Joseph Andrews vs Pamela
Henry Fielding and Samuel Richardson
Henry Fielding's The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and of his Friend, Mr. Abraham Adams, published in 1742, has a particularly important relationship with Samuel Richardson's Pamela, published in 1740. The two novels are frequently discussed together because Richardson's Pamela played a significant role in Fielding's early development as a novelist. Fielding first responded directly to Richardson through Shamela (1741), a satirical imitation of Pamela. His later novel, Joseph Andrews, also draws upon Pamela, but its relationship with Richardson's novel is considerably more complicated. It begins with a recognizable parody of Richardson's situation but gradually moves away from that material and develops into an independent comic novel.
The distinction between Fielding and Richardson is therefore fundamental to understanding Joseph Andrews. Fielding does not simply reproduce Richardson's story in comic form. Instead, he takes Richardson's characters, situations, assumptions about virtue, and social attitudes and transforms them into the basis for his own conception of fiction. The Richardsonian material is particularly prominent in the opening part of Joseph Andrews, while the rest of the novel develops a much broader narrative involving Joseph, Parson Adams, Fanny, and a large variety of characters encountered during their journey. The critical material supplied emphasizes that the specifically Richardsonian material occupies approximately the first ten chapters and becomes comparatively marginal afterwards.
Richardson's Pamela
To understand Fielding's response, it is first necessary to understand Richardson's Pamela. Pamela tells the story of a young servant girl, Pamela Andrews, who is subjected to the unwanted advances of her master, Mr. B. Despite his attempts to seduce her, Pamela maintains her sexual purity. Eventually, Mr. B recognizes her moral worth, reforms himself, and marries her.
The novel was highly successful and became one of the major literary phenomena of eighteenth-century Britain. Its popularity was reinforced by contemporary publicity and by its presentation as a morally useful work. Pamela was presented as a model of virtue, particularly for young women.
One of Richardson's most important innovations was his epistolary technique. Pamela is composed primarily of letters and journal entries written by Pamela herself. Because events are narrated from Pamela's immediate perspective, the reader receives a close view of her thoughts and experiences.
This technique allows Richardson to explore the inner life of his heroine in considerable detail. The reader is brought very close to Pamela's consciousness, and the novel becomes deeply concerned with individual psychological experience.
This is one of the fundamental differences between Richardson and Fielding.
Richardson is particularly interested in the inner life of the individual, whereas Fielding is more interested in the observation of people in society and in the comic revelation of their behaviour.
The distinction was famously expressed by Samuel Johnson, who differentiated between “characters of nature” and “characters of manners.” Richardson's method moves toward a deeper exploration of individual subjectivity, while Fielding's characters are frequently understood through their social behaviour and interaction.
Fielding's Initial Response to Richardson
Fielding's relationship with Richardson was not simply one of literary admiration. Pamela generated considerable controversy, and Fielding belonged to the group of writers who questioned its moral and literary assumptions.
His first sustained fictional response was Shamela, published in 1741. Shamela is much more directly satirical than Joseph Andrews. Fielding transforms Pamela into a character whose apparent virtue conceals calculation. His parody suggests that Pamela may be using the appearance of chastity to obtain a socially advantageous marriage.
The criticism centres particularly on Richardson's subtitle:
“Virtue Rewarded.”
Fielding questions what it means for virtue to be rewarded. If Pamela's virtue eventually results in marriage to Mr. B. and elevation into the upper class, Fielding's satirical interpretation suggests that virtue might appear to be a strategy for obtaining material advancement.
The issue can therefore be expressed as a question:
Is virtue valuable in itself, or is it being used as a means to obtain a reward?
Fielding's Shamela takes the more cynical position. In that work, Pamela's apparent virtue becomes a form of calculation. The uploaded critical material points out that Fielding interpreted Pamela's behaviour as potentially strategic rather than genuinely virtuous.
From Shamela to Joseph Andrews
The distinction between Shamela and Joseph Andrews is extremely important.
Shamela is essentially a travesty of Pamela.
Joseph Andrews, however, is something much larger.
