Amanda Hill

Henry Fielding’s picaresque novel, Joseph Andrews, is a satirical survey of social corruption. He focuses much on exploiting the social vices and hypocrisy of the upper class in England. In order to do this, he reverses of the roles of wealthy and poor and men and women. Joseph Andrews is the central character in which the role reversal revolves around. He is the virtuous brother of Samuel Richardson’s Pamela. Joseph is preyed upon because of his chastity, therefore, feminizing him. It is in this way that Fielding also emphasizes the immorality of the women characters in the novel.

Many women play roles in order to seduce Joseph. For example, Lady Booby acts as a widow in her attempt to seduce him. She is confused by Joseph’s virtue. Joseph says, “That when she had conquer’d her own Virtue, she should find an Obstruction in yours? ‘Madam,’ said Joseph, ‘I can’t see why her having no Virtue should be a Reason against my having any. Or why, because I am a Man, or because I am poor, my Virtue must be subservient to her Pleasures” (pg. 33). And in response to him Lady Booby replies, “’I am out of patience,’ cries the Lady: ‘Did ever Mortal hear of a Man’s Virtue!” (pg. 33). Joseph Andrews waits until the last minute, almost testing himself. With the relationship between Joseph Andrews and Lady Booby, Henry Fielding is suggesting that both sexes are sexually deviant exploiting the social vices of the upper class.

Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock” is a mock epic poem comparing great things to small things. Pope satirizes human nature, social class, and superficial relationships. The object of the satire is the “key” to the lock. The question of whether the poem is serious or trivial arises and through Pope’s use of double meaning in his language it is hard to decide. For example, he uses two meanings for “rape” in the title, meaning abduction and unwanted sexual intercourse. Pope takes the importance of a woman’s hair, during the eighteenth century, and plays with the importance, while at the same time mocking that it is only hair. Pope plays with triviality implying that human nature is disturbing because they are taking trivial things so seriously.

Pope also satirizes the superficial relationships between men and women. He says in Canto 5, “But since, alas! frail beauty must decay, / Curled or uncurled, since locks will turn to gray; / Since painted, or not painted, all shall fade, / And she who scorns a man must die a maid; / What then remains but well our power to use, / And keep good humor still whate’er we lose?” Not only does Pope mock the triviality of relationships between men and women, but he also re-emphasizes the triviality of the lock of hair by saying that it should not be a symbol of sexual desire or passion because it will not be beautiful forever. In his mock epic, Alexander Pope presents the triviality of human nature through humor by using physical appearances and the superficiality of relationships.

In Book 9 of Milton’s Paradise Lost, Eve makes one of her most important speeches. Her speech breaks her out of the domestic role Adam has forced her into to fight for her rights. Adam, because he was first, believes that he is superior making a division of labor for him and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Adam knows that they were put on Earth by God to serve Him, but because the angels come to Adam, and not Eve, with what they must do in order to serve God, Adam asserts control over Eve telling her to do the domestic work so that he can better serve God with the real tasks. Eve refuses to obey Adam in saying, “If this be our condition, thus to dwell / In narrow circuit straitened by a foe, / Subtle or violent, we not endued / Single with like defense, wherever met, / How are we happy, still in fear of harm?” Eve is suggesting that she and Adam go out to work alone because if they are living in fear, they will never accomplish anything. Eve wants time to herself, away from Adam, to do this she knows she must physically separate herself from him, therefore, breaking the traditional domestic role that Adam had set up for her in the Garden of Eden.

Not only does Eve not allow herself to fall into the traps of male superiority by rejecting Adam’s plan for them, but she is also making an argument for free will in her famous speech. She says, “Let us not then suspect our happy state / Left so imperfect by the Maker wise, / As not secure to single or combined. / Frail is our happiness, if this be so, / And Eden were no Eden thus exposed.” She strongly believes that if God is forcing she and Adam to obey him, then choosing God is not as meaningful. Eve wants the choice to look at temptation so that if she chooses God it is because that is who she truly believes in. She does not fully trust God because he has promised them free will, but they only get the choices that He creates and provides for them. Eve feels God is betraying them because he has created a Felix Culpa, he knows they are going to fall, in order for Him to justify and highlight his power, glory, and divinity.

The Bower of Bliss is portrayed as the bad garden full of sumptuous images and ideas. The Bower of Bliss has only one gate; the gate is soft and very easy to get in, but the garden is enclosed, making it hard to get out. It is seductive in appearance because its physical beauty is appealing to the senses. It leads men to use their eyes, a dangerous tool when it comes to the Bower of Bliss. Eyes are misleading and deceiving, which are also characteristics of the Bower of Bliss itself. The women in the Bower of Bliss test the temperance of knights if they enter showing them just enough for them to want more. Acrasia, a woman who tempts Sir Guyon, is the worst; she is beautiful, but is also the biggest threat to the knight’s temperance. She captures the role of the women in the Bower of Bliss as villains because she reinforces their teasing nature that distracts the knights from their quests.

