical ‘that it rather allured the birds than terrified them.’ He was soon shifter to the dog-kennel.

    Soon he was deputed on stable where he worked with honesty and dedication that he becomes apple of everyone’s eyes. His coming to London with Booby family makes him fashionable enough with respect to hair cut, costumes and manners. He had already ‘learnt to read and write by the goodness of his father.’ He is well versed in Bible. He becomes an accomplished youth. Joseph Andrews, a bird keeper, then a dog keeper and then a horse keeper gets notable position in the heart of Lady Booby who acquires him as her pageboy from Sir Thomas Booby. 

     To lady Booby,’ Joe was the handsomest and genteelest footman in the kingdom’. ‘She would now walk out with him into Hyde Park in a morning, and when tired, which happened almost every minute, would lean on his arm, and converse with him in great familiarity. Whenever she stepped out of her coach, she would take him by the hand, and sometimes, for fear of stumbling, press it very hard.’ Despite all the favours, these ‘innocent freedoms’ had no effect on Joseph Andrews who was a paragon of male chastity. 

     After the death of Sir Thomas Booby, Lady Booby spends only six days in reclusion. On seventh day, Lady Booby calls Joseph Andrews in her bedroom and shows advances towards him. Joseph Andrews, who believes that chastity in man is as important as in woman, shows his indifference to those advances. Failing in her advances towards Joe, Lady Booby turns him out of her mansion. He leaves Booby House and sets out on journey to his country home.

     In the way, he is robbed off. He hardly escapes from death in a cold ditch. He reaches an inn where there is Parson Adam, an old acquaintance of him. Betty, a maid servant showers her loves on him but he declines all of them gently. Mr. Two Wouse tries to entrap her but is caught red handed. Parson Adam comes to know that his wife didn’t pack the sermons in his belongings, so he also returns to countryside along-with Joseph Andrews.  

     The whole way they face a series of hardships, adventures and exploits. Fanny, found by Parson, joins them in the second inn where they meet after a storm. In the way, they also meet Mr. Wilson who becomes a source of salvation as well as an agent of reversal in the action. Finally they reach their country side and again face maneuverings of Lady Booby who joins them later. When she comes to know that Fanny and Joseph are going to be married, she knits a plot to sabotage their marriage but fails. Mr. Booby and Pamela’s appearance escorts the couple honourably but the uncovering of the theft of a baby girl from Andrews by Peddler turns out to be an alarming havoc of incest marriage. Soon we find that Joseph Andrews was not the son of Andrews but son of Mr. Wilson who had lost him when he was just an infant.

     In this way, Joseph Andrews’ resoluteness in his Christian virtues and male chastity results into a happy ending. Once driven away from the Booby’s House as a dejected and rejected pageboy, Joseph Andrews turns out to be the brother of Pamela who is wife of Mr. Booby, a rich landlord, and latterly the son of Mr. Wilson, a well respected man in society.

    Joseph Andrews will always be remembered for his piety, purity, perseverance and unflinching faith in religious values. Henry Fielding was true in saying: ‘Examples work more forcibly on the mind than precepts.