Morality in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Morality in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones - Essay Example In â€Å"Tom Jones†, the entire story shows that Tom lacked the capacity to show prudence and this led to his constant failures and downfalls. His inability to be prudent made Tom vulnerable to his enemies and the adversaries took advantage of his imprudence to cause harm to him (Hipchen, 17). Tom’s imprudence also gave his antagonists the opportunity to drive away Sophia, his beloved one and chances are that she would have been driven away for eternity. This is despite the fact that Tom possessed some virtues such as generosity, kindness, loyalty, brevity, and good-heartedness. A clear manifestation of the lack of prudence in Tom is shown in the behavior that he displays with women. Notwithstanding the love that he has for Sophia, Tom is often falling into a number of dalliances with women rather taken to be unsavory. The relationships that he involves himself in happens to be hurting Sophia but this does not put an end to his escapades (Hipchen, 16). They are equally counterproductive since their disadvantages far much outweigh the advantages. This potentially makes Tom Jones a character that lacks the much-celebrated virtue of prudence. The imprudence of Tom poses various challenges that Tom and Sophia have to deal with. Temptations are advanced to Tom Jones and he completely fails to resist any of them. Molly Seagrim seduced Tom and although it took him approximately three months to fall for the same, he nevertheless failed in this part (Fielding and Sheridan, 74).