The Picaresque novel is a genre of prose fiction that depicts the adventures of a roguish but "appealing hero", usually of low social class, who lives by his wits in a corrupt society. It is a genre that doesn’t use a continuous plot line, but instead strings together various adventures or episodes from the life of its protagonist to satirize or illuminate something about the surrounding culture. What this often means is that the protagonist doesn’t evolve or progress along an arc, the way we now expect novel characters to do. Rather, the character stumbles from scene to scene unchanged, mostly as a way for the author to display, satirize, and mock the ins and outs of different kinds of social circles, power structures, or cultural morals or ethics.
The Adventures of Roderick Random was Tobias Smollett’s first novel which was published in 1748. It is loosely based on Smollett’s experiences in the British Navy in 1741 and thus, it is often termed a semi-autobiographical work.
Characters of Roderick Random:
Roderick Random is the titular character of the novel who is the son of a Scottish gentleman and a low-class woman. He is the narrator of the story and he is nicknamed as Rory. His father abandons him at an early age. Hugh Strap is a friend of Rory. He is a common innocent man, an apprentice of a barber. Hugh and Roderick used to study at the same school during their childhood. During his visit to France, Hugh Strap adopts a new name "Monsieur d'Estrapes." Narcissa is a gentlewoman belonging to a rich noble family. She falls in love with Roderick but her squire brother opposes their relationship. Tom Bowling is a cousin of Roderick’s dead mother and maternal uncle of Roderick. He is a sailor who tries to support and help Roderick from time to time. Captain Oakum is the captain of the ship Thunder that Roderick joins as a surgeon’s mate. Oakum hates Roderick and abuses him.
Summary of Roderick Random:
The story is narrated by Roderick himself. His father was a Scottish gentleman who fell in love with a poor low-class girl from England and married her. His father’s high-class family is ashamed of the son’s marriage to a woman from low society and subsequently shuns Roderick’s parents. His father dutifully helps his wife and soon she gives birth to their son Roderick Random. However, his mother dies soon after giving birth to him leaving his father overwhelmed by grief. Lost and with no family left to financially support him, Roderick’s father flees and abandons his only son.
Roderick is an orphan now as his paternal grandfather refuses to take the child into his custody. Yet, his paternal grandfather offers him the minimal amount of support necessary. The grandfather secures Roderick a free education at a local school in Scotland in an attempt to uphold the family’s nobility.
Roderick is a brilliant student at school who excels in all subjects but is badly treated by his teachers, tutors, and schoolmasters who abuse him because his mother belonged to the lower class. Instead of helping him, his tutor tries to discourage him in his studies yet, Roderick learns Latin, French, Greek, and Italian. He becomes popular among his peers yet his school masters continue to abuse him as a whipping boy and a punishment model, even when he’s done nothing wrong. He grows a close friendship with Hugh Strap. His tutor hates him and doesn’t stop until he gets Roderick expelled from the school. Soon he learns about the death of his grandfather and he is left to take care of himself.
Even in such a dire situation, he gets support from his maternal uncle Tom Bowling but since Thomas Bowling is a sailor in the Navy, he is unable to remain present with Roderick. He ensures that Roderick’s education continues and arranges for his admission to a university. After some years, Tom Bowling gets expelled from the Navy and then he fails to help Roderick monetarily.
Roderick has grown up quite smart by this time and uses his wit, intelligence, and charm to survive. Soon he begins a series of international journeys to experience different types of people and their lifestyles from all social classes. He visits Bath, France, West Africa, and the West Indies. Being poor with no support, he continues to suffer malice and discrimination. On his return, he reaches London but doesn’t like the city as he finds it incredibly dirty and ridden with crime. Yet, he gets a job as an apprentice to a surgeon and soon he impresses his surgeon master so much that the surgeon recommends his name to be his assistant in the Navy.
Roderick continues to meet different people from the high class. He begins working for a chemist who introduces him to Miss Williams who seems to be impressive and rich. Roderick falls for her and tries to woo her but soon learns that she is a prostitute seeking a more comfortable life. This discourages Roderick as he is seeking a wealthy woman who will finally afford him security. Despite all his wits and charm, Roderick is still naive and whatever little money he earns as the apprentice of the surgeon and the chemist, is robbed away by swindlers and sharpers.
Now when he again is penniless, he gets abducted by the sea pirates owning the ship Thunder. When they learn that Roderick is a recommended surgeon apprentice, they force him to join the crew. He joins a ship Thunder on their journey to Jamaica as a surgeon’s mate, but the trip is terrible as they encounter bad weather. Furthermore, the commanding officer Captain Oakum despises him. One day, Captain Oakum overhears Roderick and another surgeon’s mate criticizing him and gets enraged. The Captain punishes Roderick brutally and tries to hang him. When other crew members interrupt, he says that he believes Roderick is a spy as he has notes written in Greek in his notebook. The other crew members somehow manage to cool down the Captain’s temper and Roderick survives. Somehow the ship Thunder reaches an island where Roderick leaves the ship. Soon he finds another Lizard vessel on the return journey to England. On the ship Lizard, Roderick meets Hugh Strap again who is returning from his visit to France. Roderick gets relief after seeing a friend after so many days. Furthermore, the captain of the ship Lizard too likes Roderick. Hugh informs him that he made good money in France and he even changed his name to Monsieur d’Estrapes. The captain of the ship is old and he dies during the journey and then Lieutenant Crampley takes control of the ship. He, too, hates Roderick, and once the ship arrives in England, the crew beats and robs him. An old lady was watching all this from a distance and when the crew goes away leaving Roderick in the dirt, she visits him and helps him. She informs him that her name is Mrs. Sagely. Roderick asks her to help him in getting a job and she introduces him to a rich family looking for a helping man, Roderick meets Narcissa, the young girl belonging to that rich family and soon falls in love with her. He woos Narcissa with his wit and charm and she too starts liking him. However, her elder brother, who is a squire is opposed to her relationship with Roderick who is a poor low-class man.
Suddenly, Roderick learns the whereabouts of his estranged father who went to Argentina after abandoning him and made a huge fortune. His father meets him gleefully but they fail to warm up their relationship because of the ill memories of the past. Yet, Roderick gets a good amount of money from his father as an inheritance which enables him to have a secure, comfortable life. With the help of his newly acquired wealth, he manages to marry Narcissa without her brother’s consent.
Analysis of Roderick Random:
Smollett portrayed a vicious cycle of hypocrisy, greed, deceit, and snobbery in this novel which was common in England during that period. He used this novel to expose the brutality, incompetence, and injustice of the Royal Navy of England at the Battle of Cartagena in 1741 when he was a part of the Navy. In addition, he raised issues of privateering, slavery, prostitution, the dowry system, the inhumanity of debtor’s prisons, homosexuality, and corruption in political and art circles and in the area of medicine.
Tobias Smollett is often considered the pioneer of Picaresque novels whose style impressed and influenced later novelists including Dickens, Melville, and Thackeray.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
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