VERBAL IRONY IN TOM JONES
BY ELEANOR N. HUTCHENS
W ITHOUT its verbal irony, Tom Jones
would be quite a different book: massive
and well made but lacking the high polish and
the effect of urbane control which do much to
preserve it as a major classic. Its realism, its
satire, and even its much-praised plot keep their
unified brilliance through being governed by an
ironic style that forms as important a contribution
to the English novel as any Fielding made.
A variety of sources beginning with Lucian
can be cited for Fielding's uses of irony. The
Scriblerus group were his acknowledged masters
in his own time, and French prose romance was
not without its influence.' But Fielding, in Tom
Jones, was the first English novelist who employed
verbal irony to hold a huge body of realistic
material, including a straightforward narrative
and a set of believable characters commanding
the sympathetic interest of the reader, under
the dual scrutiny of comedy and morality. As an
ironist he is generally held inferior to Swift in
subtlety, intellectuality, and force. But Swift
creates an abstract world-the nonexistent lands
visited by Gulliver, the weird mind of the
Modest Proposer, etc.-into which he draws
selected materials from the real world for ironic
treatment. Fielding treats people, events, and
ideas in their native settings, amid the mitigations
and qualifying circumstances that blunt
the edge of any but the most skillfully applied
irony.
That his verbal irony is best exemplified in
Tom Jones may be questioned by readers who
think of Jonathan Wild first in connection with it.
But the irony in Jonathan Wild has no basic
straightforward text to operate upon; the whole
text is ironic, like that of A Modest Proposal;
moreover, the irony is not so urbane and mature.
The long and greatly-admired passage on honor
(i, 13), besides owing much to Falstaff, has not
the subtle ease of a casually-dropped remark to
the same end in Tom Jones: "his lordship, who
was strictly a man of honour, and would by no
means have been guilty of an action which the
world in general would have condemned, began
to be much concerned for the advice which he
had taken" (xvIII, 11). There is verbal irony in
Joseph Andrews; but it does not prevail there,
and the style therefore has a more yielding surface;
Amelia too has it, but it is mired in the emotionalism
which renders the text boggy. Only in
46
Tom Jones does it achieve the triumphant
mastery that taught Fielding's successors.
Verbal irony takes several forms. As irony, it
is one of two main varieties-verbal and substantial-
of the sport of bringing about a conclusion
by indicating the opposite one. It is
effected by a choice or arrangement of words
which conveys the ironist's meaning by suggesting
its reverse. The suggestion clashes with the
context or with some view presumably shared by
author and reader (or at least known by the
reader to be held by the author), and the clash
comically invalidates the suggestion and thereby
strengthens the view with which it conflicts. The
forms of verbal irony are the ways in which the
suggestion may be made: by the denotation,
connotation, tone, or implied reference of the
words or of their arrangement. In Tom Jones
Fielding persistently employs all these forms.
Narration, description, characterization, and exposition
receive constant polish from them, and
to them the book may well be said to owe its enduring
brilliance.
Of the four, denotative irony is the simplest
and least subtle, consisting merely in the use of a
word to mean its literal opposite, as "noble" is
used in these passages:
[Mrs. Partridge] was . . . a professed follower of that
noble sect founded by Xantippe of old . . . (II, 3)
The great are deceived if they imagine they have appropriated
ambition and vanity to themselves. These
noble qualities flourish as notably in a country
church. .. as in the drawing-room.. . (iv, 7)
The noble bumtrap, blind and deaf to every circumstance
of distress, greatly rises above all the motives
to humanity, and into the hands of the gaoler resolves
to deliver his miserable prey. (vII, 3)
or as "good" is used in these:
'Every man must die some time or other,' answered
the good woman; 'it is no business of mine. I hope,
doctor, you would not have me hold him while you
bleed him' (viii, 3)
Amongo therg oodp rinciplesu ponw hicht his society
was founded,t herew as one very remarkable;. . . that
every member should, within the twenty-four hours,
1 On the French influence, see Wayne C. Booth, "The Self-
Conscious Narrator in Comic Fiction before Tristram
Shandy," PMLA, LXVII (1952), 163-185.
Eleanor N. Hutchens
tell at least one merry fib, which was to be propagated
by all the brethren and sisterhood. (xv, 3)
Denotative irony sounds a brief, sharp crack of
sarcastic humor, without those reverberative
qualities that carry the effect of other kinds of
verbal irony beyond the boundaries of the ironic
words themselves. When Squire Western's
demeanor as a magistrate is called wise, when
Partridge's remarks are called sage, when a
hideous chambermaid is called fair, the flat contradiction
of truth makes its brief impact and
dies, with no probing into relative validities (as
connotative irony is likely to probe) and no
transfiguring effect on the context.
