Friendship is the universal topic in literature for centuries. In the middle ages, people were fascinated by the friendly relationship between King Arthur and Sir Lancelot: two men of different social class maintaining such an intimate relationship to each other, regardless of the disturbance. Moreover, in Renaissance Shakespeare represents the remarkable
friendship between Antonio and Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice, illustrating that true friendship is much more valuable than money and life.40 Since friendship is what people embrace in everyday life, it can always be adopted successfully in all kinds of media.
Countless modern films and movies analyzing the topic touch their audiences; the American TV-series “Friends” is the best example for it.41 Because friendship is sort of human behavior that takes practice to make it perfect, people enjoy reading and watching about similar stories as well as checking the differences between what others have and what one experience oneself.
40 The Merchant of Venice is an excellent instance of friendship and money, in which proves that the priceless friendship and honest friends conquer materia l ugliness. Antonio is not afraid of the related responsibility for the debts from Bassanio. The happy ending presents the positive overlook on human relationships.
41 Almost all kinds of public performance include friendship within, such as performance, movies, as well as public novels. Friendship is indeed what one expects to “see” everyday.
Friendship functions as a refuge for the wounded, so that people can always get some comfort through friends. So does family. Family is an advanced sanctuary for each family member, supporting people without a second thought. People are provided with
fundamental necessities in the sanctuary, and allowed to live freely. For David and his friends, their family is as perfect as that provided by God— the Garden of Eden. Unlike contemporarily eighteenth-century novels, The Adventures of David Simple seldom relates itself to religion even in the desperate downturn. Religion is not so important since they are already surrounded by the splendid excellence of friendship developed into family.
With both friendship and family kinship to ameliorate the utopian family, it should be strong enough to overcome all the coming challenges and firmly lead a happy life. To the ir disappointment, readers can easily discover the poignant ending in David and his partners after reading Volume the Last. The depressed conclusion with countless deaths indicates the reality— even true friendship and warm relationship cannot prevent the individuals from departing the reformed family. The unfriendly friends and David’s unfriendly exclusion of others induce the problematic family. Contrary to the unfriendly friends, the family
members of David are innocent people far from sophisticated reasoning, who never think about the reason for having been picked by David. It appears reasonable for David, a pitiful man deserted from his own family, to collect a number of people alike to live with ever after.
It seems that no one should suspect David in his collection and correction.
Nevertheless, David makes an obvious mistake in choosing friends, and declares his selfishness in the adventure. By helping those in need of help, David identifies himself with the ability to help others. As what Fielding depicts, “David ’s Pleasure was perfectly equal with either of theirs, in the Thoughts that he was the Cause of it” (120) and David “fancied them entirely happy, –and that their Happiness was owing to him” (255). After the loss of Miss Nanny Johnson and Daniel, David cannot accept himself as a loser so that a
considerable identification is needed. The abundant assistance causes the attention of the
public in considering David as a benevolent person rather as a tragic loser. David, so to speak, is in critical need of praise, especially moral praise, from surrounding people. Only by applying the method can he refine his personality from those betraying him. Therefore, those he finds in back alleys are the best choice to perform his charity and help him in reconstructing personal identity. Dreaming for his old day’s goodness, David buys these people’s hearts with money to practice his easy job— making oneself important.
Besides assisting the poor, David also aims at people belonging to the same social class to build a family like what he had. All of the chosen people are well-educated young people from middle-class families. If David were to select his friends randomly, the friends he chooses should not all belong to the same social class. In light of this, the selection is not a classless searching, and personality is not the only requirement.42 Friendship sprung from a intentional selection arouses doubts because it is not as spontaneous as it should be. The friendships and family David forms are very similar to the one he had, with all the families belonging to the same social class and well educated. The selecting results in several problems in their limited learning on the world, for they all come from the same social class, and the jobless confidence from upper class. The family members feel comfortable in their finite knowledge and workless condition without any intention to improve it. It is
impossible for a family to survive like that, let alone for a utopia.
The utopian imagination constructed in friendship and family relationship is disturbed by the merciless reality that unfolds in Volume the Last. For one, the happy community is shattered because of the outer world; for another, it is wrecked by the frailty of its fellows.
