Introduction
Sexuality and the construct of ideal love in the novel Tom Jones by Henry Fielding is an explication of the new form of love and sexuality prevalent in the eighteenth century. Love in its discoursed ideal, sentimental form is little presented in the novel. Instead, Fielding presents male love and lust and clearly demarcates between the two. This essay argues that Fielding deliberately created the instances of lust and overt sexuality in order to highlight his ethical construct of good nature in human beings. The juxtaposition of love and lust in the same place helped in formation of the otherness and the discourse of sexuality.
The paper will also discuss the discourse of sexuality as presented by Fielding in the novel using Foucauldian concepts of discourse of sexuality. The paper argues that the sentimentalism presented in the novel by Fielding is reminiscent of two things: first, how sentimentalism bears on the discourse of sexuality and second, how Fielding discourses the sentiments of ideal and platonic life as opposed to sexual love. The concept of good nature and moral behavior that Fielding conceptualized is portrayed in the beginning of the novel where we find benevolent love. However, as the novel advances, the sentimentalities of love are depleted and at certain point, the readers are unsure of the moral worth of the hero’s love.
Sexuality and Love in Tom Jones
In the early eighteenth century, there emerged a penchant for vulgarism among the masses, which could be seen in the literary works produced at that time. The literature then produced, tried to, either moralize or indulge in the blatant vulgarism that the masses wanted to read. In Tom Jones, Fielding employs this love for the vulgar among the masses and explores the platonic relationship of Tom and Sophia. Some critics believe that the evidence of stroking and kissing and given Squire Western’s penchant for slang, it can hardly be believed that Sophia and Tom were unaware of the erotic potential of their relationship (Hipchen 16). Love according to Fielding as he described in chapter six of the novel was “the desire of satisfying a voracious appetite with a certain quantity of delicate white human flesh” (Fielding 3) to the people of his time was not the love he contended. However, in the next line Fielding contends that the love he speaks of tries to satisfy all its needs even though it is the mirror of self-sacrifice. Further, Fielding believes that when the object of this love that he describes is someone from the opposite sex, the hunger for love intensifies. Fielding believes that the existence of passion in love is inevitable and to deny it as such passion are an innate part of human nature.
The absence of any physical and carnal relation with love (which was exemplified as the pure, ideal, platonic love by the classical and eighteenth century philosophers) Fielding delicately places the muffler which becomes a symbol of the existing, yet unspoken passion between the two lovers. Mrs. Honour mentions the muffler when she tells Sophia that Tom had come into her room and had picked up the scarf. She further tells that when Mrs. Honour objected to Tom’s mishandling of the muffler and spoiling it, he paid no heed to her entreats and kept on kissing the muffler with heightened passion. Mrs. Honour says that she had not seen such passion before in her life, which was a clear indication to Sophia, who understood the underlying meaning to such a passionate kiss. She seemed instinctively to understand the underlying sexuality in Tom’s behavior. However, when she learns of Tom’s liaison with Molly she feels that he spends his passion for Sophia and not only for Molly. When Mrs. Honour repeats to Tom that it was the most beautiful muffler in the world, Tom repeats that it was only Honour who could see beauty in an object in presence of the fairest creature i.e. the owner of the muffler (Sophia).
The muffler becomes a symbol of love again when Sophia abandons it when she finds Tom in a compromising position with Mrs. Waters, another lover. By putting her name on the muffler and leaving it, Sophia emphasizes her ownership of the object devoid of any propriety of her father or that of Tom.
Squire Waters showed interest in the scarf belonging to his daughter as an indication of his intention to control his daughter’s sexuality. Squire Western responds aggressively by throwing away her scarf when it slips down from her hand and interrupts his favorite tune. He throws away the scarf into the fire, when Sophia rushes to rescue it. Like Sophia’s maturing sexuality, her scarf too, causes reason for displeasure with the Squire. However, it was not something he could control or eliminate. The muffler becomes a symbol of the ownership of the body of Sophia.
The muffler, therefore, becomes a symbol of Sophia’s sexuality in Tom Jones.