In Joseph Andrews, Fielding retains the basic situation of Richardson's novel but reverses it. Pamela becomes Joseph's sister. Mr. B. becomes Mr. Booby. Joseph enters the service of Sir Thomas Booby, and Sir Thomas's wife, Lady Booby, takes the position analogous to that of Richardson's Mr. B.
Thus, Fielding changes the gender of the central situation.
In Pamela:
Female servant → male master → sexual advances → resistance
In Joseph Andrews:
Male servant → female mistress → sexual advances → resistance
Joseph becomes the male equivalent of Richardson's virtuous Pamela.
This reversal is obviously comic. The chastity traditionally expected from a female heroine is transferred to a young male footman. Joseph's virtue therefore becomes a source of humour because Fielding places the conventions of Richardson's sentimental fiction into a new and unexpected situation.
However, Fielding's purpose is not simply to ridicule Joseph.
The critical material makes this point very clearly: Joseph's virtue does not remain merely a parody. He is genuinely justified in resisting Lady Booby and Mrs. Slipslop, and his pursuit of virtue does not have the ulterior motive that Fielding attributes to Pamela.
Thus, Joseph is not simply a comic copy of Pamela.
He becomes an independent character.
Joseph Andrews versus Pamela Andrews
Joseph and Pamela are connected by more than their names and family relationship. They occupy parallel positions in the two novels.
| Pamela Andrews | Joseph Andrews |
|---|
| Female servant | Male servant |
| Pursued by Mr. B. | Pursued by Lady Booby |
| Defends her chastity | Defends his chastity |
| Virtue becomes socially rewarded | Virtue eventually contributes to comic resolution |
| Becomes socially elevated through marriage | Ultimately discovered to have respectable origins |
| First-person/epistolary narration | Third-person omniscient narration |
| Psychological interiority | Social and comic observation |
The most important difference is the narrative method.
Pamela tells her own story through letters and journal entries. Joseph's story is narrated by Fielding's intrusive third-person narrator.
Consequently, the reader's relationship with the protagonist is different.
Richardson takes the reader into Pamela's private consciousness.
Fielding places Joseph within a wider social world.
Joseph's personality emerges primarily through his interactions with other characters and through the situations in which he finds himself.
This difference illustrates the larger distinction between Richardson's and Fielding's approaches to fiction.
Fielding's Criticism of Richardson's Virtue
Fielding's criticism of Pamela is closely connected with the idea of virtue and reward.
Richardson presents Pamela's virtue as morally admirable. She resists Mr. B.'s advances and is eventually rewarded with marriage.
Fielding, however, questions whether such a reward creates an unintended problem. If virtue leads directly to wealth, marriage and social elevation, one might wonder whether virtue is being practised for its own sake or for the benefits it produces.
This is the central suspicion behind Fielding's Shamela.
Fielding's Joseph Andrews, however, modifies this criticism.
Joseph's virtue is not presented as a calculated means of social advancement. He refuses Lady Booby because he genuinely loves Fanny and wishes to preserve his integrity.
The distinction is therefore important:
Pamela's virtue → Fielding suspects calculation
Joseph's virtue → Fielding presents it as genuine
The uploaded material explicitly notes that Joseph's pursuit of virtue has “no ulterior motive.”
Fielding's New Target: Class Attitudes
An especially important development occurs when Fielding moves from criticizing Richardson's treatment of sexual virtue to criticizing the class implications of Pamela.
The original Pamela appears, at first, to offer a socially progressive story. A servant girl marries her socially superior master. This seems to suggest that personal virtue can overcome class boundaries.
But Fielding sees a contradiction in the second half of Richardson's novel.
After Pamela marries Mr. B., she becomes part of the upper class. Her attitude toward servants changes. She begins to distance herself from the social world from which she came.
Fielding dramatizes this contradiction by bringing Pamela into Joseph Andrews.
When Pamela attempts to interfere with Joseph's relationship with Fanny, she objects to Fanny's social origins. Pamela now considers herself superior because she has married a gentleman.
This is significant because Pamela herself was once a servant.
