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Book 4, 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
At dinner, the pedlar who saved Dick hears about Fanny’s past and how Sir Thomas Booby bought her from a traveling woman at a young age. He says that he thinks he knows about Fanny’s parents, which surprises everyone, especially Fanny.
The pedlar adds a dramatic twist to the story with his new knowledge, perhaps parodying the melodramatic revelations that sometimes occurred in other stories of the time.
Themes
The pedlar was a drummer in an Irish regiment that was recruiting in England in places where the wool trade had decayed. While doing so, he met a woman on the road who was about 30 years old. She joined them marching. Within about a mile the pedlar made love to her, and they got married and stayed that way until her dying day, when she passed away from a fever.
Prejudiced people in England viewed the Irish as backwards, so this passage humorously reverses things by having an Irish character shocked by the poverty in certain English towns. Fielding wrote Joseph Andrews just a little bit before the start of the Industrial Revolution, but it seems that some parts of England were already feeling the effects of a changing economy.
Themes
Before the pedlar’s wife died, however, she revealed that she sued to be part of a “company of gypsies” that stole children away from their parents. She herself only did this once and regretted it. The child was a girl who lived with the woman for about two years before she sold her to Sir Thomas Booby (meaning the child was Fanny). The pedlar reveals at last that the name of the child’s parents was Andrews. Fanny and Joseph Andrews go pale, and Abraham Adams offers up praise that this news came to light before he helped them commit incest.
The depiction of foreigners as child-snatching bandits is racist and reflects a prejudice that was common in England at the time. For the most part, the child-snatching backstory is just a convenient way to add intrigue to the present events. The pedlar accidentally does Lady Booby’s job for her, finding the perfect way to prevent Joseph and Fanny’s wedding—by revealing that they’re apparently siblings.
Themes