On one hand, we see a love between Tom and Sophia, which has its underlying sexual intones but not overt expression of it (except for Tom’s expression of passion through lovemaking with the scarf), and on the other hand we see the promiscuity Tom shows through the chain of relations with other women. Here it is important to note that the other women with whom Tom had relation were not as chaste in their conduct as Sophia. On the contrary, they resembled the promiscuous women usually depicted in eighteenth century novels. These women were unlike the puritan heroines of the novels and were shown as the ‘other’ of the chaste protagonist. In a way the presence of these ‘other’ women helped readers stereotype Sophia as sexually sterile, pure, puritan heroine, even though Fielding clearly leaves certain sexual undertones in the relation between Tom and Sophia.
Henry Fielding tried to create fiction that was both satiric as well as moral in nature. Therefore, he set forth in preaching morality with a comic backdrop. The reason for his success as a preacher of morality for he intended to preach a morality that was not of idealistic virtues, rather it attempted to discourse goodness of heart. Thus, we see the protagonist of the novel, Tom Jones is one who commits many sins of flesh but has a good heart. In Tom, we find a lusty, passionate, highly sexed young man who is impulsively generous and easily toughed by other’s sufferings.
Eighteenth century social conduct – Love and Sexuality
Social norms of the eighteenth century dominated the public discourse and private ideal of love and sex. An analysis of the sermons from eighteenth century demonstrates that preference was given to the love of God than to the physical love of passion (Sermons 2). The very word pleasure was believed to oppose the love for the divine, and therefore immoral in nature. Thus, any man possessing a temperament that digressed from this belief was considered a deviant from the Christian belief. In such a society, where scriptures of religious, ideal virtuosity governed mores and beliefs, Fielding created a novel unlike the conventional norms.
Social conducts in the eighteenth century stressed on the importance of virtuous conduct, which was considered to be morally correct. Human nature, according to published correspondence between a Mr. Gilbert Burnet and Mr. Hutchinson, could be devoid of virtues and all actions must be regulated by conduct (Burnet 3). Further, the letters relate the debate of self-love and benevolence in human nature of man and relate that sometimes they conspire against one another to overpower the other. When the former overpowers the latter, the resultant is one doing evil just to satisfy oneself (Burnet 6).
Sexuality in the english society in the eiteenth century underwent a huge change with the Marriage Act of 1753 which restricted couples to have sexual relation before marriage (Probert 29). The discourse of proper, socailly acceptable norms of courting and love, begun with this law. It was then that the fashion of having sexual relaiton prior to marriage became a taboo by the sanction of the curch. This indicates that the social conduct norms of the eighteenth century dictated contraint of sexual appetite prior to marriage and promiscuiousity was sneered upon.
In the eighteenth century literary work, especially fiction, essentially, were moral treatises. In writing the novel, and creating a promiscuous character like Tom Jones as the hero, Fielding had to combat many of the societal norms of the time. The sense of morality that is present in Fielding’s Tom Jones is not devoid of the follies of human flesh. Though fundamentally Tom is a good person, honest and generous, yet he is licentious and lusty. His wanton relations with licentious women demonstrate his major follies but in the end, he is armed with his munificence, righteousness, kindness, and inherent nobility. Here are the two contrasting spheres of human nature as depicted by Fielding in the novel – the tainted character of Tom as a profligate in the one hand, and generous and honest character on the other. Fielding depicts this generous and honest side of Tom as the brighter edge of human nature. Therefore, the moral aspect that Fielding enforces in it is the innate honesty and generosity of Tom Jones’s character.
In another aspect, Fielding also points out that the nobility of heart and nobility of birth matters more. This is shown through the birth and parentage of Tom and Blifil in the novel. Both Tom and Blifil’s birthmother was Bridget, though Tom was an illegitimate child, born out of wedlock while Blifil was born as a legitimate son of Bridget yet he turned out to be a dishonest man. In this respect, Ian P. Watt in his book The Rise of the Novel (Watt 279) points out that Tom and Blifil’s character’s honesty and generosity i.e. the innate goodness of human nature were different even though both of them were brought up in the same society by the same man (Allworthy).
Tom was born, as an illegitimate son while Blifil was the legitimate son, it was the latter who showed more malice of character than the former. Fielding wanted to impose on his readers Tom’s nobility of heart rather than that of his birth. Nobility of birth, therefore, one may say, cannot assure one of the nobility of heart. Apart from Blifil, in this novel there are many other characters who are of noble birth but have mendacious, egotistical, self-centered, malicious, and repulsive characters. A few of such characters found in the novel are Lady Bellaston, who after losing her interest in Tom tries to do a lot of harm to him, Lord Fellamar who tried to molest Sophia, Blifil who falsely testifies against Tom in numerous occasions, and above all Bridget who bore Tom and concealed the fact until her death. On the other hand, Fielding brings together very kindhearted people such as Mrs. Nightingale and Partridge who lacked only in class out of birth but were no less noble than Allworthy himself.
