Sacred Tears by Fred Kaplan

Author:Fred Kaplan
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Thackeray makes clear in his essay on “Fielding’s Works” and in his discussion of Fielding in The English Humourists that he believes in the theory of the moral sentiments and in the selective depiction in fiction of idealized models of human nature. His crucial text is Fielding’s Amelia (1752), for “the picture of Amelia … is … the most beautiful and delicious description of a character [Thackeray means here the worth of her character rather than the manner in which she is described] that is to be found in any writer, not excepting Shakespeare.”11 Amelia Sedley in Vanity Fair and Laura Bell in Pendennis are probably meant to evoke the moral perfection of Fielding’s Amelia whom Thackeray and many others believed to be a portrait of Fielding’s deceased wife, just as Amelia in Vanity Fair is said to be derived from Thackeray’s “memories of his wife.” For Thackeray, life and literature are mutually enriched by being identified with one another; life provides the moral paradigms for literary portraits. But what is it that makes Fielding’s Amelia “the most beautiful and delicious description of a character … found in any writer, not excepting Shakespeare”? In Thackeray’s eyes, Amelia embodies the highest degree of virtue as innate moral sentiment that any human being can possess, so powerful in its absoluteness that it cannot be corrupted or even undermined either by the pressures of environment or by other aspects of her own nature. Uncontaminated by realism or by Puritan theology, her innate moral sentiments define her essence. But she is neither angel nor angelic. Her needs and inclinations are of this world; her role is to demonstrate that worldly satisfactions are morally viable on the highest level. Instinctively distinguishing right from wrong, good from evil, life from death, she cannot be other than true to her moral feelings.

Fielding’s Amelia is a creation of moral philosophy. When she expresses her heart-weariness at the failure of others to act on their moral sentiments, she is reminded by Dr. Harrison what “the nature of man is.”

“Indeed, my dear sir, I begin to grow entirely sick of it,” cries Amelia: “for sure all mankind almost are villains in their hearts.”

“Fie, child,” cries the doctor. “Do not make a conclusion so much to the dishonour of the great Creator. The nature of man is far from being in itself evil; it abounds with benevolence, charity, and pity, coveting praise and honour, and shunning shame and disgrace. Bad education, bad habits, and bad customs, debauch our nature, and drive it headlong as it were into vice. The governors of the world, and I am afraid the priesthood, are answerable for the badness of it.”

“You understand human nature to the bottom,” answered Amelia; “and your mind is a treasury of all ancient and modern learning.” (Amelia, chap. 9)

This is also Thackeray’s view of human nature. He prefers to believe in innate goodness rather than innate corruption. But, like Dickens, he also is baffled by first causes and occasionally is ambivalent about the role of environment.

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