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Book 2, Chapter 11
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Joseph Andrews, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Hypocrisy
Lust vs. Chastity
Social Class
Religion and Charity
Summary
Analysis
Abraham Adams, Fanny, and their new guide head for the inn where Joseph Andrews is staying, but rain forces them to take shelter at a different inn first. Although Fanny isn’t thin or delicate, she looks striking sitting by the fire at the inn. Someone in a different room of the inn sings a love song about a woman named Chloe.
Bad weather frequently forces characters to pause their journeys at inns. In fact, bad weather happens so frequently in this novel that it could be a parody of how bad weather is such a convenient plot device in other novels.
Themes
All of a sudden, Abraham Adams notices that Fanny has gone pale. She has just realized that the man singing in the other room is Joseph Andrews. She goes to him, and he kisses her many times. Adams is so excited to witness this reunion that he doesn’t realize his copy of Aeschylus is burning by the fire. He tries to save it, but it is mostly all burned up.
Joseph Andrews and Fanny are two of the most important people on earth to Abraham Adams. In fact, he is so excited about watching them that he neglects his more scholarly side—the Aeschylus book that burns up. While this passage presents yet another example of Adams’s absent-mindedness, it could also suggest a new beginning for him.
Themes
Literary Devices
