Opinions greatly differ in the matter of Fielding’s plot construction in Tom Jones. According to one view, Tom Jones is all plot.
In other words, it means that Fielding has given much attention to plot construction in Tom Jones. According to the other view, Tom Jones, being a Picaresque novel, is full of incidents, but it has not been executed according to a well-thought-out plan. The second view seems to be irrelevant in spite of the fact that there is a good number of digressions in the novel, the glaring example being the story of the Man of the Hill. Moreover, the author’s own too frequent views concerning various literary and artistic theories and addresses to the reader, even if they have their own value, reflect on the cohesion of the plot.
According to the Cambridge History of English Literature, “Tom Jones remains the first English novel conceived and carried out on a structural plan that secured an artistic unity of the whole. It set up for prose fiction a standard which nearly all its greater writers have followed, and which is to be found practically unchanged in Thackeray. There are three main characters and whom the story of Tome Jones revolves. They are – Tom Jones, Sophia Western and Mr. Bilfil. All other characters help in one way or the other in furthering this story by aiding the main characters in various ways in fulfilling their missions, besides unfolding their characters or personalities. In the earlier part of the novel, we have certain incidents which may be called child-like or childish. For example, Sophia is very fond of a bird. Bilfil, the hypocrite, while posing to help Sophia, lets loose the bird to the great chagrin of Sophia.
She cries loudly. Her cries are heard by Tom who rushes to help her even while risking his own life to capture the bird for her. Naturally, he wins Sophia’s favor while Bilfil loses it. Tom and Sophia come closer. Tom is considered low born and Squire Western, Sophia’s father is not inclined to marry his daughter to Tom. As Allworthy’s ears are poisoned by Bilfil, the Squire throws Tom out of his house. He is compelled to start his journey on the road to Bristol. Sophia has also to leave her parental house as she learns that she is going to be married to Bilfil against her will. This is hour her journey also starts. Squire Western also soon starts his journey in search of his daughter.
Tom Jones has a complicated plot. In order to understand it properly, it has been divided into three sections
- Events before Tom’s starting his journey to London.
- Events during Tom’s journey to London.
- Events after his arrival in London.
In the first part we have the description regarding Tom’s being nourished at the house of Squire Allworthy along with Master Bilfil, the son of Allworthy’s sister, Mrs. Bridget.
Tom is considered a foundling and a bastard and thus much more attention and consideration are reserved for Bilfil, though it is clear from the very beginning that Bilfil is not match for Tom in the matter of qualities of head and heart. There grows a sense of jelousy in the heart of Bilfil and the latter even becomes malicious and villainous.
Bilfil tries to poison Allworthy’s ears against Tom who is, no doubt, a mischievous boy. Later Tom and Bilfil become rivals in the matter of love for Sophia Western. The events have partly been explained in the foregoing paras also. Tom has to befriend Black George, a gamekeeper, but he is unfortunately enticed and allured by Molly, George’s daughter.
She is a great seducer. Surprisingly, Tom remains mostly a passive character though seemingly he appears to be very active and there is no doubt that he is full of animal spirits. Intrusively the opinions of the tutor, Thwackum, and the philosopher, Square, also go against him and it is only in the last part of the novel that the favourable opinion of Square for Tom is received. In the second phase, both Jones and Sophia are on their way till they reach London. There are several situations and incidents and up and down in the lives of the hero and the heroine.
We learn how tom rescues Mrs Water from Ensing Northernton when she is found being harassed by the ruffian-soldier and is only half-clad and they reach the inn at Upton. Tom has already a taste of a fight with the soldier – a situation which leads to his chance meeting with Partridge whence the latter tells Tom that he is not his father.
The most dramatic situation takes place at the inn at Upton when at mid-night Tom is discovered with Mrs Waters by chance when Mr. Fitzpatrick comes in pursuit of his wife Mrs. Waters is none other than Mrs. Jenny Jones who has earlier confessed to being Tom’s mother. Thus the Oedipus curse seems to fall on Tom but the later discovery that Tom’s real mother was Mrs Bridget, Allworthy’s sister, relieves the tension.
Sophia’s arrival at Upton creates a strange situation. When she learns that Jones is closeted with Mrs. Water at that time of the night, she feels despondent and arrays her muff (which Tom had kissed) to be thrown into Tom’s had a piece of paper with along with her name written on it. She leaves the place and now Tom starts pursuing her just as previously she was pursuing him.
All three sections are full of incidents. Even in the first part, which is the most epical, painting life and character in a broad and racy style, the narrative, going forward with a steady movement, breaks from time to time into lively dramatic scenes.
The second part is much more dramatic, a surift succession of adventures in which the different threads are hurried across the loom for the final entanglement.
In the third part, the story reaches a complexity that seems to defy all hope of a fortunate solution, and then in the last chapters, by the time-honored device of revelation and recognition, an issue is triumphantly provided.
Thus the tale which began with epical narration terminates in an exciting drama of intrigue. This is complicated and rich in surprises, but the probability is never outraged.
With deep-laid cunning everything has been prepared for ahead. All is foreseen, nothing left to chance. One must read the story backwards so to speak, to appreciate the beauty and precision of Fielding’s plot, in which every character has an essential part to fulfil, and there is hardly an incident, no matter how insignificant, but contributes to the intended result.
