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.
