1. What is the theme you understand in chapters one and two ?

In Chapter Two, Fielding introduces the theme of class and birth, as well as “Mr. Joseph Andrews, the Hero of our ensuing History.” Joey, as Fielding and his characters call the hero at this stage of the narrative, is the son of the low-born Mr. and Mrs. Andrews and the brother of Pamela Andrews, the fictive heroine of Samuel Richardson’s famous novel. Fielding confesses that, despite his best genealogical efforts, he has been unable to discover the ancestry of the Andrews family. Jokingly, he asks the reader to contemplate the possibility that the Andrews family has no ancestors at all, though of course they must be descended from someone. Fielding is satirizing the social convention whereby only families of high standing are considered to be “families” in the proper and exalted sense; accordingly, a person who lacks ancestors of note is said, in this snobbish idiom, to lack ancestors altogether. From his comment on the arbitrary nature of social distinctions, Fielding goes on to argue for the suitability of Joey as a hero: “Would it not be hard, that a Man who hath no Ancestors should therefore be render’d incapable of acquiring Honour, when we see so many who have no Virtues, enjoying the Honour of their Forefathers?”