Little indeed is accidental or could be omitted, without detriment to the inner and outer symmetry.” We cannot deny that there are several redundant narrations, descriptions and postulations in this part as they are a part of the way of writing of Fielding.
For example, we have Jones’ arrival at the dwelling of the Man of Hill, his hearing of the noise outside, his rushing out with an old rusty sword, and his rescuing from ruffians the so-called formidable Man of the Hill, whom as the old woman said, the people feared more than anybody else.
Then we have Jones encounter with the highwayman. The latter asks Jones to take him on his horse to London. the foolish chance mention of a 100 note with tom prompts the robber to whip out a pistol and aim at tom while demanding the bill from him. Of course, Tom overpowers him and snatches the pistol from him. As he learns that the man was trying to commit the first robbery of his life in sheer desperation to save his family from starvation.
Tom takes pity on him and pardons him and even gives him the two guineas he had. Ironically, the pistol has no bullets. Probably the robber had no money to purchase any. It will be in the fitness of things to read an account of the third phase right from E.A. Baker in his own words “This last portion of the novel in which the soundness of the substructure is tested, is too intricate to be analysed in detail, except at inordinate length.
Let us note some of the critical points. Tom and Sophia are now in London. He is near the end of his money and in a state of desperation. She is safe for the moment in the house of her cousin, Lady Bellaston, who presently, however, hatches a scheme to match the heiress to a man of her own dissipated world.
Lord Fellamar. Tom knows nothing of this; but, having by chance become possessed of a pocketbook belonging to Sophia and containing a hundred-pound note, he tries to find her out. But his luck is still against him. With “never less inclination to an amour” he becomes involved, by his, “gallantry to the ladies,” in an affair with Lady Belliston, and receiving a present from this dangerous person, finds himself in a ticklish position.
Going to her house one night to an appointment, he is met, not by her, but by Sophia. They are interrupted by Lady Belliston and the ensuing scenes are comedies of the finest order.
To free himself from the clutches of the lady, Jones writes her a letter, formally offering marriage, which he is certain will secure a contemptuous refusal and his dismissal. But he reckons without his host, for the incriminating letter is afterwards produced as evidence of his treachery to Sophia. To get rid of this rival, Lady Bellaston advises Fellamar to have Jones seized by a press-gang. At the critical moment, Jones is attacked by the jealous husband of Mrs Fizpatrick, and he runs him through the body in self-defence.
“Tom Jones is now at the crisis of his misfortunes. He lies in prison charged with murder; he has ruined himself irretrievably with Sophia; he is finally disgraced with Allworthy and Squire Western in beside himself with glee at the prospect of seeing him hanged.
In this predicament, he now learns something that adds horror to the tragedy. Mrs Waters has been identified as Jenny Jones, and he believes that Jenny Jones is his mother. He has unwittingly incurred the guilt of Oedipus.”
However, as we learn later, Mrs Waters herself says that Tom is, in fact, the son of Mrs Bridget, Allworthy’s own sister and that she made the false confession to get favour from the lady and to save her from social shame.
The most tricky part of this phase is Tom’s relationship with Lady Bellaston, but me know it was all under certain compulsions and because of Tom’s lack of experience. We should remember that he was only a raw country lad.
Finally, Bilfil is exposed and his game is over when his is disowned by Allowrhty and Tom and Sophia are married.
It seems most plausible to close the matter of plot construction with the word of the celebrated critic, Walter Allen who sums up the entire exercise in his own powerful style
“Yet fine as Joseph Andrews and Jonathan Wild are, they scarcely prepare us for so great an achievement as the history of Tom Jones, which, after two centuries, remains among the handful of supreme novels.
The new element in “Tome Jones” is Fielding’s architectonic quality; no plot has ever been carried through with more consummate skill and the skill can be truly appreciated only after the book has been closed.
In reading, one is delighted with the swiftness of the narration, the economy, the nimble and inexhaustible invention.
Fielding had learnt much from his experience in the theatre especially how to break up the narrative, set his scene in a minimum of words and carry on the action in short, swift passages of dialogue.
But it is only after reading that we realize how every detail has its place in the action, is a preparation for what is to come, the full significance of which cannot be apparent until the novel has reached its end; then, what seemed at first glance a happy stroke of invention reveals itself as part of the essential structure of a book, without which the whole could not exist.
Fielding was as superb a craftsman in his own way as Henry James. There is only one blot on the novel judged as a formal whole, the introduction of the extraneous story of the Man of the Hill, and even then that can plausibly if not convincingly, be justified.”
One may still be bold to say the final word. Fielding was a great master of the element of surprise and coincidence and chance. Tom’s parentage remains an engine throughout the novel and is solved only towards the end. For the major part of the novel Patridge and Jenny Jones are considered the parents.
But it is much later that we learn that his real parents are one Mr Summer and Mrs Bridget, the latter is the daughter of Squire Allworthy and thus finally, he turns out to be the Squire’s nephew. In fact, the whole novel is full of coincidences, chance and surprising situations which give the novel a dramatic to chapter
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