Tom Jones and Narrative (Il)legimitacy

Abstract

Tom Jones retains some characteristics of Moll Flanders but changes others. Though remaining illegitimate, both foundlings acquire connections to landed property and high status with the help of a genteel education. They are recuperated into society because their virtues seem to outweigh their vices. Acquiring legitimate upper-class spouses signifies that their sins can be forgiven. Moll’s promiscuous nature is conspicuous in Tom, who is not picky about his partners. He is as sexually attracted to Molly Seagrim’s coarse beauty as to the middle-aged Mrs Waters’ beautiful breasts or Sophia Western’s elevated magnificence. He can charm the haughty demi-monde Lady Bellaston and the humble Mrs Miller, though for very different reasons. Like Moll, Tom moves between classes with apparent ease. Being at once ‘filius populi’ and ‘nullius filius’, the son of everyone and no one, ‘allows the bastard to cross hierarchical divisions and to enact a radicalized social mobility’.¹ Lack of knowledge about Tom’s parentage allows the author to play with different spheres of life for his protagonist. Tom is as much at home at Squire Allworthy’s Paradise Hall as he is on Squire Western’s hunting grounds (135)² or in George Seagrim the gamekeeper’s humble hut and company (book III chapter ii). When Tom is banished from Paradise Hall, he indulges in self-pity for being all alone, exiled and homeless. Then he rallies and realizes the new opportunity in his misfortune: he can play at different identities.