Henry Fielding’s “Tom Jones” and parallels to the author’s life

By goldtower2872

I’m hoping this fits here, since I do really like this group a lot. I spent some time thinking about it, and I figured it might be interesting to anyone who’s read “Tom Jones,” which I just finished recently. It got me wanting to look more into Henry Fielding. One thing that stood out to me was how much Fielding’s own life seems tied up with the people in the novel, and even now it feels pretty easy to notice. Mr. Square, the stuck-up tutor, was apparently based on Fielding’s friend and enemy, the poet Thomas Cooke. He also pretty clearly says that Sophia was modeled on his first wife, Charlotte, who had died. And in the preface he says Mr. Allworthy was based on his own patron, George Lyttelton. He says that like it’s a compliment, but it probably isn’t all that flattering, since Allworthy is not really as good as he seems to think he is. Since Allworthy is Tom’s patron, and Lyttelton was Fielding’s patron, it kind of makes sense that Tom is Fielding. It would be pretty odd now for a writer to point out so directly who the characters are based on, so that feels like an interesting layer to the whole thing. I’m still curious about who Molly is supposed to be based on. Some people say Fielding’s second wife Mary, because of the class thing and the name similarity, but I’m not sure I buy that — I think the timing and cause would matter to Fielding. If anyone here knows Fielding well and has thoughts, I’d love to hear them, but either way I hope this is somewhat interesting. More people should read it. thanks again!