Fielding thus exposes what he sees as the class consciousness and social ambition hidden within Richardson's apparently democratic narrative.
The irony is powerful:
Pamela rises above her original social position → then begins to look down upon people who remain in that position.
Fielding therefore suggests that social elevation has transformed Pamela herself.
Fielding and Richardson on Social Mobility
The question of social mobility reveals an important contradiction in both novelists.
Richardson appears to challenge class boundaries by allowing Pamela, a servant, to marry Mr. B., a gentleman.
But Fielding argues that the marriage does not necessarily produce genuine equality. Pamela's identity changes after her social elevation. She becomes conscious of her new status and distances herself from her former social class.
Fielding's criticism is therefore not simply that Richardson allows a servant to marry a gentleman.
Rather, it is that the apparent social revolution of Pamela is weakened by what happens after the marriage.
Fielding's own position, however, is not entirely democratic either.
This is one of the most interesting contradictions in Joseph Andrews.
At the end of the novel, Joseph is revealed to be a gentleman, while Fanny is also discovered to possess a higher social origin than previously believed. Thus, their eventual social acceptance is connected with respectable birth.
The supplied critical material makes this point explicitly: Fielding's conclusion ultimately aligns individual worth, at least partially, with genteel birth and is therefore not completely egalitarian.
Fielding is therefore more critical of hypocrisy than of the class system itself.
Hypocrisy: The Major Difference
The most important moral distinction between Richardson and Fielding can be understood through the idea of hypocrisy.
Fielding is deeply suspicious of the difference between outward appearance and inward reality.
His criticism of Pamela rests partly on the possibility that her public presentation of virtue does not correspond to her actual motives.
In Joseph Andrews, however, Fielding creates characters whose behaviour exposes hypocrisy more openly.
Lady Booby claims social superiority but behaves according to sexual desire.
Mrs. Slipslop attempts to present herself in a respectable manner while pursuing Joseph.
Pamela presents herself as a woman who has risen through virtue but becomes socially dismissive toward people of her former class.
Fielding's central concern is therefore not simply whether a person is morally good or bad. It is whether there is a correspondence between what a person appears to be and what that person actually is.
This becomes one of the foundations of Fielding's comic method.
Richardson's Psychological Method versus Fielding's Comic Method
The difference between the two novelists can also be understood through their methods of characterization.
Richardson's Pamela is written largely from Pamela's own perspective. Because the narrative is composed of letters and journal entries, the reader has direct access to Pamela's thoughts, fears, interpretations and emotional responses.
Fielding takes a very different approach.
His narrator stands outside the characters and observes them. He moves freely from one character to another, comments on their behaviour, introduces digressions, and frequently speaks directly to the reader.
Richardson therefore creates an intense sense of individual subjectivity.
Fielding creates a broad sense of social observation.
This difference helps explain why Joseph Andrews contains such a large number of characters and episodes. Fielding is interested in what happens when different kinds of people meet one another.
Joseph Andrews as More Than a Parody
This is perhaps the most important point for examination.
It is incorrect to describe Joseph Andrews simply as “a parody of Pamela.”
The novel certainly begins with parody.
Joseph is Pamela's brother.
Lady Booby occupies a position analogous to Mr. B.
Joseph's resistance to Lady Booby reverses Pamela's resistance to Mr. B.
The language and situation of sexual virtue are transferred from a female servant to a male servant.
But this parody gradually disappears.
The novel develops into the story of Joseph and Fanny, and more importantly, into the adventures of Joseph and Parson Adams.
The Richardsonian material becomes increasingly marginal after the opening chapters.
This expansion is what makes Joseph Andrews an independent novel rather than an extended parody.
Pamela's Role in Joseph Andrews
Pamela herself has only a limited role in the main action, but her presence is intellectually significant.
Fielding uses her to return to the world of Richardson's novel and expose what he considers to be its contradictions.
The Pamela who appears in Joseph Andrews is no longer simply the innocent servant girl of Richardson's narrative. She has become a socially elevated woman.
Her behaviour toward Fanny enables Fielding to criticize the class assumptions that he believes are present within Pamela.
Thus, Pamela functions as a kind of literary bridge between Richardson's novel and Fielding's own novel.
She connects the two works while also allowing Fielding to move beyond Richardson.
The Significance of the Different Endings
The endings of the two novels are also revealing.
In Pamela, Pamela's virtue is rewarded by marriage to Mr. B. Her marriage brings her into the upper class.
In Joseph Andrews, Joseph and Fanny eventually move toward marriage, but their social identities are also clarified through revelations about their birth.
This creates a similarity between the two novels: virtue, love, marriage and social elevation are connected with the comic resolution.
But Fielding's ending also reveals the limitations of his own social criticism.
He criticizes Pamela's class consciousness, yet his own conclusion makes Joseph's respectable birth significant.
This is why the relationship between Richardson and Fielding cannot be reduced to a simple opposition in which Richardson is conservative and Fielding is progressive.
Fielding is more interested in honesty and consistency than in completely destroying the social hierarchy.
Overall Comparison
The relationship between Richardson and Fielding can therefore be summarized through several major differences:
| Richardson | Fielding |
|---|
| Pamela | Joseph Andrews |
| Epistolary form | Third-person narrative |
| Psychological interiority | Social observation |
| Individual consciousness | Social interaction |
| Sentimental mode | Comic mode |
| Pamela as central consciousness | Joseph and Adams within a broad social world |
| Virtue as central moral concern | Virtue examined through comedy and satire |
| Serious emotional presentation | Irony and humour |
| Focus on Pamela's experience | Wide range of characters and situations |
| Apparent challenge to class boundaries | Critique of class attitudes and hypocrisy |
| Intimate narration | Intrusive authorial narrator |
The distinction should not, however, be exaggerated. Fielding's Joseph Andrews is indebted to Richardson even while criticizing him. Without Pamela, the opening conception of Joseph Andrews would be difficult to understand.
Fielding takes Richardson's successful formula and reverses, questions and expands it.
Critical Significance
The literary importance of Joseph Andrews lies precisely in this movement from parody to independence.
Fielding begins with a recognizable response to Richardson but eventually creates something fundamentally different. Instead of concentrating on the consciousness of a single protagonist, he constructs a broad comic world. Instead of using an epistolary form, he employs an intrusive narrator. Instead of limiting the narrative to the problem of sexual virtue, he explores a wide range of social encounters.
The Richardson–Fielding relationship therefore represents two important directions in the development of the English novel.
Richardson contributes significantly to the development of psychological and subjective fiction through his epistolary method.
Fielding develops the novel as a form capable of presenting society as a whole through comedy, satire, characterization and narrative observation.
Conclusion
The relationship between Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews and Samuel Richardson's Pamela is one of the most important aspects of understanding Fielding's novel. Joseph Andrews begins with an unmistakable connection to Richardson: Pamela becomes Joseph's sister, Mr. B. becomes Mr. Booby, and Lady Booby reverses the role of Richardson's male seducer. Joseph's resistance to Lady Booby also reverses Pamela's resistance to Mr. B.
However, Fielding soon moves beyond simple parody. His principal concern shifts from questioning Pamela's sexual virtue to examining hypocrisy, social behaviour and class attitudes. Pamela's transformation after marriage becomes particularly important because Fielding uses it to expose what he sees as the class assumptions underlying Richardson's apparent social progressivism.
At the same time, Fielding's own position is not completely egalitarian. The eventual revelation of Joseph and Fanny's respectable origins shows that Fielding also attaches significance to social birth. His essential distinction from Richardson is therefore not that he completely rejects social hierarchy, but that he places an extraordinary emphasis on honesty and the rejection of hypocrisy.
Ultimately, Joseph Andrews should be understood as more than a parody of Pamela. Richardson provides Fielding with the initial literary stimulus, but Fielding transforms that stimulus into a broader comic vision of human society. The novel marks the point at which Fielding moves from direct literary satire toward his own distinctive form of fiction—one based on comic observation, social interaction, irony, satire and a broad representation of human behaviour.
In this sense, Pamela is the starting point, but Joseph Andrews is Fielding's independent artistic achievement.
