トム・ジョウンズにおける捨て子の処遇 : フィールディングはロンドン捨て子養育院をどう見たか

論文(Article)18世紀のイギリス、親に遺棄される子どもの数が激増する世相のなか、ロンドン捨て子養育院は設立された。当時、小説家業と並行してジャーナリストおよび法律家としても活動をしていたヘンリー・フィールディングは捨て子あるいは捨て子養育院をどのようにみていたのだろうか。彼のジャーナリストとしての言説を踏まえて彼の代表作である小説『捨て子トム・ジョウンズの物語』の筋立て、特にこの小説のご都合主義的にみえる大団円の結末の意味について検証する。小説の最後になって主人公トムの捨て子性が解消される展開の背後には、非嫡出子の増加を食い止め、捨て子が存在しない社会をつくることをめざす治安判事フィールディングの意思が働き、現実には容易に実現しない捨て子問題解消を、フィクショナルな大団円のなかに落とし込んでいるとみることが可能なのではないだろうか。The establishment of the London Foundling Hospital in 1739 reflects a rapid increase in the number of abandoned children in eighteenth-century Britain. It is worth noting that many novels written in this age had foundlings or illegitimate children as characters. How did Henry Fielding, as the author of the novel, The History of Tom Jones a Foundling, as well as a journalist and later a magistrate, see child abandonment and the London Foundling Hospital? Seeing various criminal cases as a magistrate, Fielding came to consider poverty to be the root of most evils in society. He strongly felt the necessity of helping the poor to become financially independent and useful to society, and although he recognized the importance of protecting abandoned children, his first concern was rather to correct the life of poor adults in order to prevent them from abandoning their children in the first place. Fielding’s desire to prevent children from being abandoned may be reflected in Tom Jones. At the end of the novel, it suddenly turns out that Tom is not from obscure origins but is a nephew of Allworthy, the present head of Paradise Hall. With the facts of his parentage rewritten, Tom Jones is qualified to be the authorized successor of Paradise Hall