Social class is an important issue for all of the characters in Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews. As the lawyer Scout notes, the wealthy upper classes in England are above the law—but the law can be bent to do just about anything to the poor. Additionally, society expects people to marry within their own social classes, and characters are often willing to go to great lengths when given the rare opportunity to improve their own class. For example, in a story-within-the-story, the young lady Leonora abandons her faithful lover Horatio for a chance to match with a seemingly even higher-class man named Bellarmine. This ends disastrously for her, with Bellarmine rejecting Leonora after her father’s marriage offer is too stingy for him, highlighting the dangers of trying to challenge the rigid social order.
Despite what the characters themselves might believe, however, the novel makes it clear that having a higher social status doesn’t make a person more virtuous—in fact, it’s usually the opposite. The ending of the novel revolves around Joseph Andrews’s determination to marry Fanny, despite her lack of money and lower social class. Almost everyone agrees that Fanny is a beautiful and virtuous woman, but many characters can’t accept that a person of her social status could ever be a worthwhile wife. Ultimately, the matter is resolved not by characters facing their prejudices but through a comically contrived series of events that reveals that Fanny is from a higher social class than she originally thought. Although nothing about her has changed, many like the upper-class Squire Booby now drop their objections to the marriage, showing how flimsy the foundations of the whole class system can be. In Joseph Andrews, Fielding simultaneously depicts how central social class was to life in 18th-century England while also ridiculing the system and showing its flaws and limitations.
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Social Class Quotes in Joseph Andrews
It is a trite but true observation, that examples work more forcibly on the mind than precepts: and if this be just in what is odious and blameable, it is more strongly so in what is amiable and praiseworthy. Here emulation most effectually operates upon us, and inspires our imitation in an irresistible manner. A good man therefore is a standing lesson to all his acquaintance, and of far greater use in that narrow circle than a good book.
Mr Joseph Andrews, the hero of our ensuing history, was esteemed to be the only son of Gaffar and Gammar Andrews, and brother to the illustrious Pamela, whose virtue is at present so famous. As to his ancestors, we have searched with great diligence, but little success . . . To waive, therefore, a circumstance which, though mentioned in conformity to the exact rules of biography, is not greatly material, I proceed to things of more consequence. Indeed, it is sufficiently certain that he had as many ancestors as the best man living, and, perhaps, if we look five or six hundred years backwards, might be related to some persons of very great figure at present, whose ancestors within half the last century are buried in as great obscurity.
He was generous, friendly, and brave to an excess; but simplicity was his characteristick: he did, no more than Mr Colley Cibber, apprehend any such passions as malice and envy to exist in mankind; which was indeed less remarkable in a country parson than in a gentleman who hath passed his life behind the scenes [...]
His virtue, and his other qualifications, as they rendered him equal to his office, so they made him an agreeable and valuable companion, and had so much endeared and well recommended him to a bishop, that at the age of fifty he was provided with a handsome income of twenty-three pounds a year; which, however, he could not make any great figure with, because he lived in a dear country, and was a little encumbered with a wife and six children.
“Don’t pretend to too much modesty,” said she, “for that sometimes may be impertinent: but pray answer me this question. Suppose a lady should happen to like you; suppose she should prefer you to all your sex, and admit you to the same familiarities as you might have hoped for if you had been born her equal, are you certain that no vanity could tempt you to discover her? Answer me honestly, Joseph; have you so much more sense and so much more virtue than you handsome young fellows generally have, who make no scruple of sacrificing our dear reputation to your pride, without considering the great obligation we lay on you by our condescension and confidence? Can you keep a secret, my Joey?”
As soon as Joseph had sealed and directed this letter he walked downstairs, where he met Mrs. Slipslop, with whom we shall take this opportunity to bring the reader a little better acquainted. She was a maiden gentlewoman of about forty-five years of age, who, having made a small slip in her youth, had continued a good maid ever since. She was not at this time remarkably handsome; being very short, and rather too corpulent in body, and somewhat red, with the addition of pimples in the face.
Joseph complained he was dry, and desired a little tea; which Barnabas reported to Mrs Tow-wouse, who answered, “She had just done drinking it, and could not be slopping all day;” but ordered Betty to carry him up some small beer.
Betty obeyed her mistress’s commands; but Joseph, as soon as he had tasted it, said, he feared it would increase his fever, and that he longed very much for tea; to which the good-natured Betty answered, he should have tea, if there was any in the land; she accordingly went and bought him some herself, and attended him with it.
As soon as he had seated himself, the stranger began in these words: “Sir, I do not care absolutely to deny engaging in what my friend Mr Barnabas recommends; but sermons are mere drugs. The trade is so vastly stocked with them, that really, unless they come out with the name of Whitefield or Wesley, or some other such great man, as a bishop, or those sort of people, I don’t care to touch.”
Adams was now gone some minutes, having insisted on Joseph’s beginning the journey on horseback, and Joseph had his foot in the stirrup, when the hostler presented him a bill for the horse’s board during his residence at the inn. Joseph said Mr Adams had paid all; but this matter, being referred to Mr Tow-wouse, was by him decided in favour of the hostler, and indeed with truth and justice; for this was a fresh instance of that shortness of memory which did not arise from want of parts, but that continual hurry in which parson Adams was always involved.
Leonora was the daughter of a gentleman of fortune; she was tall and well-shaped, with a sprightliness in her countenance which often attracts beyond more regular features joined with an insipid air.
Trulliber are heartily, but scarce put anything in his mouth without finding fault with his wife’s cookery. All which the poor woman bore patiently.
“Sir,” said the host, “I assure you you are not the first to whom our squire hath promised more than he hath performed. He is so famous for this practice, that his word will not be taken for much by those who know him.”
A little under seventeen I left my school, and went to London with no more than six pounds in my pocket; a great sum, as I then conceived; and which I was afterwards surprized to find so soon consumed.
The gentleman answered, he should know him amongst ten thousand, for he had a mark on his left breast of a strawberry, which his mother had given him by longing for that fruit.
Peter, being informed by Fanny of the presence of Adams, stopt to see him, and receive his homage; for, as Peter was an hypocrite, a sort of people whom Mr Adams never saw through, the one paid that respect to his seeming goodness which the other believed to be paid to his riches.
For, if the court would be severely missed in such a city as London, how much more must the absence of a person of great fortune be felt in a little country village, for whose inhabitants such a family finds a constant employment and supply.
“The laws of this land are not so vulgar to permit a mean fellow to contend with one of your ladyship’s fortune.”
“I despise, I detest my passion.—Yet why? Is he not generous, gentle, kind?—Kind! to whom? to the meanest wretch, a creature below my consideration. Doth he not—yes, he doth prefer her.”
“Yes, he had as fine a strawberry as ever grew in a garden.” This Joseph acknowledged, and, unbuttoning his coat, at the intercession of the company, showed to them.
Joseph remains blest with his Fanny, whom he doats on with the utmost tenderness, which is all returned on her side. The happiness of this couple is a perpetual fountain of pleasure to their fond parents; and, what is particularly remarkable, he declares he will imitate them in their retirement, nor will be prevailed on by any booksellers, or their authors, to make his appearance in high life.