Yet this is not to say that it has no part in the
larger effects of Tom Jones. These recurring snaps
of the whip have their function in helping to keep
the novel within its appointed bounds-that is,
within the pale of comedy and morality at once.
Take away "noble," take away "good" from the
passages cited, and in most cases Fielding's moral
comment is lost or dulled. Substitute "base"
or "bad," the straightforward truthful words,
and moral criticism is retained but the comedy is
lost. Where there is no moral criticism, as in the
case of the "fair" chambermaid, there is only
comedy to be lost; but the loss of one passage in
the novel from the comic view is a loss to the
whole effect. Denotative irony, then, although in
itself less interesting and stimulating than connotative
irony, is a useful auxiliary in the work of
producing the total impression of the novel as
well as in enhancing the liveliness of individual
passages. That Fielding himself felt it to be an
inferior device is suggested by the fact that in
Tom Jones he uses it sparingly, only about one
third as often as connotative irony.
This form, the one by which Fielding does
most to achieve the verbal brilliance of Tom
Jones, differs from the denotative in that the
ironic word retains its literal meaning but clashes
with truth in its connotations. I have attempted
to show, in another place, how connotative irony
is used to carry out one of the major themes of
the book;2 for present purposes, a demonstration
of its mechanics will perhaps suffice.
Fielding shows an analytical awareness of
connotative irony in the first chapter of Jonathan
Wild, where he takes pains to remove the connotation
of goodness from the word "greatness."
(Despite this explicit separation, the comic impact
of "great" as applied to Wild rests in its
connotative irony as we continue to associate
goodness, or worthiness, with greatness and are
therefore struck by a comical incongruity in the
application.) In Tom Jones, besides bearing
specific themes (the nature of prudence, honor,
etc.), connotative irony in its nature reflects
Fielding's governing comic-moral view that a
thing may be good or true in one sense but bad or
false in others. His use of "proper" illustrates this
point: "The captain was indeed as great a master
of the art of love as Ovid was formerly. He had
besides received proper hints from his brother,
which he failed not to improve to the best advantage"
(I, 10). The conspiracy of the Blifil
brothers is thus dignified with a word which,
while legitimately used to mean appropriate (to
the attainment of the end in view), carries connotations
of laudable conduct which are comically
inapplicable to the Blifil game. Squire
Western's indecorous behavior, Partridge's gluttony
and self-interest, and the rapacity of the
Man of the Hill's fellow gamblers receive similar
treatment:
The squire, however, sent after his sister the same
holloaw hicha ttendst he departureo f a hare,w hens he
is first started before the hounds. He was indeed a
great master of this kind of vociferation, and had a
holloa proper for most occasions in life. (vII, 3)
Partridge thought he had now a proper opportunity to
remind his friend of a matter which he seemed entirely
to have forgotten; what this was the reader will guess,
when we inform him that Jones had eaten nothing
more than one poached egg since he had left the
alehouse ... (xII, 13)
[Partridge]n o sooner discoveredt he principleso f his
fellow-travellerth an he thoughtp ropert o conceala nd
outwardly give up his own to the man on whom he
depended for the making his fortune . . . (vIII, 9)
'I mean... those gross cheats which are proper to
impose upon the raw and unexperienced.'. (vIII,
13)
In each case, an element of the literal meaning of
"proper" can be applied faithfully to the context.
The idea of fitness, in some form, is always
present; but the straightforward expression
would differ in each instance. "Cunningly aimed"
for Dr. Blifil's hints; "adapted" for the squire's
holloa (though even here there might be some
irony in the ideal of rational choice usually associated
with the word); all of the examples, which
range in subject matter from harmless eccentricity
through opportunism to actual criminality,
could have been rendered unironically in
terms not carrying the favorable connotations of
"proper."
2 " 'Prudence' in Tom Jones," PQ, xxxix, 4 (October
1960), 496-507.
47
Verbal Irony in "Tom Jones"
Usually the moral criticism is adverse, as in the
buying of Molly Seagrim's favors: "some wellchosen
presents from the philosopher so softened
and unguarded the girl's heart, that . . . Square
triumphed ..." (v, 5). "Softened" and "unguarded"
apply in some slight literal sense to
Molly's coming to terms, but the connotations
direct the reader to contrast her case with that of
the innocent victim of seduction. Sometimes, on
the other hand, the connotations are worse,
rather than better, than the subject warrants,
when Fielding wishes to excuse rather than to
blame: "This hare he had basely and barbarously
knocked on the head, against the laws of
the land, and no less against the laws of sportsmen"
(III, 10). Here Fielding shifts downward
into the view of the game-preserving squires, who
while they save the game from the hungry poor
"will most unmercifully slaughter whole horseloads
themselves" (III, 2). "Basely" and "barbarously"
do not lose all their literal meaning,
since the act is illegal and a violation of the rights
of property which, Fielding would have been the
last to deny, constitute a foundation stone of
civilized society; but the connotations of selfrighteousness
they carry, in their unwarrantable
severity, clash comically with the real moral position
of the squires. Thus Black George comes off
the better for them.