The function of the Garden of Adonis is the opposite of the Bower of Bliss. It is the good garden, likened to the Garden of Eden from the Bible. Spenser brings the Garden of Eden into his fanciful world of the Faerie Queen. The Garden of Adonis is mythical, natural, and good. Its focus on nature allows all living things to grow and leave for Earth. The Garden of Adonis has two gates, one to leave from and one to come back through once time is up on Earth. Life in the Garden of Adonis is cyclical; once one comes back in through the gates they are reincarnated. Spenser describes the garden as, “the first seminarie / Of all things that are borne to live and die” (3.6.30). Although the idea of the Garden of Adonis is originated in the Garden of Eden, it is not grounded in Christian beliefs. It is, however, related to Christian beliefs through Book III’s virtue, chastity.

Herod is first set up to sound threatening, but in the fourth act, in his encounter with Mariam, his character weakens. His language toward Mariam sets her up as possessing control over him. For example, Herod states, “Art thou not Jewry’s queen, and Herod’s too?/ Be my commandress, be my sovereign guide;/ To be by thee directed I will woo,/ For in thy pleasure lies my highest pride.” (4.3 11-14) Although Herod responds to Mariam’s accusations in a strange way compared to his encounters with other characters, his response may be inspired by his idealization of Mariam’s appearance. Herod has a strange reverence for Mariam which sets him up as a weak character who is strongly influenced by others.

However, Herod may realize his idealization of Mariam later in part four. He states, “I do profoundly hate thee. Weret thou plain, / Thou shouldst the wonder of Judaea be, / But oh, thou art not; hell itself lies hid / Beneath thy heavenly show. Yet, wert thou chaste, / Thou mightst exalt, pull down, command, forbid, / And be above the wheel of Fortune placed.” (4.4 43-48). He senses Mariam’s beauty as a problem. Here he is realizing and seeing his idealization of Mariam as well as recognizing how he has put her in a higher status than himself.

When thinking of the medieval period, one usually thinks about chivalry, honor, courtesy, legends, sophistication, and romance. In his Canterbury Tales, Chaucer takes some of these ideologies and mocks them in satirical ways. Chaucer challenges the idea of courtly love in many of his stories, but the characters in “The Miller’s Tale” mock the hierarchy of the social classes while challenging chivalric romance.

Chaucer gives the first character we are introduced to, Clark Nicholas, giving him qualities of a knight, however, he does use them differently. Clark Nicholas is presented to readers as a private, courteous man, which are all qualities that are also given to the knight. Chaucer also sets up Clark Nicholas as a gentle man, which foreshadows Alisoun’s final giving in to sleeping with Nicholas. Chaucer first sets up the “courtly love sequence” on lines 163 – 170 by stating, “Now sire, and eft sire, so bifel the cas / That on a day this hende Nicholas / Fil with this yonge wif to rage and playe, / Whil that hir housbonde was at Oseneye / (As clerkes been ful subtil and ful quainte), / And prively he caughte hire by the quiente, / And saide, “Ywis, but if ich have my wille, / For derne love of thee, lemman, I spille…” Alisoun is made to pity Clark Nicholas and follow his needs of her love. However, then he challenges the courtly love sequence by making Clark Nicholas’ desire for her love very manipulative. Readers can see that Alisoun’s fear is nominal; she is testing Nicholas’ true feelings by saying no, when she really knows that her answer is yes from the beginning of Nicholas’ chase. Chaucer satirizes the knight and the clark because he is trying to show how while each character lives up to the expectations of the “role” given to them by society, they also all commit acts showing that no one is as honorable as society portrays them. He also satirizes courtly love by making adultery become acceptable. Although no one ends up with exactly what they want in the end, Nicholas and Alisoun get away with their love affair. Chaucer warns readers of the power struggle between men and women and of unequal marriages.

Beowulf’s role shifts in his last fight, the attack with the dragon. The last attack proves significantly different than his first two battles. The battles with Grendel and Grendel’s mother show Beowulf fulfilling the roles of being a good King as he is fighting to protect his people. The attack with the dragon allows Beowulf to revive the glory days from his youth. In other words, Beowulf’s last attack seems to be fought for more personal reasons, rather than for the greater good of his people.

The dragon’s attack on Beowulf and his people sets up a good versus evil battle. Although this may give hope that the poet will not let evil win over good, many other events point to Beowulf’s own hesitancy about living through his battle with the dragon. Before fighting with the dragon, Beowulf says “I risked my life often when I was young. Now I am old…” (2511-2512). The lines foreshadow that Beowulf has accepted his fate in this last battle. His mentioning of old age emphasizes that every life must come to an end; even the lives of legendary heroes. Hrothgar also warns Beowulf of old age early on in the poem, he says, “For a brief while your strength is in bloom / but if fades quickly;” (1761-1762). Hrothgar forewarns Beowulf of the reality of old age and perhaps at the same time foreshadows Beowulf’s death in the attack of the dragon. Beowulf remembers his heroic actions of days before and yearns for the glory he once held when he goes to fight the dragon. In the end, glory is a flawed attribute to hold because it has no guarantees.