“Tom Jones” by Henry Fielding (post 4): Author’s “illusion of independent agency, experiences characters as having minds of their own” (multiple personality)

In the first sentence of this novel, the narrator introduced himself as the “author,” which, many readers would assume, puts him in charge of everything the characters think, say, and do. Yet here is another example of the author’s relating to the characters as though they were independent actors, with minds of their own, whose private thoughts he cannot know; in other words, as though they were alternate personalities.

The situation is that Sofia and Tom Jones are deeply in love, but he was born out of wedlock, and their wealthy families are in the process of making a suitable match between Sofia and Mr. Blifil.

The narrator-author has to speculate about what was in Mr. Blifil’s mind, as indicated by the word “perhaps”:

“Of Jones he [Mr. Blifil] certainly had not even the least jealousy; and I have often thought it wonderful that he had not. Perhaps he imagined the character which Jones bore all over the country (how justly, let the reader determine), of being one of the wildest fellows in England, might render him odious to a lady of the most exemplary modesty. Perhaps his suspicions might be laid asleep by the [intentionally misleading] behaviour of Sofia, and of Jones himself, when they were in company together” (1, p. 256).

The author has to speculate about Blifil’s private thoughts, because the author has “the illusion of independent agency” and “experiences the characters as having minds of their own” (2). Or, as I would say, the author has multiple personality trait.

1. Henry Fielding. [The History of] Tom Jones [A Foundling] [1749]. Edited by John Bender and Simon Stern. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008.

2. Marjorie Taylor, PhD, et al. “The illusion of independent agency: Do adult fiction writers experience their characters as having minds of their own?” https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.uoregon.edu/dist/7/8783/files/2014/07/TaylorHodgesKohanyi-130mpe0.pdf