Summary
Chapter I
The narrator distinguishes his genre as that of the "Marvellous" but not
"Incredible." Writers should confine themselves not only to possibility, but to
probability, and should not invoke the aid of "supernatural Agents" as
Homer unfortunately did. "Man" is the highest subject and writing
should not be sullied by the inventions of "Elves and Fairies, and other such
Mummery."
Chapter II
The landlady visits Tom Jones, thinking he is a gentleman, and asks him why
a decent man like himself is spending time with army ruffians. She mentions that
Sophia has "lain" in her house many a time. Enraptured, Tom tells her his
story. He shakes out his purse to indicate the reason he has joined the
army—he has no money. As soon as the landlady perceives this, she snubs
Tom.
Chapter III
In fact, the landlady knows nothing of Sophia, and is only repeating what she
overheard the Lieutenant saying. Tom injures his head in a fight with Broadbrim,
and a surgeon arrives to bleed his head. The landlady warns the surgeon that Tom
has no money with which to pay him for his services, and the doctor leaves in a
rage.
Chapter IV
Refreshed from sleep, Tom rises with an appetite. He manages to win back the
landlady's affection with his sweet-natured temper. A barber by the name of
little Benjamin comes to shave him. Warming to the barber's sense of humor,
Tom invites him to share a drink with him. Freshly dressed and shaven, Tom wins
the love of Nanny, the chambermaid, who is pretty and coy. In Tom's absence,
however, the landlady tells the barber and company a contorted story about Tom's
past. The barber says he has heard that Tom is the son of Allworthy. The
landlady asks why Tom does not then go by his father's name.
Chapter V
The conversation of the previous chapter occurs while Tom eats his dinner.
Eventually the barber arrives to drink with Tom, and tells Tom he has heard from
many people about Tom's kind deeds to Black George. These deeds, says the
barber, have made Tom "beloved by every body." Jones tells the Barber his "whole
History." The narrator warns that a man's recounting of his own story differs
greatly from his enemy's depiction of the same events. The barber desires to
hear the name of Tom's beloved. Tom decides to tell him, since Sophia's name
has already been made public.
Chapter VI
Little Benjamin reveals to Tom that he is in fact the very Partridge with
whom Jenny Jones was reported to have had an affair. Partridge assures Tom,
however, that he is not his father. He has nevertheless loved Tom Jones ever
since he heard about his kind treatment of Black George. He asks Tom to make
amends for the misfortune Tom's existence has caused him. Tom agrees to this,
but admits that he can do nothing at present since he is penniless. Partridge
says that, since he is presently wealthier, he will share everything he has with
Tom. Satisfied with each other's company, Tom and Partridge set off for war
together.
Chapter VII
Partridge is shocked to hear that Allworthy banished Tom, since he truly that
Tom is Allworthy's own son. He secretly believes that Tom ran away from home,
and begins to devise a plan to send Tom back to Allworthy so that he can, in
turn, be restored to Allworthy's favor. Jones has bonded with the landlord, who
is bed-ridden from gout, over horse-racing. This man spends much of his time
fighting with his wife, who constantly invokes her first husband. Tom and
Partridge leave for their expedition. The landlady does not condescend to say
farewell.
Chapter VIII
Tom Jones and Partridge head for Gloucester and, on arriving there, decide to
lodge at the Bell, which the narrator recommends to his readers. The landlord's
wife, Mrs. Whitefield, is beautiful and good-natured and generally free of silly
notions. She notices "in the Air of our Heroe something which distinguished him
from the Vulgar" and invites Jones to dine with her that night. At dinner, Jones
meets Dowling, the attorney from Salisbury who conveyed the news of Mrs.
Blifil's death, and a petty-fogger, a term for a lawyer willing to take
any case. Displeased with the paltry conversation, Tom leaves the table as soon
as the food has been cleared. After he has left, the petty-fogger proceeds to
tell a distorted history of Tom's life. He claims that Tom is "the Bastard of a
Fellow who was hanged for Horse-stealing." When the Petty-fogger says the man's
name is "Thomas Jones," Dowling gets excited, saying he has heard about many
good things about him. The landlady no longer likes Tom and refuses to drink tea
with him. She is so rude to him that he pays his bill and leaves the house.
Chapter IX
Tom and Partridge depart from Gloucester early in the morning. It would be dark
if it were not for the full, red moon. Tom launches into quotations about the
moon, but Partridge complains of the cold. Partridge wishes to return to
Gloucester, since they are unsure of their route. Tom wants to go forward and
Partridge is forced to comply. As they walk, Tom wonders whether Sophia
might be watching that same moon. Tom asks if Partridge was ever in love.
Partridge says not only has he experienced the enjoyments of love, but the
nastiness too, for his wife was very unkind to him. Partridge says he knows a
way for Tom to be in Sophia's arms. Tom claims that at present his greatest
desire is to effect "a glorious Death in the Service of my King and Country."
Partridge suddenly realizes that he and Tom are on opposing sides of the
conflict—whereas Tom supports King George, he himself supports the
Jacobite rebellion.
Chapter X
Tom and Partridge arrive at the base of a sheer hill. Through the trees on the
hill, they see lights shining and approach to investigate. No one answers their
knocking, but eventually an old woman appears at a window. Partridge promises
her that Tom is a gentleman and she lets them in for half a crown. The woman,
whom Partridge thinks is a witch, warns the men that her Master, the Man of the
Hill, will be home soon and that he is a hermit who "keeps no Company with any
Body." Suddenly there is hollering outside of the door and voices demanding
money. Tom grabs a sword from the wall and scares some robbers away from the Man
of the Hill, who was returning home. The Man of the Hill, at first suspicious,
now calls Jones his "Deliverer" and "Preserver."
