Henry Fielding – Tom Jones

THE TRIFLING INCIDENT OF LITTLE TOMMY

The battle between Sophia, Tom, and Blifil, and what Blifil stands for lies at the heart of Tom Jones, and the incident of little Tommy is a preface to the main action. Tom has given Sophia a present of a songbird (“little Tommy”) which he has raised from a nestling. Sophia is very fond of tame little Tommy. Sophia, although wary, lets Blifil hold him, but Blifil releases the bird which flies away. Tom responds to Sophia’s distress and falls into the canal while trying to recover little Tommy who, unfortunately, is taken by a hawk. The incident concludes with a discussion of Blifil’s motives and the relevant law.²⁹²

The episode itself is a parable that “moves from personal predicament to moral judgment,”²⁹³ but equally it is a metaphor presaging the action and themes central to Tom Jones. For example, little Tommy’s foolishness reflects Tom’s imprudence and his flight from the safety of his cage with its fatal ending parallels Tom’s flight from Sophia, his banishment from the security of Paradise Hall and his near fate at the end of a hangman’s rope.²⁹⁴ Further, this incident introduces Blifil as the instrument of Tom’s downfall, while the two justices, Allworthy and Western, who lack the insight a true judge of character requires, accept Blifil’s

²⁹⁰ Ibid.

²⁹¹ Ibid.
²⁹² Ibid, 125–29.
²⁹³ John Preston “Plot as Irony: The Reader’s Role in Tom Jones” in Compton, above n 66, 251.
²⁹⁴ Alter, above n 182, 23.
explanation(s) at face value,²⁹⁵ as they do until the final denouement. And, as the discussion that follows demonstrates, Fielding presents this incident and the evidence from which the reader arrives at her or her own judgment in a way that mirrors the structure (and presentation) of a legal case.

Section A considers what the reader knows about Tom’s and Blifil’s characters from their past deeds, their past words, and what others say about them. Section B analyses how Fielding separates deed and doer in the mind of the reader, and compares this to the way counsel presents a case to the court. Section C uses the conclusions from sections A and B to assess Blifil’s moral and legal liability over the loss of little Tommy. Part D draws together the threads of the previous discussion to show how the structure of Tom Jones mimics the legal case the incident of little Tommy embodies.

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