The technique of connotative irony is Fielding's
chief means of accomplishing the stylistic
effect of Tom Jones. Denotative, tonal, and
referential irony mesh with it, but they are not so
frequently used, are not so closely adapted to his
realistic materials, and all in all are not so well
calculated to give the whole its high polish.
Irony of tone stands somewhere between connotative
and denotative irony in subtlety and
staying power. One of the great life-giving excellences
of Fielding's prose is that in it we hear
continually the cadences, the modulations, the
pauses and accelerations of the human voice.3
Here, as elsewhere, his presence as author allows
him full play, permitting him a wide range of
tones not only in his own voice but in the voices
to which he shifts for ironic effect. (To deplore
Fielding's "intrusiveness" is to wish away his
verbal irony, which would be impossible without
it.) Tonal irony has little to do with the words
used; it does not depend on the raising or lowering
of diction, though one of these sometimes
accompanies it. It is achieved by the sequence in
which words are arranged, by the ordering of
clauses and phrases, and sometimes by punctuation.
When it does partially depend on the words
used, this dependence is owing to the fact that
those words demand a certain tone of voice when
they occur at a given point in the sentence. "Indeed,"
"at least," "never," "only," and many
other words and phrases in English take on
standard tones when they are placed in certain
relations with other parts of a given utterance.
... that surprising sect, who are honourably mentioned
by the late Dr. Swift as having, by the mere
force of genius alone, without the least assistance of
any kind of learning, or even reading, discovered that
profound and invaluable secret that there is no
God.... (vi, 1)
"Mere," "alone," "least," and other words in
this passage require, in the positions they occupy,
tones of wonder and admiration. These tones
clash, of course, with Fielding's real contempt,
ironically driving it home. In contrast to their
emphasis, here is a dependent clause which makes
its effect by virtue of its subordination:
It was Mr. Western's custom every afternoon, as
soon as he was drunk, to hear his daughter play on the
harpsichord .... (iv, 5)
The perfunctory, matter-of-fact tone demanded
by the "as soon as" clause is in comic conflict
with its meaning as statement and thus comments
ironically upon Squire Western's way of
life.
At its noisiest, as in Squire Western's sudden
irruptions into scenes of courtesy or sentiment,
the tonal irony of Tom Jones reaches the burlesque.
It is worth noting that in the "Homerican"
churchyard battle the tone, alternately
soaring and lurching like a schoolboy's translation,
participates in the effect as fully as do the
diction and the referential irony of classical
allusion:
Recount, O Muse, the names of those who fell on
this fatal day. First, Jemmy Tweedle felt on his
hinder head the direful bone. Him the pleasant banks
of sweetly-windedS tourh ad nourished,w hereh e first
learnt the vocal art, with which, wandering up and
down at wakes and fairs, he cheered the rural nymphs
and swains when upon the green they interweaved the
sprightly dance; while he himself stood fiddling and
jumping to his own music. How little now avails his
fiddle! He thumps the verdant floor with his carcass.
(iv, 8)
In its total range, irony of tone approaches
that of connotation as a contributor to the
persistent effect of authorial mastery that controls
the reader's impression of the novel. In ex-
8 Some readers seem not to have the inward ear with
which others hear whatever they silently read. To them,
what is here called tonal irony may appear to be purely a
matter of syntax or sentence structure.
48
Eleanor N. Hutchens
position it enables Fielding not only to create
variety by going beyond his own appointed range
of tones as straightforward lecturer but to introduce
points of view other than his own in such
ways that their possessors seem to be present and
exposing themselves to ridicule rather than being
exposed by him. Thus avoiding the appearance of
ill humor and narrow-mindedness, he seems to
be letting them have their say with perfect good
grace and leaving it to the reader to judge them.
In characterization it operates similarly as a
device for making speakers condemn themselves:
"No, no, friend, I shall never be bubbled out of
my religion in hopes only of keeping my place
under another government; for I should certainly
be no better, and very probably might be
worse" (xII, 7). Readers more sensitive to tone
than to substance are capable of taking this
speech as one of stout religious loyalty, so well
does the tone envelop the statement. The tone
of resolution created by the linking of "never"
with "religion" and the tone of deprecation in the
linking of "only" and "place" overwhelm the
sense of the final reflection, which thus subordinated
sounds as righteous as the rest while
actually marking the exciseman's motive as altogether
self-interested. Narrative and descriptive
passages likewise demand alertness to clashes between
tone and statement if the reader is to keep
up with the irony or even, in some cases, with the
action; for Fielding shows a perfect willingness
to couch important information in casual tones
that make it sound not only insignificant but
probably untrue: "In plain language, the only
way he could possibly find to account for the
possession of this note was by robbery; and, to
confess the truth, the reader, unless he should
suspect it was owing to the generosity of Lady
Bellaston, can hardly imagine any other" (xm,
8). We learn in the next paragraph that Lady
Bellaston is indeed the source of Tom's new
affluence, the slyness of the foregoing hint yielding
to a contrasting and equally ironic openness
and enthusiasm in regard to the giver's charitable
impulses.