Furthermore, in the process of friendship, David makes the mistake of taking on friends as commodities for sale. The problem of buying and selling is solved by family, mainly because the fellows have spent all their money in the beginning and can only share their poverty together. Many of the essential elements are purposely deleted to maintain its
42 The benevolent Dunster family is not selected, partly because of their disrespected job— farming and serving.
utopian purity and virtue, such as reality, and poverty. All of these commonplace incidents are included by Thomas More in his book— Utopia— to display an identical good-place to his readers. The utopian representation of More is much more complete than that of Fielding.
Purposeful ignorance only makes her readers more curious about the family of David.
The overwhelming reality intrudes on the family when that sign of reality touches them:
money, or rather the lack of money. Pitifully, none of the characters pay attention to the deeper dilemma in their shortage of money. Working abroad to fulfill the shortage cannot solve the main problem of their utopian family— their inability to deal with money. In the beginning, the family is convinced that personal efforts to gather a utopian family would answer to all the misfortunes in mankind, but they gradually learn about the truth in life.
Money and property, instead of benevolent human relationships, are the most important ingredients for individual survival. So to speak, either the firm friendship or the delightful kinship is strong enough to help them survive in an indifferent world. The David family unfortunately desists from survival in the spiral society.
As a fragile family coming from the selected friendship, people with David come to grief with their belief. They triumph spiritually without much reader recognition, because it is not a brave success that they can be proud of. Missing a lot of the worldly lessons, the fellows can only announce their success blindly by lying to themselves. Perhaps what they have done achieves the utopian satisfaction since everyone within the family is happy. With the money taken over by the worldly characters, what they exchange it for is everlasting benevolence and innocence!
Chapter Five Conclusion
In general, writings related to domestic affairs are expected from an eighteenth-century female writer, and Sarah Fielding is no exception. Striving to locate someplace new for females, the novelist plots an extraordinary utopia for her characters to enjoy and wander freely. Fielding introduces her readers to a feminine utopia in an accepted manner: a novel including both moral lessons and adventure that is appropriate for female writing and also enlightened for female thinking outside of their regulated world. More than being an eighteenth-century female novelist, Sarah Fielding is also the sister of a famous
novelist— Henry Fielding. Indeed, her brother helps a lot in publishing David Simple, writing the preface to her second edition, and even correcting her mistakes on her first edition of the novel.43 Even though not all of his corrections are considered as improvements in her novel, yet “Henry appears to have felt that this was his contribution to Sarah’s Writing” and continues to help her sister in fixing her next novel, Familiar Letters (Ostade 294). Such assistance from her brother does not benefit her in her career; she has remained Henry Fielding’s sister until now.44 Linda Bree introduces the novel as “[p]ublished in 1744 and attributed to ‘a Lady’, the first and most famous novel by the sister of Henry Fielding caused huge speculation and became an instant success” on the cover of the Penguin edition
(emphasis mine). As for the Oxford edition edited by Malcolm Kelsall, the first sentence in the editorial introduction is “Little is known of the life of Sarah, the third sister of Henry Fielding the novelist” (ix). To introduce her with the company of her brother, the famous Henry Fielding, is a conventional way of presenting her for the first time, yet their relativity
43 His corrections do not follow the intention of Sarah Fielding. See Janine Barchas, “Sarah Fielding’s Dashing Style and Eighteenth-Century Print Culture,” ELH 63(1996): 633-56.
44 According to the fourth edition of the Oxford Companion to English Literature published in 1967, Sarah Fielding is introduced as “[the] sister of Henry Fielding.” She is ignored with her talent in novel writing and Greek very often.
deprives her of individuality. Sarah Fielding, however, rejected to be the imagined
“Shakespeare’s sister” who quits writing and agrees to marriage in Virginia Woolf’s sarcastic hypothesis on feminine education. Disregarding the convention, Sarah Fielding becomes an unmarried maiden through her life, which is really unusual at her age. However, the
liberation from rejecting marriage does not bring her the freedom Woolf expected, because she has long lived in economic insufficiency and then decides to move to her brother’s place in 1744. Being an independent female novelist is a difficult task at that time. The glamour coming from her brother covers Sarah Fielding’s talent in writing, which is indeed a pity.
