Fielding's tone in Joseph Andrews is lighthearted and whimsical, although the novel has real heart: Fielding suggests at the beginning of the book that novels should present readers with both “delight” and “instruction” and leave the reader “almost as much improved as entertained”—and certainly sets out to do just that. The character names are silly and playful—Tittle, Tattle, Booby, Slipslop, and more—and Fielding displays a keen ability to employ tropes of fiction to great comedic effect. Throughout the novel, storms arrive at the best possible times in order to usher the plot forward, inns await around every corner to provide safety and to facilitate character introductions, and throughout it all, Fielding waits at the beginning and end of chapters and books to offer asides and snarky comments about the act of writing and the conventions of his craft.
All the same, Fielding occasionally adopts a more instructional tone—this is ultimately a tale of virtuous love winning out over lust, and Fielding is quick to proselytize virtue to the reader. As Booby (whose redemption from lust is a major plot arc in the novel) exclaims in Book 4, Chapter 13,
How much more exquisite is the Pleasure resulting form the Reflection of Virtue and Prudence, than from the faint Relish of what flows from Vice and Folly!
By the end of the novel, as things end up happily ever after, Fielding trades some of his snark for real sincerity and celebrates the "tenderness" and "happiness" of true love.
