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Essay about Central Themes Of Tom Jones

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One of the central themes in Tom Jones deals with the conflict between parental authority and individual choice in matters of love and marriage. As a related topic, I'm looking to explore the ways in which Fielding portrays the relationship and dialectic between love and free will. I intend to show that when ideas of love are conveyed or emotionally expressed by certain characters in the novel toward others, they are accompanied by, and frequently interconnected with, the question of autonomy and self-determination. Furthermore, Fielding's treatment of the ideas of love and personal freedom, through the behavior and language of the characters in the novel, underpins another of the central themes: that marital felicity is as dependent on …show more content…

The following paragraphs from my paper should illustrate some of these techniques:

In Chapter VI of Book V, we find Tom Jones playing the quintessential tortured young lover. Meeting Sophia unexpectedly in this distressed state he gives certain non-verbal, unwitting, and yet effective expressions of love. They are effective because they raise him in her esteem (154), and they are unwitting as they expose the one thing he strives to conceal. Fielding describes how "his Backwardness, his Shunning her, his Coldness and his Silence, were the forwardest, the most diligent, the warmest, and most eloquent Advocates"(155). Then, with the same insightful irony, he explains the profound and elevating effect these displays have on Sophia's regard for Tom. Significantly, neither character chooses to attest to the budding romantic feelings which both experience. Instead their feelings manifestly reveal themselves. In this way, Fielding depicts the novel's central love affair as a "natural" event. At a certain point, the amorous sentiments they share are absolutely beyond their control, though they each make various attempts to deny or temper them. This raises a question about what sort of freedom each character possesses. In following the implications of the interpretation above it would seem that neither has the freedom to decide what to feel

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