Besides been Henry’s sister, Sarah Fielding is also a close friend to Samuel Richardson; their friendship enables him to publish her novels. In this respect, Sarah indeed takes the
advantages with these nominated male companions, and she, on the contrary, also meets with her problem of being the anonymous writer in the shadow of these males. This is the reason why people are familiar with Henr y Fielding and Samuel Richardson, but few acknowledge Sarah Fielding and her writing.
About three years ago, I was glad to find a novel full of innocent joy among its
characters during my first reading to The Adventures of David Simple. The self-convincible benevolence of the characters makes it a novel that differs a lot from other eighteenth-century novels. While I read it for the second time, I began to discover the contradictory messages within the novel: joy is not the only subject of it, sadness is also there. With the tone playful in the first part and sarcastic in the second part, the dual voices confuse its readers. The Adventures of David Simple and its sequel Volume the Last are meant to be contradictory, rather than merely a blissful portrayal of eighteenth-century London; and this quality makes the novel even more interesting. In this respect, Sarah Fielding, either consciously or unconsciously, adopts an impressive strategy to allure her readers reading the novel for more than one time. Much more undertones within their cheerful family life will be uncovered in the following readings. Consequently, David Simple can be read with various perspectives
and each of the viewpoints can reasonably explain the novel with the unspoken plots. In addition, reading David Simple is very similar to the experience of watching a soap opera on television: there is always the most delightful happiness as well as the most dramatic
misfortune in the same characters. The process of telling stories in David Simple, including the unrelated stories of characters beyond the family, attracts the attention of people for what they read are the most gossiping stories that excite them. Nevertheless, real life is not like that. The novel contains all the possibilities in human life and brings these plots together.
Inducing the most attractive plots, Sarah Fielding’s contribution to the novel genre not only gives moral education but also entertaining pleasure. Its joyful nature is the reason why I decide to study it after the first-time reading; on the other hand, the tragic plot allures me to pick up the novel as the topic of my thesis of graduate school.
During my searching for secondary materials for this novel, I encountered problems.
Few experts on the eighteenth-century novel have written on it. Linda Bree, a professor who develops her interest in the literature and culture of women novelists around
mid-eighteenth century, is the only one who published a full- length book entitled Sarah Fielding, illustrating her writings with bright insights. Other related sources are
undoubtedly scarce comparing to Sarah Fielding’s contemporary male writers, or even her brother. The limited research in studying David Simple turns to be my motive to compose this thesis, to reveal the unspoken messages and hidden disillusion within the utopian
community. David and his friends clandestinely switch kinship to friendship without notice, composing the rebirth of their lost happy family by gathering together in the name of frie nds.
The barely perceptible undertones are the most enjoyable parts in this novel.
Thanks to the limited critical sources on David Simple, however, the thesis is capable of establishing some new thoughts. The title of this thesis conveys utopianism and disillusion simultaneously, as a new way of approaching the novel; but, this is not the first critical work to be concerned with both David Simple and Utopia. The essay of Carolyn Woodard, “Sarah
Fielding’s Self- Destructing Utopia: The Adventures of David Simple” has adopted the term Utopia as her title. But she misses the chance to take a closer look at the inner utopia in the David family but switches to discuss the feminine community in the essay. Furthermore, most readers and critics see David as an innocent friend who desires for true friends wholeheartedly, a quality that Fielding tends to convince people. But the assumption arouses suspicions. I attempt to dig out the unstudied elements in David Simple, and it is certainly sad to disclose the happiness within such an admiring utopia. In this thesis,
however, David is analyzed as any other common characters without privilege. To demolish his philanthropist virtue, readers will, unwillingly, reach to the opposite look of his goodness;
a profile that may not be malignant, but certainly not as perfect as people thought to be. The suspicion of David introduces readers to know the leading character, and the structure of David Simple as well, in a way very different from previous understanding. Moreover, the stories from some inconsequential characters are often omitted in critical studies, such as that of Isabelle, Miss Nanny Johnson, and the carpenters. Though the tales are of no direct connection of the utopian community, these are rich in connotations by expressing the implicit words in novel, telling the real wants of David Simple and Sarah Fielding. This thesis gives an overall view of David Simple to replace the preceding incomplete
interpretations.