Chapter XI
The Man of the Hill begins his history. Born in the village of Mark-in-
Somersetshire in 1657, he is the younger son of a "Gentleman Farmer" and his
"arrant Vixen of a Wife." The Man of the Hill's older brother cares for nothing
but hunting. The Man of the Hill, however, advances rapidly in his studies and
attracts the attention of learned men in the neighborhood. He is sent to Exeter
College at Oxford where he meets a rich, debauched man called Sir George
Gresham, who corrupts him. He becomes so rebellious that he is almost expelled
by the vice chancellor. His father refuses to loan him more money, so he steals
forty guineas from a friend. The Man of the Hill escapes punishment by running
away with a lady to London, where he continues his wild lifestyle. This lady
informs on him and soon he is thrown into jail, where he reflects on his
behavior. He is allowed to return to Oxford, where he finds that his friend has
dropped the charges. Partridge interrupts, telling a story about a man who was
hanged for stealing a horse and came back as a ghost to torment the plaintiff.
Chapter XII
The Man of the Hill continues his story. Now that he has ruined his reputation
at Oxford, he returns to London. He has no money and no friends. One night he
meets up with an old Oxford friend named Watson, with whom he eats and gambles.
Chapter XIII
The Man of the Hill now becomes part of Watson's gambling gang and lives a life
of roller-coaster fortunes. One night, he assists a man who has been robbed and
beaten in the street—it turns out to be his father, who came to London
specifically to search for him. The Man of the Hill goes home with his father
and immerses himself in Philosophy and the Scriptures. Four years later, his
father dies and life becomes difficult as his older brother runs the household
and often entertains "Sportsmen" in the house. On the advice of a doctor, he
leaves home to drink Bath waters. There he saves a man who attempts suicide by
throwing himself into a river. The Man of the Hill, on visiting this man,
discovers that it is his old friend Watson.
Chapter XIV
The Man of the Hill gives Watson one hundred pounds on the condition that he use
it to set himself up in an honest profession. He catches Watson gambling some of
the money away, however. Watson and the Man of the Hill talk politics. The Man
of the Hill is anti-Jacobite, and is worried about what the Protestant religion
will suffer under a "popish Prince." Tom interrupts and informs the Man of the
Hill that two rebellions aimed at putting the son of King James on the throne
have taken place. The Man of the Hill returns to his story. He and Watson join
the army, but Watson betrays the Man of the Hill to the Jacobite forces trying
to restore King James to the throne. The Man of the Hill manages to escape, but
resolves in the future to avoid all humans. He visits his brother, who gives him
a stingy payment, then settles on his hill. He has, however, traveled to most
places in Europe.
Chapter XV
The Man of the Hill gives a brief summary of the people of various nations. He
says his main purpose in traveling was to see nature. He says that people are
the one creation of God that "doth him any Dishonour." Jones argues for the
diversity of humanity and expresses surprise that the Man of the Hill can fill
up so many hours in solitude. He strongly opposes the Man of the Hill's hatred
for humankind, arguing that he has generalized the behavior of the worst men,
when he should have generalized the behavior of the best. Partridge has fallen
asleep during this debate. The narrator invites the reader, like Partridge, to
rest, since this is the end of the eighth book.
Analysis
Book VIII traces Tom's journey from Bristol to Gloucester, and witnesses the
beginning of his relationship with Partridge, who becomes his servant. The
abundance of characters and scenes introduced in this chapter is further
complicated by the fact that Partridge, when he first meets Jones, is living
under the pseudonym of "little Benjamin." Fielding uses this ploy of entangling
people's names and stories later in the novel to magnify the novel's intrigue.
As the novel progresses into more and more social terrain, people's identities
become more suspect. In Chapter II, Fielding mocks the attitude of landlords and
landladies, who flock to travelers whom they perceive to be of the gentry and
reject those of the lower classes. Typically, Fielding dresses up this criticism
as a positive quality, but the perceptions of these sycophants are based on
appearance alone.
It is noteworthy that the final five chapters of Book VIII are dominated by the
history of the Man of the Hill, this being the longest of the narrator's
deviations from the central story. These digressions allow one to group Tom
Jones with Laurence Sterne's novel
Tristram Shandy,
which self-consciously rejects coherent, linear narrative in favor of a
sporadic, disrupted narrative. Both Fielding and Sterne distinguished themselves
from their time by their tendency toward fragmentation.
Yet Fielding's structural decisions could also be put down to the fact that he
thinks of his work as an epic, along the lines of the twelve-book
Aeneid.. Tom's adventures, and the integration of other
characters' adventures, propel the novel to epic heights. Yet in Chapter I of
Book VIII, Fielding separates his epic from Classical epics by distinguishing
his genre—the "Marvellous"—from the "Incredible." Aeneas, the hero
of Virgil's Aeneid, and Ulysses, the hero of Homer's Odyssey, are
constantly saved from calamity by "supernatural Agents." Fielding refuses to
write according to such laws—his characters must all be human—and
even introduces real people into his fictional work. In Chapter VIII he refers
in passing to a "Mr. Timothy Harris," who was an inn-keeper during Fielding's
time. Such references not only keep Fielding's work grounded in reality, but
also add an authenticity to Fielding's narrative.
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