The Vicar of Wakefield is neither a sensational novel directed toward the reform of mankind nor does it mark an advance in fictional techniques. Rather, it is conventional both in form and substance. Despite this literary orthodoxy, the novel has remained popular with critics and the reading public for two centuries. Previous plot studies of The Vicar have concentrated principally on Goldsmithss failure to utilize adequately the cause-effect relationship. With few exceptions, all scholars who have studied this plot find coincidence and accidental meeting the novel's greatest weakness. Most character analyses of the narrative have centered on the chief character. While one critic attributes "typical human naturalness" to the Vicar, another finds him "an impossible mixture of folly and wisdom" and "an inadequate cog in a poorly designed machine.." In thematic studies of The Vicar, critics have attempted with little success to define the major theme. Those themes which have received most extensive treatment are the contrast of appearance and reality, the innate goodness of man, the limitations of contemporary literature, the corruption in government, and the ideal nature of rural life. A few stylistic studies of the novel have concentrated their praise on Goldsmith's spontaneity, some, contradictorily, on his careful diction, and others on his success in handling both humor and pathos.

This thesis examines representations of trust in selected British sentimental novels of the eighteenth century. It focuses principally on the manner in which sentimental prose fiction reflects and participates in the shift from premodern to modern formations of trust. Commenting on the nature of modern trust, Anthony Giddens claims that, with the move to modernity, trust relations in the intimate sphere become increasingly dependent on emotional mutuality, while trust in institutions becomes increasingly impersonal and disengaged from assessments of moral character. / My work explores this dual shift in three sentimental novels. It first analyzes Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740) and contends that Richardson denies the concept of honor its epistemological role in practical deliberations. The denial of the epistemology of honor uncouples the mechanism of personal trust from assessments of role and role performance and thus makes the trust in persons in the intimate sphere less dependent on institutional forms of trust. To replace honor's role in the formation of trust, Richardson proposes that the sentiments can provide reliable grounds for trust in the intimate sphere. However, he denies the sentiments a role in the formation of an encompassing social trust among strangers and mere acquaintances. The thesis proceeds to read Henry Fielding's Amelia (1751). In order to argue that Fielding envisioned divergent grounds for trust relations, it maintains that Fielding considers trust relations in the intimate sphere and trust relations in public life as based on the sentiments and fair distribution respectively. To conclude, the thesis investigates Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) to uncover the manner in which Goldsmith distinguishes personal trust in the intimate sphere from general system trust, which Goldsmith ultimately envisions as an ontological trust in providence.

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