Tom Jones Fact Vs Fiction Essay

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The early modern novel had no definite divisions between fantasy and realism. Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, for instance, has universal appeal in that it deals with and develops real moral and psychological issues, but the narrative still depends upon extraordinary settings and events (Konigsberg 18). Also, Defoe used a fictional "editor," and preface, among other things, to make his work seem like an authentic document and therefore a worthwhile read. As the literary form evolved, novelists began to separate from fantasy, interested more in creating plausible characters and situations than asserting their "truth" with fictional documents. The more explicit devices of authenticity faded from use, and a new sense of self-awareness emerged …show more content…

The unconventionality of both as heroic is part of the satire of the novels, but Catherine's entrance into the story is immediate and her unlikely role as heroine is quickly explained, unlike in the epic Tom Jones. In the first chapter, Austen's narrator writes, "No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine" (Austen 1). The next few pages are concerned not with direct addresses to the reader that Fielding uses, but with short asides that convey as much meaning as the intrusive essays. That is, instead of writing a seperate chapter "concerning the marvellous" to address the failings of romance, Northanger Abbey summarizes the sentiment in a sentence: "Catherine, who by nature had nothing heroic about her, should prefer . . . running about the country at the age of fourteen, to books-or at least books of information-for, provided that nothing like useful knowledge could be gained from them, provided they were all story and no reflection, she had never any objection to books at all" (2-3). The novel's satire of the gothic romance becomes the centering focus by the second half of the novel, but the narrator interjects comments throughout concerning the methods of the novelist. The most obvious intrusion, comparable to Fielding, is when the narrator upbraids "novel writers" who "[join] with their greatest enemies in …show more content…

There is more commentary about novels, but that commentary is transplanted into the speech of Catherine, Henry Tilney, and John Thorpe. For instance, when Catherine suggests men might not approve of novels, the narrator's earlier interjection is reflected in Tilney's response: "The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid" (71). However, this statement also subverts the parody of the first chapter. The novel Tilney likes is Anne Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho, the gothic romance that the narrator satirizes. The narrator does not comment on this dialogue as the narrator in Tom Jones might have. Conflict of ideas between narrator and character suggests a further development in approach to commentary. Generalizations are to be doubted; many interpretations are possible (Wallace

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