Ideological interaction in Tobias Smollett's The expedition of Humphry Clinker

Michael McKeon's The Origins of the English Novel 1600- 1740 is a useful critical text for interpreting Tobias Smollett's novel, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771). Using Origins as a reference, one recognizes the various ideological interactions in Clinker, most particularly those between various forms of progressive and conservative thinking. Some of the interaction is portrayed through the attitudes of the characters: the moderately conservative squire Matthew Bramble, for example, often disagrees with the views expressed by Humphry Clinker, his more progressive or more democratically inclined servant. Characters with conservative views, such as the squire, must learn to live with and accept all types of progressive ideology. Smollett also uses the structural elements of his novel to communicate his ideas about ideological interaction: the epistolary form, travel literature, language, and even individual scenes help to define the contrasts and comparisons between progressive and conservative ideologies. The interaction is also evident in certain literary movements of the eighteenth century, most notably between sensibility, which Smollett presents as a moderately conservative trait, and sentimentality, which is defined as more progressive, since it affects all ranks. Every part of Smollett's novel thus features some sort of commentary upon the relationship between progressive and conservative ideologies.