Fielding showed in his novel that nobility of heart was not attached to one’s birth. Fielding’s philosophy of human nature was that one who bore a noble heart was superior to others in their moral conduct. Tom Jones has been a clear picture to demarcate this trait of Fielding’s philosophy of human nature. Before the nature of his true birth is revealed, Tom remains a bastard, a foundling throughout the novel. However, Tom was not short of his follies but he remained true at heart and always repented his misdeeds. He would err, but his good conscience and kindness of heart was always present in him. Tom may have physical relation with many women but he felt it wrong to seduce a woman to do so even if she was from a very low background. Tom is a character who has the follies of human flesh but kindness and morality of heart. Fielding wanted to portray this aspect of human nature instead of the chaste, virtuous, morally upright, puritan characters of other eighteenth century authors.
Tom Jones, throughout the novel, is unaware of his past and to certain extent, the readers get a feeling that his actions are spontaneous as if the author deliberately put those stimuli as an accessory for him to act in a certain way. Tom’s character throughout the novel has been based on the ethics of bigger maliciousness of harming others than living a life ruled by certain moral codes. Therefore, his speech on sexual ethics sounded hypocritical in view of his character and his sexual behavior. Actually, these seemed contradictory to the readers.
One more aspect of Tom Jones’s character is his diction and pronouncement of love to his true love. Tome Jones becomes a vehicle of expression of Fielding’s skepticism of romantic vows of lovers, which he dubbed as base. Therefore, Tom is metamorphosed from Sophia’s pastoral lover to Molly’s sexual partner. This indicates that physical acts have a louder impact than mere words of love.
Fielding tried to essentially show the place of sex in human life and importance of it to describe human nature. The episode of Tom with Sophia and then with Molly definitely demonstrates the nature of a headstrong youth who was yet to reach his moral adulthood. This therefore, represents a the moral and intellectual schema of the plot and which eventually makes Tom fall from grace with Allworthy and ultimately turning him into a worthier partner for Sophia.
In another way, Fielding manipulates his readers to dilute the promiscuity of Tom and avoiding in presenting any detailed romantic feelings of Tom for any of the female characters. This was to avoid giving heightened importance to Tom’s infidelity, which would jeopardize Fielding’s comic intentions.
The issue of sexuality in Tom Jones is crucial in demonstrating the moral scheme of human nature as conceived by Fielding. Tom Jones is shown as an unfaithful hero, but Fielding, certainly, does not endorse his hero’s infidelity. This is demonstrated when Tom himself agrees that his nature has been ‘faulty’ in certain respects. The chaste and moral Mrs. Miller too thinks that though Tom was unfaithful but not immoral. This is evident when she says to Sophia that Tom has “never been guilty of a single instance of infidelity to her since … seeing her in town” (Fielding 416). Clearly Fielding does not feel that sexual transgression needs to be penalized as strongly as the codes of the eighteenth century society would have deemed. Hence, we see that Tom Jones and many other characters guilty of being sexually promiscuous were not punished, as the moral code of the time would dictate. Fielding intended to demonstrate that a good heart was always at risk of being corrupted by the various vile forces in society and may commit to different follies, but eventually would emerge untainted because of the purity of heart.
Fielding too works as a moralist, following the norms of the eighteenth century novels. However, his moralizing was different from that of Samuel Richardson who believed in virtuosity and puritan morality of character, as has been observed in Clarissa. Fielding intention was to focus on sexual virtue and vice, which a moralist would like to reform. Fielding shows Blifil whose intentions were strictly honorable who intended to rob a lady of her fortunes by marriage. Fielding therefore asserts the fact that inclination towards indignation towards promiscuity is not necessarily a resultant of real love. He therefore intends to portray that love is essentially pure, devoid of any impurity of heart. A pure heart will love one even though it may be susceptible to other follies. Chastity is not related to love. Love is essentially passion one has for another person, which remains indomitable under all circumstances. Fielding’s moralization is not narrow-minded; rather it “reminds us of the cruelty and injustice with which complacent virtue is too often associated” (Watt 283).
Nature influences Tom Jones. It sways his heart and Tom’s body follows those instincts. Tom’s body is not only the locus of follies but also of the generosity that the hero shows in the novel. Further, the plot also, at times, tests the degree of level to which he can forgive other’s follies. Readers over generations may have presumed that the root cause, a regrettable by-product of Tom’s generosity, is his sexual licentiousness. Though Tom’s sexual transgressions with Molly Seagrim, Lady Bellaston, and Mrs. Waters are forgiven, the question of forgiving Tom still lingers in the air of the novel. Tom, though, faces disregard of the Allworthy family and remains on the wrong side of things till the end of the book, at last finds true love in Sophia and is described as “there are not to be found a worthier Man and Woman, than this fond Couple, so neither can any be imagined more happy” (Fielding 424). Therefore, Fielding reinforces that Tom, with his disadvantages in life, succeeded because of his goodness and righteousness.
Ideal Love vs. Sexual Love
Fielding continuously questioned the issue of virtue and of love through words such as “passion” and “interest”. Many believe that interest was the means to check the indomitable passion in human nature (Kelleher 178). The three principles of a fallen man according to St. Augustine are: lust of material wealth, power, and sex. In the Augustinian view, one passion can be curbed with the aid of another. In the post renaissance era the aristocratic ideal had reached, the pinnacle of honor and glory and it was in the seventeenth century these underwent a demolition. With the rise of the political intent to control passion, the societal inclination was to conclude that passion and reason were descriptive in nature. Sexual lust has been categorized as a sin by the Augustinian catalogue. Michel Foucault in his book History of Sexuality points that with the entry of the regime of sexuality there was ushered a question to rationalize sex and “scheme for transforming sex into discourse” (Foucault 21). Foucault further shows in his works that in the beginning of the eighteenth century there arose a “political, economic, and technical incitement to talk about sex” (23).
This discourse intended not only to moralize but also rationalize sex, thus making sex not a simple thing to talk of or moralize about but it had to be administered to some greater good (Foucault 24). This incitement of sex led to an innovation of the discourse of sex, which was pronounced not only out of “morality” but also through “rationality” (24). Repression, according to Foucault was used as a tool to tame the desire, sexual urge, and passion embedded in human nature. Fielding in his novel Tom Jones actually did not intend to champion the cause of sexual lust, though many of his early critics have professed the presence of sexual transgressions in the novel were clear indication of such an intent. In Tom Jones Fielding tests how far lust can be internalized as the true human nature rather than show it as a discourse to be administered externally. In Tom Jones, Fielding tried to express his idea the sex, passion, and lust were the indomitable part of human nature, which could not be dominated by administered sense of ideal love or morality. The question that is put forth by Fielding is how can one go on preserving one’s virtue when the same is attacked through violence and degradation? The sixth chapter of the novel named “Of Love” gives a defense for passionate love. In this chapter, Fielding accepts the “modern doctrine” of love, unlike his many contemporaries and predecessors, describing love as a passion unlike any “any such passion in the human breast” (Fielding 218). Fielding’s concept of love ingrained in ‘human nature’ is as follows:
… love, namely, the desire of satisfying a voracious appetite with a certain quantity of delicate white human flesh, is by no means that passion for which I here contend. This is indeed more properly hunger; and as no glutton is ashamed to apply the word Love to his appetite, and to say he loves such and such dishes, so may the lover of this kind, with equal propriety say he hungers after such and such women. (Fielding 219)
Fielding was aware of his digression from the viewpoint of the prominent philosophers of eighteenth century and the prevalent views on love, passion, and sex and therefore, adopts a conciliatory path to attenuate them as well as establish his point of view. He tries to establish his philosophy that there exists a human heart which goes beyond logic to hunger for the thing it desires. The passion, the hunger that exists in human flesh advocated by love is beyond the control of any discursive teaching. However, Fielding tries to placate the philosophers of his time by saying that “there is in some (I believe in many) human breast, a kind and benevolent disposition, which is gratified by contributing to the happiness of others” (219). He furthers his argument by saying that “in this gratification alone, as in friendship, in parental and filial affection, as indeed in general philanthropy, there is a great exquisite delight” (Fielding 219). Fielding concedes that when “pure love” operates between two humans of the opposite sex sexual gratification is essential for complete fulfillment of that love (220).
Hence, it is clear that even though Fielding creates a new definition of love that is not completely platonic and ideal according to the then philosophers but he still maintains a bridge between his and their ethics. In this respect, Fielding artfully disassociates himself from the modern doctrine of love and establishes a critic of the moral austerity that the former professes. On the contrary, Fielding establishes his own philosophy of ethics, which promulgates that rigor and cynicism in moral view often discourse severely virtuous love thereby creating an illusion of both. It must be noted that the fault lies not only in depiction but also in representation of love and righteousness as means for shaping and inspiring human conduct. According to Fielding, the excessive austerity threatens to corrupt virtue – as the character of Blifil, “a prudent, discreet, sober young gentleman”, demonstrates in Tom Jones (121). Self-centeredness drives the traditional sense of virtue to recreate them as “follies and vices dressed in different habits” (415).
Fielding recreates the theory of morality of ideal love and sexual love that the eighteenth century society was yet to accept. Sexual love, which was then popularly believed, to be a vice and weakness in human virtue, was redefined by Fielding in the novel Tom Jones. Fielding asserts in the novel that love between the opposite sexes is a mixed passion that is an amalgamation of altruism and carnal desire, and ideal love as professed by the philosophers of the time is magnanimity alone reinforced by familial relations with parents and children, friends and among all Christians. However, many critics believe that Fielding had not actually been successful in demonstrating this through the course of this novel as he constricted his story to the description of male libido and sexual passion (Kelleher 184).
Conclusion
Fielding’s ideal of “good nature” was the prima donna in his ethical construct. The virtues of a man, Fielding believes lies in the goodness of his heart and not in moral austerity. The treatise of social conduct expected in the eighteenth century as explained in the eighteenth century documents and by Foucault showed that sex and love were not combined together. Sexuality was repressed and promiscuity and expression of sexual urge towards the opposite sex was considered passion of the flesh and not love, which assumed a divine meaning. Carnal love and platonic love assumed separate paths in the discourse of the time. In Tom Jones, Fielding transformed a sexualized, promiscuous man into a hero who was honest, good-natured, and benevolent. Fielding skillfully constructs the contrasts between the austerely moral and the good-natured man through different aspects of the novel. One such instance was in the case of Mistress Virtue who concedes her place with Sophia and questions what becomes of the desire to do greater good and clashes with the courtship plot.
The problem or the clash between natural goodness and ethical virtue becomes more pronounced as Fielding unveils the consequent plots of mounting affection between Tom and Sophia. Moreover, when their love is publicized and due to the betrayal of Blifil to Allworthy Tom is banished, he debates whether he should take Sophia along with him and through her into complete destitution. However, his passion was overwhelming but he decides to keep Sophia in a financially secured environment and not in destitution. In later part of the novel, Tom’s encounter with sexual passion is shown in various forms with different women, but Tom’s love remains true for Sophia. Eventually in the end, Tom and Sophia’s marriage spreads general happiness and goodness of people. Fielding therefore concludes that a good heart is one that creates happiness and love and lust cannot be set apart for they are intertwined into one string. The desire of carnal love is inevitable.
Works Cited
Burnet, Gilbert. “Letters Between Late Mr. Burnet and Mr. Hutchinson Concerning True Foundation of Virtue or Moral Goodness.” London Journal (1735): 1-93. ECCO. Web.
Fielding, Henry. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. London: A. Miller, 1749. Print.
Foucault, Michel. History of Sexuality Vol. 1. New York: Penguine, 1976. Print.
Hipchen, Emily A. “Fielding’s Tom Jones.” Explicator 53.1 (1994): 16-18. Print.
Kelleher, Paul. “The Glorious Lust of Doing Good”: Tom Jones and the Virtues of Sexuality.” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 38.2/3 (2005): 165-192. Print.
Probert, Rebecca. “Marriage Law & Practice in the Long Eighteenth Century: A Reassessment.”The Misunderstood Contract Per Verba de Praesenti Chapter 2 (2009): 29-92. SSRN. Web.
Sermons. “On the inordinate love of pleasure.” Sermons CCLXXII. (NA): 132-267. ECCO. Web.
Watt, Ian P. The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000. Print.