Assignment on Tom Jones Themes

Name:- Rajdip.P.Gohel

Roll. No:- 36

Paper No:- 2- The Neo-Classical Literature

Class:- M.A Sem-1

Topic:- Tom Jones Themes

Enrolment No:- 2069108420190017

College:- Smt.S.B.Gardi Department Of English

Email Id:- Grajdip5@gmail.com

Submitted:- Department Of English M.K.University, Bhavnagar

Signature:-

Ø Introduction:- 

           In Tom Jones we can describe various themes about this famous novel. And these new things can explain in detail about novel and change our perspective about Tom Jones and other characters. The themes like good and evil are where and which character also important because it’s require all the difference character, in Tom Jones we find deeply human weakness, money, power, strong position, about truth of Tom Jones is very important, justice of Tom Jones also turn the novel path in last also we can see the Tom is near to Mr.Allworthy not Blifil. So these are the points can brief discuss in this assignment.

·      Good v/s Evil:-

           In any character has a good side and also have evil side. First of all we can see all the characters in Tom Jones so we can find some of good and some of evil characters in Tom Jones. Start with (1) Tom Jones:- in childhood he is unknown like who is father and mother of this child after many years he become brave and handsome man. His affairs with many women but his true love is Sophia Western. He drinks some time but so much is the bad habits? Allworthy’s more affection only tom, so this is the good side of Tom. Another is after kick out tom from home and than Allworthy’s health is not well and he come not for money but Allworthy’s affection. After reefer the novel whole story we can find more good side of Tom he has not evil mind but affairs are done. (2) Master Blifil:- is a opposite of Tom he has evil mind because in case of Sophia leave the home and Blifil said to police like Tom kidnapped Sophia and arrest tom after truth is tom not kidnap Sophia, after than Blifil said to Allworthy that tom is robber so Allworthy kick out tom from home after that he want to marry Sophia in order to money not for love so this reasons we can find Blifil has evil minded in the novel. (3) Allworthy:- he is a good man and well reputed in society. He’s affection only Tom not Blifil so, Blifil jealous about it. (4) captain Blifil:- he marries to Bridget for money. After than he not like tom because of money his son is master Blifil is half property owner not full because of tom.

          This characters are important for good and evil side others are miner in the novel.

·      Vanity and human weakness:-

               As we describe as Tom Jones is a story of vanity than it is come in this story like money, and power is more important in the novel we see some example in first that Blifil marries to Bridget reason is money than in school Blifil torched with education system is shows power of Blifil. And weakness of Tom Jones not speak in every where. Weakness like education system run wrong side because of position and power, is very danger for education. Second is his love Sophia after she leave her home tom in the jail because Blifil said that tom kidnap the Sophia and tom goes the jail this is power and weakness of tom because he can’t prove that he is not kidnapped Sophia.

            Question raise that if vanity is fall of human than what happen in society? Because vanity come from power, position, and money and weakness come from most middle class, and lower class but not upper class. Reason is if you have money than you have no problems if you have not money than you face the problems. Is the rule of society.

·      Desire for money, power, position:-

 In the Tom Jones novel that time this is important desire that time like it is motive of money, power, and position is most important things in that time we also find three class that time it is problems for middle and lower class that one man at the high position and power and he make one decision and problems create for the lower and middle class. Another is education system

Society and Class:-

  

               By claiming that the upper class has less variety, and thus less opportunity for satire, than the lower classes are more appropriate subject matter than aristocrats and lords for the kind of realism Fielding wants to create.

   

           Tom Jones criticizes the hypocrisy and deceptiveness of city society much more harshly than the gossip and melodrama and there life like changeable after go city. By portraying country society as rough and rude rather than villainous, Tom Jones implies that the countryside is morally healthier than the city.

Morality and Ethics:-

           Tom Jones isn’t all sex jokes and romantic comedy. There’s some serious stuff going on, like Big moral Issues. According to Squire Allworthy there are two ways to be immoral: imprudence and villainy. And they’re very different.

      

         Tom’s imprudent: too much drinking, too much sex, too much spending, etc. This gets him into sticky situations that are, for the most part, hilarious. But then there’s villainy, and villainy is Serious Bizniz because it  permanently points your character to the Dark Side. So while Tom has made some serious mistakes, as long as he changes his tune, all's forgiven. But once a villain, always a villain.

           Sophia and Tom both honor their guardians, even when those father figures treat them badly. This respect towards authority implies that the most important ethical trait in Tom Jones is gratitude to your benefactors.

            While Squire Allworthy is the moral centre of Tom Jones, his inability to recognize insincerity and hypocrisy in the people around him undercuts his ethical lessons and makes the reader question the authority of his wisdom.

·      Family:-

      

        Tom Jones is a foundling, which means that he's not related by blood to any of the people who raise him. But Tom definitely has a Family: he admires Squire Allworthy a whole heck of a lot, he fights with Mr.Blifil the way any mismatched set of siblings might, and he wants to marry Sophia enough to change his entire way of living for her by the end of the novel.

                   So Tom Jones raises all kinds of questions about the other kinds of bonds that draw together families, including love, obedience, gratitude, and respect. It's an old saying that you can't choose your family. But that saying isn't true in Tom Jones: the characters in this book can and do choose who fits in to their families—and who just doesn't belong.

Tom Jones presents a contradictory model for good parent-child relationships, in which parents must have power over their children but not use it, while children should have free choice but must still listen to their parents. While Tom Jones emphasizes the importance of respecting positive authority of father figures such as Squire Allworthy, the oppressiveness of bad fathers such as Squire Western or Nightingale Senior imply that it is legitimate for children to be disobedient if their guardians are unwise or unjust.

·      Gender:-

   

          There is a surprising amount of girl-fighting in Tom Jones: Molly Seagrim fights off a whole group of villagers with a human leg bone in her hand, Mrs. Honour and Mrs. Western's maid leave bloody scratches on one another, and Susan the chambermaid gives Partridge a bloody nose at the Upton inn.

       No one in this book is saying that women can't be violent. But the narrator makes this surprising distinction between courage, which is appropriate to a woman, and fierceness, which is not. All of these girl fights we just mention? Those are fierce. Instead of putting up fists and resorting to hair-pulling, the narrator advises women to be more like Sophia: strong and committed to her own beliefs, but only passively resistant. What do you guys think: is Sophia Western a model of tough womanhood, or not?

        Although the narrator shows sympathy towards Molly Seagrim as the mother of a child outside of marriage, the novel's positive portrayal of Sophia Western's nonsexual virtue reinforces the eighteenth-century idealization of virginity for unmarried women.

           The narrator uses Molly Seagrim's masculine nature to imply that she is the aggressor in her sexual relationship with Tom. By emphasizing Molly's unfeminine sexuality, the narrator takes the reader's focus away from Tom's moral responsibility in taking Molly's virginity.

·      Literature and Writing

  

 Fielding knows that no one is going to read a doorstop novel about a guy who goes to work every day and then comes home to his loving wife and kids. Fielding has to include a lot of dramatic coincidences and surprising circumstances in Tom Jones in order to keep the reader's interest. And these twists and turns can sometimes seem unrealistic… but the narrator reminds us in Book 8, Chapter 1 that truth is stranger than fiction.

·      Conclusion:-

      the different books of Tom Jones explaining (a) what his project is in writing the novel, and (b) how it's different from the other novels of the time. What Fielding says he wants most out of his writing is believability.