Whereas tone, it must be acknowledged, is
sometimes elusive and often subject to question
because of differences in receptivity and ear
among readers, the irony of reference lends itself
rather more readily to objective discussion.
In its verbal form, it consists in the use of words
which by implication compare or refer a subject
to something else which in its comic dissimilarity
points up the real nature of the subject. Fielding's
customary use of this device calls in the
terminology of a body of learning-law, medicine,
classical literature, politics, science, or
military craft-to give the subject an air of
dignity, method, reason, or importance which
does not belong to it and thereby to emphasize its
lack of the quality suggested.
Tom was now mounted on the back of a footman,
and everything prepared for execution, when Mr. Allworthy,
entering the room, gave the criminal a reprieve
.... (iii, 8)
[Squares] oon found the meanso f mitigatingh er anger
... partly by a small nostrum from his purse, of
wonderfula nd approvede fficacyi n purgingo ff the ill
humours of the mind, and in restoring it to a good
temper. (v, 5)
An ancient heathen would perhaps have imputed this
disability to the god of drink, no less than to the god
of war; for, in reality, both the combatants had sacrificed
as well to the former deity as to the latter....
(IX, 6)
Now there was a certain office in the gift of Mr.
Fitzpatrick at that time vacant, namely, that of a
wife: for the lady who had lately filled that office had
resigned, or at least deserted her duty. Mr. Fitzpatrick
therefore, having thoroughly examined Mrs.
Waters on the road, found her extremely fit for the
place, which, on their arrival at Bath, he presently
conferred upon her, and she without any scruple
accepted. (xvII, 9)
In not every case, however, is the subject dignified:
the shift may be downward, as in Squire
Western's application of hunting terms to the
lovely Sophia-"We have got the dog fox, I warrant
the bitch is not far off" (x, 7), " . . . I'll unkennel
her..." (xv, 5)-and as in Fielding's
use, in his chapter headings, of the jargon of advertisers
and publishers of sentimental literature.
Here the irony operates in favor of the subject
by seeming to classify it in a clearly inferior
category.
Fielding's use of referential irony extends the
conceptions within which his material is considered,
relating his incidents and his characters
to greater matters or general ideas or established
institutions or bodies of thought; it is more than
metaphor in that its comparisons swell or
diminish their subjects in significant ways,
assisting in the continuous work of keeping them
under comic and moral surveillance. Thus it
makes a special contribution of its own in addition
to joining the other three forms of verbal
irony in the management of total effect.
Substantial irony is outside the scope of this
discussion, which seeks to show only how verbal
irony in Tom Jones operates in the creation of the
whole impression made by the novel. Let it
49
Verbal Irony in "Tom Jones"
nevertheless be noted that substantial irony
functions as a huge complement to the verbal
kind in unifying and holding together as living
tissue the materials of Tom Jones. The tripartite
structure of the book, so often credited with
giving it superior form and purposefulness, is as
naught beside the constant play of large and
small ironies of action and thought that keep
reaching backward and forward to draw its
multitudinous events and persons into relation
with one another under the comic-moral view.
Again, however, Tom Jones would be a vastly
different novel if its irony were substantial only.
Much of it would be grim, much sentimental.
(Take away the descriptions of Blifil as a prudent
youth, and the like, and the blackness of his
character would seriously darken the book; take
away the mock-reverential tones in which
Sophia is sometimes treated, and at points she
would dissolve into the sentimental heroine.)
However expert the writing, the whole thing
could not be carried off with the air of urbane
triumph that does in fact distinguish it.
AGNESS COTTC OLLEGE
Decatur, Ga.
"AND How DID GARRICKSP EAKt he soliloquy last night?"-"Oh,
against all rule, my lord. Most ungrammatically! Betwixt the substantive
and the adjective, which should agree together in number,
case, and gender, he made a breach thus-, stopping as if the point
wanted settling; and betwixt the nominative case, which your
lordship knows should govern the verb, he suspended his voice in
the epilogue a dozen times, three seconds and three-fifths by a stopwatch,
my lord, each time."-"Admirable grammarian! But in
suspending his voice, was the sense suspended likewise? Did no
expression of attitude or countenance fill up the chasm? Was the eye
silent? Did you narrowly look?"-"I looked only at the stopwatch,
my lord."-"Excellent observer!"--Laurence Sterne,
Tristram Shandy, Vol. In
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