Tom Jones free essay sample

Would it be correct to say that in Tom Jones, Fielding considers marriage to be a mere socio- economic arrangements under which women feel continuously suppressed? Discuss. The true history of the English countryside has been centred throughout in the problems of property in land, and in the consequent social and working relationships. By the eighteenth century, nearly half of the cultivated land was owned by some five thousand families. As a central form of this predominance, four hundred families, in a population of some seven or eight million people, owned nearly a quarter of the cultivated land. In a society stressing male dominance, it is surprising to find an author who writes his female characters as more intelligent than and even superior to his male characters. Henry Fielding demonstrates this respect for his female characters in his 18th century classic, Tom Jones, as well as in other works, like his novel, Amelia. We can see that the gender history is closely linked with the women’s history. Until then, the history was based on a male point of view; men dominated both the public and private life. But with the emergence of gender, women’s history is important for her emancipation. In general, texts argued that men and women were naturally different. Authors said that women were of a lower status and tried to mould them into an idealized shape (modest, pious, and domestic). This perception has been accentuated during the 18th century and women were confined to a private sphere. The majority of the studies centred primarily on women and femininity. We can see that the sexes were not rigidly defined and that gender affected men’s and women’s lives more than we had thought until then. Many authors talk of separate spheres; men were naturally suited to the public sphere of work and politics, as women were naturally suited to the private sphere of the home and the family. In Tom Jones, we cannot find many relevant occurrences of the separate spheres; the only character who could enter this idea is Mrs Western. She seems to partake in the public sphere but that makes her not feminine anymore. Fielding often shows that the place of the women is at home. This construction of separate spheres was a motor for the class formation. The middle class even made this central to their class identity. But some historians had doubts about this rigid separation. They thought that the different spheres were permeable and fluid in the 18th century. But even if people could create their own individuality, they were all subject to gendered social rules and obligations, like class, age, occupation and religion. During the 17th century, women played an active role in the family workshop. But under the more commercial system of economic organization which was developing in the 17th century, men became journeymen and day labourers and women lost their role as members of the trades through marriage and also their prime source of both training and employment. Conception of women as an intellectual empty ornament: husband considered as the head of the woman. Duty of the wife is to obey her husband. Woman’s ornamental status wasn’t established only because of her economic uselessness: was also determined by her cultural construction as an accessory to masculine desire. Throughout Tom Jones by Henry Fielding, there are many examples of marriage. There is Squire Westerns marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Fitzpatricks marriage, the mentions of Allworthys wife, the marriage of Nightengale and Nancy, and the marriage of Nightengales cousin and the clergyman, and finally the marriage of Tom and Sophia. Some of these marriages end with a happy ending and some do not and we, the reader, are supposed to look at these marriages and see why they went wrong or why they are good. Through all these examples of marriage, Fielding is urging us to question the current institution of marriage and what it is based on. The plot of Tom Jones is based on the desire to link by marriage the two largest estates in Somersetshire: the proposed marriage of Sophia Western to Blifil is conceived for this end; her marriage to Tom Jones, when he is eventually revealed as Allworthy’s true heir, achieves what had formerly, for personal reasons, been rejected. Throughout Tom Jones, Fielding criticizes the perversion of love by the upper-class, homo-social system of property marriage. The last part of the novel shows a convergence between hero and heroine, after their alienation in the inn at Upton. But the property-marriage plot is complicated by the sexual corruptions of London, which threaten to capture both Tom and Sophia, though in different ways seduction for Tom, force for Sophia. Sophia is both threatened by her father (as before) and in need of his protection against the aristocratic amorality of Lady Bellaston and Lord Fellamar. She gains in stature by becoming much more than just a maiden in distress, but one who can manipulate too, in the interests of virtue. Lord Fellamar wants sexual possession of Sophia, and also her ? 80,000; Lady Bellaston wants to get rid of a rival for Tom’s services. Lord Fellamar will rape Sophia, then â€Å"make her amends† by marrying her; Fielding finds this code as detestable as the sexual opportunism of Pamela. Even after Fellamar tries and fails, Western’s sister still tries to promote the match. It’s lucky for Sophia that her father’s incidental hatred of Lords protects her from this corruption at least (though not that threatened by Blifil). What we scarcely notice, however, is that under Fielding’s scheme, such reciprocity that is expected between husband and wife is not witnessed between partners in marriage. Instead, we see wives running away from husbands and husbands in hot pursuit of them – they have to get their wives back into the marriage-mould. Bibliography: