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Book 4, Chapter 7
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
When Joseph Andrews and Fanny arrive at Abraham Adams’s house, he’s fighting with his wife, Mrs. Adams. In fact, they’re fighting about Joseph and Fanny. His wife wants Lady Booby to help their children, and so she opposes the marriage. But Adams believes it’s his duty to go through with the marriage. They stop, however, when Joseph and Fanny arrive.
The beginning of Book IV mentioned how the people of the parish rely on Lady Booby for their income, and this section gives a specific example of how Mrs. Adams sides with Lady Booby over her husband because of the hope that Lady Booby might be able to help them financially.
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Joseph Andrews tells Abraham Adams about how Squire Booby advised him not to marry Fanny. But after seeing Fanny nearly ravished on the road, he’s eager to marry her at once. Adams cautions him not to be too impatient or lustful. He says that if God wills it, a person must be willing to let go of any person or thing and resign themselves to it. Just then, a messenger comes and tells him Adams that his youngest son (Dick) has drowned.
Abraham Adams supports Joseph’s plan to marry Fanny, but he can’t resist taking the moment to give a little sermon about self-control. In the middle of his sermon, however, Adams gets his own test, when he learns about the sudden drowning of his son.
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Abraham Adams stomps around the room in agony. Joseph Andrews is overwhelmed at first but tries to comfort the parson by saying his son (Dick) is in a better place. But Adams doesn’t seem to hear this part because he keeps asking where his darling is.
Adams’s behavior reveals him as a hypocrite. Just moments after telling Joseph to control his emotions, Adams is a wreck. But although Adams is a hypocrite, his portrayal here is still sympathetic, given that the tragedy he experiences is so extreme and sudden.
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As it turns out, however, the messenger who brought the bad news to the parson was a little too eager, running to tell the news instead of helping Dick. Actually, someone else helped the boy and saved him from drowning. It was a pedlar—the same one who lent Abraham Adams money at an inn a while back. Adams is as over-the-top with his happiness as he was with his grief.
This passage humorously deflates the tension of the previous section. On the one hand, this section takes a cynical view of human nature, showing how a messenger was so eager to share bad news that he didn’t even stop to save a drowning child. On the other hand, however, the generous pedlar provides hope by proving that not everyone is selfish.
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When Abraham Adams finishes celebrating, he resumes lecturing Joseph Andrews about not giving in to his passions. Joseph’s great patience finally wears thin, and he suggests that perhaps it is easier to give advice than to take it. Adams maintains that Joseph seems too eager and too in love with Fanny. Mrs. Adams interrupts to say that Abraham had better not be advising anyone against loving his wife too much. She tells Joseph to be as good a husband as he can. Just then, there’s a knock at the door.
Abraham Adams continues to find ways to justify his own actions after the fact, even after Joseph points out Adams’s failure to follow his own advice. Over the course of this chapter, Adams and his wife swap positions, with Abraham Adams urging Joseph to hold off on his marriage but Mrs. Adams advising him to go ahead.
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