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Book 13, Chapter 11
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
After Tom leaves, Lady Bellaston and Sophia each keep up the ruse that Tom is just some kind stranger who happened to find Sophia’s 100-pound bank note and pocket-book. Lady Bellaston calls the young man handsome, but Sophia pretends she didn’t notice. Lady Bellaston asks forgiveness: when she first saw the young man, she thought that Sophia was with her Tom Jones. Sophia laughs the idea off. She asks what Lady Bellaston meant when she called the young man handsome, but Lady Bellaston protests that she is indifferent, both to the young man who just left and to Tom Jones. Both ladies are suspicious of each other, but they part pretending that any issue is resolved between them.
In this passage, Sophia and Lady Bellaston each know more than they let on, and they probe each other with questions to try to determine just exactly what the other ones knows. The typically virtuous Sophia flat-out lies about Tom’s true identity, showing how she has come to distrust Lady Bellaston and vice versa. Unlike men in the story, Lady Bellaston and Sophia don’t get violent or duel each other, but beneath their polite words is a fierce conflict.
Active
Themes
