Novels from this period, including Fielding's, frequently share a number of characteristics – length, episodic structure, plots that deal with romance. “Amelia” has those characteristics, plus a variety of others, starting with the fact that this novel deals with a married couple.
At the novel's opening, Amelia marries an army lieutenant named Booth, against the wishes of her mother and sister – they don't consider the man worthy of the family. If this were a more typical novel of its time (the mid-1700s, or about 20 years before the American Revolution), Amelia and Booth would be separated, and spend the rest of the story struggling to come back together. Not here. These two settle down with the help of a clergyman friend, have children, go through a number of difficulties, and in the last ten or twenty pages they come to a happy resolution. In other words, they live happily ever after, and author Fielding goes so far as to devote his last chapter to a summary of every character's life in the subsequent decades so we can see just how happy the ever after is – for those who deserve it.
Another distinction of “Amelia” is that, although it seems as episodic as other novels of its time, it closes with a return to the events of its opening. That is, its conclusion depends largely (though not exclusively) on .the character's actions and responses to circumstances at the story's beginning Today's writing teachers, who often insist on that kind of structure for today's fiction, would be proud.
On the other hand, once Amelia and Booth marry, they don't develop much, although they go through a lot of adventures. They do learn a few things, but they're so much in love and so inclined to give way to the other one's wishes that there's not much growth available to them. What they learn is almost all beneficial to them as individuals, not as a couple. There may be such couples in real life, though I've never met one myself, but it doesn't make for a very intriguing story. Pleasant, yes – intriguing, no.
The adventures come mostly from others, although Booth's fondness for gambling doesn't do them any favors, nor does Amelia's great beauty and sweetness. The first exposes them to a certain amount of struggle, particularly when Booth gets arrested for debt through, oddly enough, no real fault of his own. As for Amelia's status as the greatest woman any of their acquaintance ever met, it exposes her to a great many men who want to sleep with her and are prepared to do a great many nasty things to Booth to make that happen.
In other words, as with a great many books of this age, this one gives us saints for good guys and demons for bad guys. Fielding handles this better than most. The saintly good guys lecture their neighbors about morals less than a lot of fictional saints do, and the demonic bad guys are better at disguising their villainy than a lot of fictional demons. As a result, Amelia and Booth are fooled about the character of their antagonists a good many times. Fielding's narration attributes this fooling of Amelia and Booth to their innocence and good nature, which makes it difficult for them to recognize guilt in others, since they have none themselves. I'd be more likely to attribute their naivete to the fact that the evil are unfortunately very good at hiding their true nature, but then again I didn't write this book.
So far, aside from what I've already mentioned, most of the details of this novel are fairly typical of mid-18th century English fiction. My biggest question about this particular 18th century English fiction is: Why did Fielding name it “Amelia”?
I can't be sure, of course, but I have a few guesses. First, why the question? Because Amelia, though one of the protagonists, is not the main character, or anyway not the only one. The novel begins with Booth being hauled off to debtor's prison, and although he talks about his wife a good deal, she doesn't appear directly in the narrative for several chapters. Once she does, it would take a long time to determine mathematically whether she or Booth appear more often; I think you'd have to count close to every word to figure that out, and the final determination would be very close thing. Nor does Amelia kick off more of the story's action than her husband. So again, why name this piece after her?
If it wasn't because Fielding chose the title because he thought he might sell more copies that way, it may be because, whether he knew it or not, he might have been a kind of early feminist. I don't know enough about him to say if he was. All I can say is that by the standards of the day, he might have been. Here we have a book named after a woman, a book that deals with the question of whether or not women are capable of intellectual effort, and therefore whether education for them is a useful idea. There's a character here who has more intelligence and education than her husband does – the husband recognizes this and loves her all the more for it.
By today's standards, of course, that's not even a question, but back then it sure was, and by all evidence here, Fielding was on the right side.
Benshlomo says, You can't expect a person to be too far out ahead of his or her time.
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