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Book 12, Chapter 3
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Virtue vs. Vice
Marriage, Romance, and Economics
Appearance vs. Reality
Coming of Age
Storytelling, Literature, and Structure
Summary
Analysis
As Tom and Partridge continue along the road, they come to a crossroads and meet a beggar-man. He wants to sell them a pocket-book he found on the ground. Tom is shocked to see that the book contains Sophia’s handwriting. While examining the book, a 100-pound bank note falls out of it, and Partridge finds it and gives it to Tom. The beggar-man never thought to open the book because he can’t read.
In this passage the beggar-man doesn’t even realize the value of the pocket-book he’s found, allowing Tom to get back Sophia’s book with the 100-pound bank note intact. Once again, while the novel perhaps most thoroughly explores the hypocrisy of rich and powerful characters, it does not necessarily portray poor characters in a better light, as this passage makes fun of how the beggar-man lost money because he didn’t know how to read.
Active
Themes
The beggar-man agrees to take Tom and Partridge to where he found Sophia’s pocket-book. The beggar is a little confused about how important the book seems to be to Tom, who keeps kissing it a hundred times while he walks. Eventually, the beggar-man starts saying that he deserves more money—if not the full 100-pound bank note, then at least a portion of it. But Tom insists on giving it back to Sophia and says he has no more money to pay the beggar. The fact that Tom now has the extra 100 pounds makes Partridge more loyal to Tom. The beggar-man laments that if he’d learned to read, he’d be better off.
