Question: Comment on Fielding's treatment of Joseph's chastity in Joseph Andrews.
Or,
How far do you agree with the view that the subject of Joseph Andrews is male chastity asserted in the face of female incontinence?
Answer: Henry Fielding occupies a place of distinction in the history of literature in general and of English literature in particular. His greatness lies in his achievement as a writer of comic prose epic in English literature. He was a great master of the English novel.
The novel Joseph Andrews certainly begins with a picture of a lady's sexuality or sensuality, and a man's firm resistance to it. The novel begins with an account of Lady Booby's growing sexual interest in her footman, her amorous advances to him, and his rejection of them. Here we certainly get the idea that fielding is presenting to us a contrast between male chastity and female incontinence. But in this connection, we should remember that Fielding's original purpose in writing this novel was to burlesque Richardson's novel Pamela in which Richardson had depicted a maid-servant by the name of Pamela firmly resisting the sexual advances of her employer whom she despised but whom she afterward agreed to marry. In view of Fielding's evident purpose to parody Richardson's morality as depicted in that novel, we cannot say that Fielding is here dealing seriously with the theme of male chastity standing firmly against female sensuality. However, if for the moment we forget the background against which Fielding wrote this novel, we would have to admit that, in the first episode of the novel, we certainly get the impression that Lady Booby is unable to exercise any control over her sexual impulses and that Joseph, the foot-man, is able to withstand the temptation which she offers to him. We must in such a situation admire Joseph's resistance because ordinarily, no man would be able to resist an aristocratic Lady's amorous advances even if she were many years older than the man with whom she has become infatuated. At first Lady Booby makes only indirect suggestions to Joseph but, finding him indifferent, she becomes more explicit. She makes Joseph sit down at her bedside when she is almost naked in bed, and she then takes hold of his hand and talks to him exactly as a lady does to her sweetheart in a play meant for the stage. Writing to his sister about this incident, Joseph clearly says that, if Lady Booby continues to behave in this crazy manner, he would not stay long in her service. Thus Joseph's determination in the face of the temptation held out to him by Lady Booby is very strong.
The theme of male chastity versus female incontinence receives emphasis when Lady Booby's woman-in-waiting, namely Mrs. Şlipslop, behaves towards Joseph in very much the same manner as Lady Booby had done. In fact, Mrs. Slipslop seems to have been sexually starved for a long time, so she proves to be almost aggressive in her effort to acquire Joseph as her lover. While Lady Booby had at least shown some modesty in expressing her passion for this young man and had offered her body to him in a veiled or indirect manner, Mrs. Slipslop shows neither any modesty nor any hesitation. She tries simply to grab him for her sexual satisfaction. Fielding compares Mrs. Slipslop to a hungry tigress who sees within her reach a lamb and then gets ready to leap on her prey. Like a hungry tigress, Mrs. Slipslop prepares to lay her violent amorous hands on poor Joseph, says Fielding. However, Joseph escapes when luckily Lady Booby rings the bell in order to summon Mrs. Slipslop and when Mrs. Slipslop promptly obeys the summons.
Lady Booby feels so enraged with Joseph's rejection of her offer that she dismisses him from her service. As for Mrs. Slipslop, she tries again sometime later to develop an intimacy with Joseph when she finds him in trouble with the landlady of an inn in the course of his journey. But this time again Mrs. Slipslop reaps disappointment. This time she finds him doing upon Fanny, and she then realizes that her efforts to win Joseph as her lover are doomed to fail. Before however, this incident takes place, we get another example of female incontinence in the face of which male chastity once again asserts itself. Betty, the maid at Mr. and Mrs. Tow-wouse's inn, falls over head and ears in love with Joseph, and she tries to get him to make love to her. She harbors a passion for Joseph and then while making his bed for him, she becomes so passionate that, setting aside her modesty and her reason, embraces him most eagerly and swears to him that he is the most handsome man she had ever seen. Joseph is completely taken aback by Betty's action and, continuing to be firm from in his resolve to preserve the purity of his character, leaps away Betty and tells her that he is sorry to see a young woman discarding all her sense of shame and behaving in this manner. In fact, Joseph has to use some violence in order to get rid of Betty at this time.
Fielding again returns to the theme of male chastity pitied against female incontinence towards the end of the novel. Here, we notice that Lady Booby's passion for Joseph revives when she returns from London to her country residence. In this connection, Fielding writes that Cupid's arrow had pierced Lady Booby's breast deeper than she at first had imagined. This time the flame of love burns in her breast more intensively. Therefore, she begins to make every possible effort to win Joseph into her bed. She tries to prevent Parson Adams from publishing the banns of Joseph's marriage with Fanny. She attempts to drive away both Joseph and Fanny from the bounds of her parish. She also engages Didapper to have Fanny ravished so that Joseph may abandon his plan to marry her. Thus, Lady Booby proves her utterly unscrupulous in the methods that she applies for the fulfillment of her unbound passion.
Finally, we may terminate that Lady Booby or Mrs. Slipslop is the embodiment of the passionate, immoral, and dishonest landladies of the 18th century, who represent the female incontinence and to their hands, the chastity of their footmen are greatly threatened. In Joseph Andrews, Joseph is a typical presentation of the common feature of the society in which Fielding belonged and got his aspect of writing.
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