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Book 2, Chapter 14
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Joseph Andrews, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Hypocrisy
Lust vs. Chastity
Social Class
Religion and Charity
Summary
Analysis
Abraham Adams makes it back to the inn and finds Joseph Andrews and Fanny sitting together. He tells them of his failure. Fortunately for him, their hostess at the inn misunderstood Adams earlier and thought that Mr. Trulliber wasn’t just Adams’s brother in the clergy but his actual, biological brother. Trulliber has a lot of authority in the area, and so the hostess doesn’t want to upset him by denying credit to his “brother.”
As a clergyman, Adams doesn’t approve of lying, but he’s in no hurry here to correct that hostess’s false assumption that Trulliber is his biological brother. Adams has a complicated relationship with money: he seldom attempts to scam people outright, but he often conveniently forgets his debts and puts the financial burden onto other people.
Themes
Abraham Adams forgot his hat and coat at Trulliber’s, and since he doesn’t want to go back, the hostess offers to go get it herself. There, she learns that Trulliber isn’t Adams’s brother after all. She comes back angry and once more demands that Adams pay. He goes out begging for money but comes up with nothing.
Adams learns the dangers of not telling the whole truth when the hostess goes to investigate for herself and finds out that Trulliber isn’t really Adams’s brother.
Themes
By the time Abraham Adams returns to the inn, a storm is brewing. Luckily, Adams runs into a poor pedlar who used to be a drummer in an Irish regiment and who is able to lend them just enough money to pay the hostess. Adams pays the hostess, and then he, Joseph Andrew, and Fanny leave, with Adams saying he wishes never to return to the inn again.
The pedlar is from a poorer background than Adams, but he seems to be wiser about how he spends his money. The pedlar is yet another example in the story of how sometimes the people with the least to give nevertheless end up being the most generous.
Themes
Literary Devices
