The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [94]
The theme of the novel is that of a young hero, a `foundling' born in mysterious circumstances, who is searching for his true identity in the world. Throughout the story he is shadowed by the chief dark figure of the tale; his adoptive brother Blifil, who apparently rejoices in every worldly advantage that Tom does not enjoy. In fact the pair are very like Charles and Joseph Surface in The School for Scandal. Blifil seems on the `upper world' surface to be the respectable, well-behaved, successful one of the pair, legitimate and dutiful; while the high-spirited, illegitimate Tom, kind-hearted but constantly misunderstood, seems doomed to poverty and disgrace.
Almost as in a stage Comedy the action of the novel is divided into three main `acts'. In the first, set in the countryside of Somerset, we see Tom and Blifil both setting their hearts on marrying the lovely heroine, Sophia Western. Secretly she loves Tom, but the parents on both sides are determined that she should marry Blifil; and the `act' ends with Tom, thanks to Blifil's unscrupulous machinations, being driven from home to find his own way in the world.
The second `act' shows Tom wandering aimlessly across the countryside and becoming involved in an inn at Upton-on-Severn in that central episode of multiple misunderstanding which is so reminiscent of the conventions of stage Comedy. He meets with a `Temptress' and goes to bed with her. At just that moment, Sophia, who has been pursuing him, arrives to discover what he is up to, which turns her violently against him. Then her father also arrives and imagines Tom must be in bed with Sophia. This creates the greatest possible degree of misunderstanding all round, and the chief consequence of this `act' is to set the hero and heroine at odds, thanks to Tom's moment of weakness: which means he is going to have to do a great deal more to prove himself truly worthy of her before any happy ending can be reached.
In the third and final `act' all the main characters converge separately on London, where the denouement will eventually take place. We begin with Tom living in obscure, `inferior' circumstances and, through various acts of kindness and courage, working his way back to the position where he can once again plausibly confront Sophia and seek a reconciliation. But just as this seems on the cards, he is caught out in a second act of weakness with a `Temptress, the imperious and treacherous Lady Bellaston (whom he first woos at a masked ball imagining that she is Sophia in disguise). This lands him in what seems like a fatal catastrophe. Thanks to Lady Bellaston's scheming, he ends up in prison. Here he is told that the first `Temptress' he made love to at Upton was in fact his own mother. He seems doomed to remain in the inferior underworld forever. Meanwhile, in the `upper world, arrangements are being made for Sophia's marriage to Blifil. Then comes the dizzying series of revelations which comprise the `recognition: Tom discovers his true identity, as Blifil's elder brother. Blifil's real nature as an unscrupulous villain and hypocrite is finally exposed. Sophia recognises Tom's true worth and that, for all his moments of weakness, he has never ceased to love her. Their wedding is arranged, to universal rejoicing, while Blifil, as `unreconciled dark figure, meets his come-uppance off stage.
Quite apart from Coleridge's oft-quoted claim that Fielding's novel had one of `the three most perfect plots ever planned' (along with Jonson's The Alchemist and Sophocles's Oedipus Tyrannus), it is worth summarising Tom Jones in this way because it shows how little new there was to the treatment of Comedy when it moved off the stage into the pages of the novel. We see all the familiar devices: