Abstract

Women during the 18th century carried specific roles in the society , their sole purpose in
life was to find a husband , get married and become a mother . Henry Fielding in his writings
discussed the topic of the status of women at that time mainly in his masterpiece “ Tom
Jones” in which he tried to change the society’s view on women’s rights . The central aim of
this research work is to shed light on the representation of women in Henry Fielding’s novel
“Tom Jones” . Through the use of the feminist literary criticism method , the researcher
wanted to portray the status of women during the period in which Henry Fielding lived .
Moreover , this piece of research examined the struggles that women faced and the ways they
used to survive and overcome the obstacles they encountered in their lives . To this vein , how
could Henry Fielding portray women’s place in the society even if he was a male author . The
researcher found that Fielding’s ability to represent female characters better than male ones
was because of the influence that his real life experiences had on his writings . Therefore , in
this research paper the researcher focused on the status of women and the social inequality
they received in contrast to men .