438 Fitzgerald, F. scott
supporter, Squire Western, for instance, toasts the
“King over the water” and names his favorite horse
Chevalier, the honorific given to Charles Edward’s
father, but his urban sister contemptuously cites the
Tory London Evening Post to her brother, indicating
her Hanoverian leanings. Likewise, the novel’s cast
of characters features a secret Jacobite sympathizer
in Partridge, an avowed anti-Jacobite in the Man of
the Hill, as well as a company of soldiers on their
way to fight the rebels in the north, all of which
combine to provide a panoramic vision of mid-18th-
century politics.
Tom himself has been viewed in parallel terms
with Charles Edward. Although in book 7, Tom,
as “a hearty Well-wisher to the glorious Cause of
Liberty, and of the Protestant Religion,” decides
to join the company of soldiers marching to meet
the rebels, he shares with “Bonnie Prince Charlie” a
reckless, romantic nature. Both are disinherited (as
we later discover about Tom) and both are exiled,
Charles Edward to France and Rome, Tom from
Allworthy’s estate. While Charles Edward never
regains the throne, Tom finds himself restored as the
heir to Squire Allworthy in the end. Whether or not
this is some sort of wish fulfillment is unclear, but
to simplify Fielding in conservative terms is unfair.
Similarly, in book 11, the innkeeper mistakes
Sophia Western for Jenny Cameron, a fictionalized
version of the real Jean Cameron, who reportedly
raised and led 300 men in support of the Young
Pretender. While there is no record of any type of
intimate relationship between Jean Cameron and
Prince Charles, Whig pamphleteers depicted her
as his mistress and often pictured her armed and in
highland attire. The romantic connection to Charles
Edward ironically informs Mrs. Honour’s defense
of Sophia:
Would you imagine that this impudent vil-
lain, the master of this house, hath had the
impudence to tell me, nay, to stand it out
to my face, that your ladyship is that nasty,
stinking wh—re ( Jenny Cameron they call
her), that runs about the country with the
Pretender? Nay, the lying, saucy villain had
the assurance to tell me, that your ladyship
had owned yourself to be so; but I haveclawed the rascal; I have left the marks of my
nails in his impudent face. My lady! says I,
you saucy scoundrel; my lady is meat for no
pretenders. [. . .] My lady to be called a nasty
Scotch wh—re by such a varlet!—To be sure
I wish I had knocked his brains out with the
punch-bowl.More concerned with her true identity being dis-
covered as she has escaped from home, but finally
understanding the landlord’s behavior, Sophia do
aught but smile at the accusation, which earns yet
another reproof from Mrs. Honour. Sophia’s reac-
tion to the appellation, especially in contrast to that
of the histrionic Mrs. Honour, is intriguing in terms
of questions of nationalism. While she does not
expressly follow her father’s political inclinations,
she is also not a secret Jacobite, like Partridge. Even
more than the parallel between Tom and Charles
Edward, conflating Jenny and Sophia conflates
nation and home, and the political tensions in the
air are partially allayed as Sophia, fearing her father
has discovered her, is relieved that it is only “several
hundred thousand” French supporters of Charles
Edward come to murder and ravish, as feared by the
innkeeper. By poking fun at the exaggerated fears,
Fielding contributes to the political discourse of the
day focused on nationalist questions.
Eric LeuschnerFiTzgEraLD, F. SCoTT The Great
Gatsby (1925)
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece of American lit-
erature, The Great Gatsby, holds a prominent place
in both the secondary and the college classroom.
While offering a portrait of the Roaring Twenties
in America, Fitzgerald gives readers a story of love
and intrigue and demonstrates the possibility of
social class movement within the United States. Jay
Gatsby, the story’s central character, exemplifies the
economic rise of a poor midwesterner to the heights
of financial success. His life’s goal is to recapture the
love interest from his youth, Daisy Fay, a Kentucky
native and former debutante, who is wealthy in her
own right—and now married to Tom Buchanan.
The novel concerns itself with the struggles of rein-