The Literary World

Tom Jones is a novel  by Henry Fielding, published in 1749. In Tom Jones; typical and individual character are the two concepts, used to gain or understand Fielding’s characterization. Therefore, the concept typical stands for the broader trails of a person’s behavior. Thus, by using the concept ‘typicality, the writer’s aim is to suggest  that a society largely molds and shapes the behavior of its members. Also, in this concept, the writer implies that three isn’t much need to explore the deep urges and desires of people.

Therefore, in the sense, the typicality of a character because a significant means of going insights into the reality of the particular historical epoch to which the author belongs. But, also, the concept of typicality by itself doesn’t appreciate specificity and distinction is a character.

Whereas the ‘individual’ in character could be defined as in two things: first it denotes that sensuousness, which draws the reader close to the character, established an imaginative link between the to and the because one” with it. How author achieve? Authors achieve it through the psychological projection of character in in which not just the decision taken but the process through which the particular person reached his/her resolution are communicated to the reader.

After an argument based upon characters ‘individual and “sensuousness” which certifies that character’s even the whole novel’s authenticity. This stands in opposition to another character’s who is merely typical and therefore stands for an idea.

Thus, we see that the peculiar pattern of events presented by an author may or may not import “sensuousness” and “authenticity” in human terms to it actors it may not show then as” breathing and yet engage the reader’s attention in its description because of the close identification the presented pattern may establish between the reality of the work and that of the reader.

However, Fielding’s character in fact be  more’ real an un- theoretical” than, for instance the character of Jenny Jones as typicality and individuality.

 Jenny Jones has been shown in three phases in the novel, first as a young woman when she found herself to be much brighter than other in the neighborhood second as a middle-aged, when she met Tom Jones for the first time at Mazard- Hill: and third as on who surrounded by suspicious glances but quite on her run in London.

Through the character of Jenny Jones, the author derives a great deal of pleasure from her virtuosity which in mere maidservant would be out of place. This makes her highly unpopular in the neighborhood particularly among women who feel threatened by her qualities of mind. For instance, her intimacy and friendship with Miss Allworthy is proof of her impressive accomplishments.

Basically, Fielding choses Jenny Jones as a character to emphasis a high degree of dynamism and agility. Her loyalty to Miss Allworthy is not an ordinary. The quality of her sincerity to a trapped women events on whom Sophia Western proud of.

Even though, the reader is to believe till very end that she is the mother of Tom. All this, traits indirectly point towards the abilities of Tom as Jenny Jones as his mother. Strengthening the assumption that the mother of the protagonist has an importance of her own and is  by that logic a character of prominence. Her expulsion by Allworthy from the neighborhood of Paradise Hall in the height of attention she has received in the beginning of the novel.

Further, the problem arises in the novel, when Jenny Jones’s career is that just when she has raised extreme expectations as an important character, she is made disappear as Jenny Jones from the novel forever.

Not only that, we also find that Jenny Jones underdone a radically change and become an altogether different character as a Mrs. water.

Therefore, it can not be said that fielding’s characters are static, that they tend to retain throughout  the novel their initial shape and form. That means, Jenny Jones as Mrs. Waters can not be easily recognized in view of so much happening to her in the previous nineteen years.

For instance; she acquired a new name not just formally and technically insulted she has  over the long period become a typical army’s officer’s woman, unsettled, sexually exploited, stupid, insensitive. All these changes are from an intelligent young woman to a clever calculating middle-aged woman. Fielding not only recognized this change consciously and remembers the kind of person Mrs. Waters was when young, he also keeps in view the social process in which the transformation has occurred.

Fielding is fond of charting the life- course of character i.e. sharing information with the reader about significant past happening in the life of characters while there may be other fictional purpose such as intensifying the plot structural behind these numerous discourse Fielding presents one quite important motive in the present case is that the author puts almost the whole blame for the moral-mental decline in Jenny Jones at the door of society. This is done deftly in terms of characterization under which we see a whole system and structure critiqued through Mrs. Waters. It may as well be said that the crudities and amoral ways in Mrs. Waters are in fact instances of the brutal rigidities of the society in which she has lived and of which she characterized for example; when she meets Tom for the first time half- naked, under the hands of a ruffian, Here the atmosphere where she shouts to be saved, this resembles the natural behavior of an animal to word off the blow and escape injury. On being rescued. Mrs. Waters turns almost instantly into the impulsive mould of sexuality. The incidents subsequent to this at the upon inn are hilarious on the surface.

Therefore, the subsequences of the character held by economic subsistence, moral principal, social etiquette, manipulative strategies of the lower people, all showing or forming a sophisticated network at the which may be seen as evolved for preventing animals to gain liberty.

Mrs. Waters as a character may not adhere to the code. Which the framework seeks to impose on the members of society in general. And the strength of Mrs. Waters as a character lies in that she assiduously violates the code while her physical energy is constantly sapped by the intense pressure of struggles.

But she is weakened physically’ by various assaults from centers of power for examples; a husband in search of an absconding wife, a father closed following his daughter, a woman in pursuit of a lover, husband etc. These not merely threatens Mrs. Water’s privacy with a lover, but also end of up in snatching that lover who grows conscious by and by about the value of purity, loyalty and virtue “concretized” character in whom the typical traits have been highly individualized.

The last phase in which Mrs. Waters appears like other characters in London, but her presentation of individuality by the author compromised in the process of moving towards the city. Further, the revelation that she is Jone’s mother, she strikes the reader as a person who committed the sin of incest with the least awareness. Therefore, incest has individualistic- moralistic overtones, the individual is condemned to remain in a mental state of sin by a society whose moral code he/she has willfully or otherwise violated. But it is to interpreted and judged in a society which has given birth to much graver distortions of morality and ethic.

Thus, the 18^th century London society hides much moral, sexual distortions beneath the veil of secrecy and gradually reduces male- female interaction to a self- seeking manipulative level. To put it more clearly, hypocrisy is much greater sin for Fielding that incest because in the former case, there is a falsity and dishonesty to which an individual consciously commits himself or herself and society discreetly overlooks the act.

However, in the latter case the individuals involved as well as those sympathetic towards them feel horrified and morally repelled. Fielding as author is quiet clear, well at the end of the novel a revelation that Mrs. Waters had never mother a child makes all have a sigh of relief.

Therefore, the novel Tom Jones presents the typicality and individuality of a character in the form of Jenny Jones who have been through all throughout the novel.

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