During the years of researching The Adventures of David Simple and its sequel Volume the Last, I find the endings of the two novels very attractive. The survival of Cynthia and little Camilla as well as their received protection comfort readers; Little Camilla is grateful with the “sudden Transition from the Dread of falling into the Hands of Mrs. Orgueil, to the joyful Hopes of living with Cynthia” as the only offspring of this utopian family, beholding her promising future with her aunt— Cynthia (400). Even though the utopia has been failed because of its interior weakness, an encouraging good-place as well as admirable
personalities is expected passionately after reading Sarah Fielding’s novels. Hope exists in
her ambiguities.
Works Cited
Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. Martin Ostwald. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.
1962.
Astell, Mary. “A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, for the Advancement of their True and Greatest Interest, Part I [1701].” The Pioneers: Early Feminists. Ed. Marie Mulvey Roberts and Ta mae Mizuta. London: Routledge/ Thoemmes Press, 1993. 3-116.
Barker, Gerard A. “David Simple: The Novel of Sensibility in Embryo.” Modern Language Studies. 12(1982):69-80.
Ballaster, Rosalind. Seductive Forms: Women’s Amatory Fiction from 1684-1740. New York: Oxford UP, 1992.
Bree, Linda. “A Moral Romance: The Adventures of David Simple.” Sarah Fielding. Ed.
Herbert Sussman. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996. 29-45.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York:
Routledge, 1990.
Claeys, George. Ed. Introduction. Utopias of the British Enlightment. Cambridge : Cambridge UP, 1994. vii- xxviii.
Cocking, Dean, and Jeanette Kennett. “Friendship and Self.” Ethics. 108.3(1998):
502-27.
Davis, J.C. Utopia and the Ideal Society: A Study of English Utopian writing 1516-1700.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1981.
Defoe, Daniel. “(On) The Education of Women, 1719.” NetLibrary. 1999. 3. Nov.
2004. <http://www.netlibrary.com/Reader/>.
Fielding, Sarah. The Adventure of David Simple. 1744-1953. Ed. Linda Bree. London:
Penguin, 2002.
Fox, Alistair. Utopia: An Elusive Vision. New York: Twayne 1993.
Gadeken, Sara. “Sarah Fielding and the Salic Law of Wit.” Studies in English Literature
1500-1900. 42.3(2002): 541-57.
Gauliter, Gary. “Henry and Sarah Fielding on Romance and Sensibility. ” Novel: A Forum on Fiction. 31.2(1998): 195-215.
Gilbert, Paul. “Family Matters.” Human Relationships: A Philosophical Introduction.
Oxford: Blackwell, 1991. 20-31.
Harris, Andrea L. “Replacing the Feminine in Feminist Theory. ” Other Sexes: Rewriting Difference from Woolf to Winterson. New York: State U of New York P, 2000.
215-233.
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. 1932. Introd. M.J. Russell. London: Longman, 1976.
Kelsall, Malcolm. Introduction. The Adventures of David Simple. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1969. ix- xvii.
Kolmerten, Carol A. Introduction: Utopian Visions within a Patriarchy. Women in Utopia:
The Ideology of Gender in the American Owenite Communities. Bloomington:
Indiana UP, 1990. 1-13.
Kumer, Krishan. “The Elements of Utopia.” Utopianism. Buckingham: Open UP, 1991.
1-20.
Legates, Marlene. “The Cult of Womanhood in Eighteenth-Century Thought.”
Eighteenth-Century Studies. 10.1(1976): 21-39.
More, Thomas. Utopia. Trans. and ed. Robert M. Adams. New York: Norton, 1975.
Morson, Gary Saul. “Utopia as a Literary Genre.” The Boundaries of Genre: Dostoevsky’s Diary of a Writer and the Traditions of Literary Utopia. Illinois: Northwestern UP,
Morson, Gary Saul. “Utopia as a Literary Genre.” The Boundaries of Genre: Dostoevsky’s Diary of a Writer and the Traditions of Literary Utopia. Illinois: Northwestern UP,