Henry Fielding – Tom Jones

Squire Allworthy

There are two main reasons why Allworthy is such a poor judge of character. First, his own virtue blinds him to possibility of evil or duplicity in others. After Square suggests that Tom’s charity to Black George’s family was motivated not by friendship, but “in order to corrupt the daughter”, Fielding notes: “The goodness of Allworthy had prevented those considerations from occurring to himself … .”²⁴⁴ Likewise, Blifil’s “malicious purpose” in releasing the bird, little Tommy, never occurs to him.²⁴⁵ Paradoxically, Allworthy’s moral rectitude leads him to judge harshly those whose actions do not accord with his own strict sense of morality. As Fielding notes: “[T]his worthy man had never indulged himself in any loose pleasures with women, and he greatly condemned the vice of incontinence in others.”²⁴⁶

Although Allworthy is willing to balance Tom’s “incontinence” with Molly with “the honour and honesty of his self-accusation”, ²⁴⁷ Jenny and Partridge are not treated as leniently. As noted in Part III C 1 b above, Allworthy judges Jenny to be a slut after he (finally) hears the rumours concerning her further “incontinence”. Allworthy is the last to hear these rumours because he is so out of touch with the local community. This is the second reason why he is such a poor judge of character.

²⁴² Ibid, 43.

²⁴³ For example, when Allworthy calls for her after discovering the baby, Tom, her first inclination is to call the baby a “misbegotten wretch”, but he becomes a “sweet little infant” after Allworthy indicates his approval (Tom Jones, 29). Likewise, Mrs Wilkins waits for a cue from Bridget before going into rhapsodies over the baby’s beauty and virtue (Tom Jones, 32–33).
²⁴⁴ Tom Jones, above n 6, 155.
²⁴⁵ Ibid, 128.
²⁴⁶ Ibid, 153.
²⁴⁷ Ibid.
Allworthy is unaware of the gossip that Partridge is Tom’s father, or that Jenny has had two more children until Captain Blifil tells him (for his own purposes) and Mrs Wilkins confirms it. The narrator notes: “Mr Allworthy … was perhaps the only person in that country who had never heard of it.” ²⁴⁸ Similarly, it is a full year before Allworthy hears that Black George faces charges for poaching a hare from Squire Western’s estate. ²⁴⁹ Even then he only finds out because Blifil chooses to enlighten him for his own malicious purpose.

Fielding is at pains to point out that “[s]candal never found any access to [Allworthy’s] table” because his natural inclination to “relieve the distresses of others” ²⁵⁰ makes him loath to believe anything to a person’s disadvantage. Fielding implies that people simply tell Allworthy what he wants to hear (or what they want him to hear) whether it is true or not:²⁵¹

[B]y attending to the conversation at a great man’s table, you may satisfy yourself of his … entire disposition [and] much the greater part of mankind … accommodate their conversation to the taste and inclination of their superiors.

This reinforces why Allworthy is such a bad judge of character. His “transcendent generosity of mind” ²⁵² inclines him to accept the conversation (evidence) at his table (court) at face value. He does not recognise that the conversation is tailored to his sensibilities (the evidence is “spun”); and he hears only favourable evidence except, perhaps, where the charge is one of poaching or sexual incontinence. As a consequence Allworthy does not recognise when he is being misled by villains such as Blifil and his father before him, and by characters such as Thwackum and Square (and Blifil) who “counterfeit generous motives”²⁵³ to disguise their self-interest. As Harrison notes, “Allworthy … is too isolated, by reason of his wealth and virtue”²⁵⁴ to understand what makes people “tick”. The following section comprises an in-depth discussion of the character of Blifil’s confidante, lawyer Dowling, and what makes him “tick”.

²⁴⁸ Ibid, 75. Captain Blifil’s ulterior motive in repeating the gossip at this stage is to alienate Allworthy and Tom. Having married Bridget in anticipation of eventually inheriting Allworthy’s estate, he wants to eliminate every obstacle in the way of his intended goal.

²⁴⁹ Ibid, 116.
²⁵⁰ A reference to the charity Allworthy dispenses throughout Tom Jones. The irony here is that Allworthy’s own definition of “true” charity is “[bestowing] on another what we really want ourselves … to share … by giving what even our own necessities cannot well spare.” whereas he compares “[relieving] our brethren only with our superfluities” to “[gratifying] any other idle, ridiculous vanity … .” (Tom Jones, 74). Allworthy dispenses superfluities, most often to those he first dispenses justice to.
²⁵¹ Tom Jones, above n 6, 76 (emphasis added).
²⁵² Bernard Harrison, Arnold Kettle and A K Thorlby (eds) Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones – The Novelist as Moral Philosopher (Sussex University Press, London, 1973) 107.
²⁵³ Sheldon Sacks Fiction and the Shape of Belief – A Study of Henry Fielding with Glances at Swift, Johnson and Richardson (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1964) 114.
²⁵⁴ Harrison, Kettle and Thorlby, above n 252, 107.

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