Among Fielding's many artful contrivances as a maker of comedies, perhaps none is more surprising than his way of embroiling his characters in situations evoking most terrible, indeed most fundamental, theme of tragedy-the theme of incest. This curious device, which for a moment so incongruously disturbs the cheerful tenor of his plots, is most notable, of course, in those two brilliant works which together established the genre of the English novel, Joseph Andrews (1742) and Tom Jones (1749). On the eve of their marriage, the pedlar discloses (or so it appears) Joseph and Fanny are brother and sister-a revelation no less frustrating to these ardent lovers than disconcerting to the reader, and which causes Parson Adams to fall to his knees in an ecstasy of gratitude that this Discovery had been made before the dreadful Sin of Incest was committed . (IV.xii).1 Throughout this crisis in the narrative Fielding's playful irony emphasizes the artificiality of the situation he has invented, not only mitigating its disquieting implications, but actually transmuting potential pathos into high frivolity. As with Gay presenting the violent, squalid streets of London in Trivia, his style has the virtue to control confusion, reassuring us the artist, not life, is in command. Even so, as we await with Joseph and Fanny confirmation of the pedlar's story, we may wonder why an element of Sophoclean fear has been injected, however mockingly, into this light-hearted tale: They felt perhaps little less Anxiety in this interval than OEdipus himself whilst his was revealing (IV.xv; 336). In Tom Jones (XVIII.ii) this same discordant element-what R. S. Crane has called the comic analogue of fear2-irrupts more violently still into the narrative, and Fielding, by temporarily subduing reassuring irony of his and allowing the scene to unfold dramatically, forces us to face the awful probability his hero has indeed suffered the Fate of Oedipus: 'O good Heavens!' cries Jones, horrified at what has been revealed, 'Incest-with a Mother! To what am I reserved?' 3