The Rethinking

Victorian Age ofof Masculinity

English in the
Literature

Abstract

This research is a discussion of rethinking of masculinity in the Victorian literature. The research
is an attempt to prove that masculinity in Victorian literature is portrayed depending on the
author’s insight and as a response to certain circumstances a writer lives in. Female writers
build or manufacture their male characters the way they wish a man to be, so it is noticed that
the theme of most of the novels written by female writers is mainly and affection. On the other
hand Victorian male writers try to defend their masculinity by using themes that are beyond
romance and so it looks to be some kind of compensation for those writers. The Victorian era is
a long period of time extending for over 60 years, and so many important changes have taken
place in Britain during that age. During the second half of the 19 th century, Britain has great
prosperity through all life aspects. The human relationships have also witnessed some partial
share in this revolution, which is portrayed in the literary production of that time. Masculinity is
one of the concepts that received some development to cope with the industrial progress the
country has, but since masculinity is a part of the social morals of British society, its
development is somehow slow. Women in Victorian literature are encouraged to learn and
study, but of course they have no chance to start any career outside their houses. They are also
portrayed as being so delicate and weak once they deal with the harshness of the outside male-
dominated society, so a woman needs the male’s assistance and protection.

Keywords: Victorian, masculinity, industrial revolution, gender.

Table of Contents

Title Page……………………………………………………..1
Abstract……………………………………………………….1
Introduction…………………………………………………...3
Key terms and theories………………………………………..4
Literature Review………………………………….………….6
Methodology…………………………………………..……...8
Research Questions……………………………………….…..8
References…..…………………………………………..….....9
 • Introduction

This research paper will be a contribution to the topic of masculinity in literature

through the Victorian era. The study will discuss the rethinking of masculinity in some of the
Victorian novels and poems. The main approach of this research is to check that Victorian
writers build masculinity through the characters of their novels as a response to the social
restrictions each gender faces. The novels written by the Bronte sisters (“Jane Ayer” and
“Villette” for Charlotte Bronte, “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” for Anne Bronte and Emily Bronte’s
“Wuthering Heights”), “Tess of the D'Urbervilles” by Thomas Hardy and “Coventry Patmore’s
Angel in the House” are some examples of the Victorian age literary works. A part of the sample
novels presented here are written by female novelists whose theme during the Victorian era is
mainly romance, and all the female writers build the masculinity in their characters somehow
the same way. To some extent, many of the female writers in the Victorian age resort to use the
persona or the female figures in their fiction as a possible way to assert the ideology of gender
difference and distinction between male and female that was prevalent at that time. Moreover,
the sense of alienation and internal exile that most the female writers experienced at that time
paved the way for them to assert their identity throughout their writings. The incomparable
style of the female writers was considered as a weapon that contributes to free, emancipate
and liberate them from being profoundly confined by the ‘forged manacles’ of a male-
dominated society that prohibits them from having any form of power or strength. As such, by
using the creative and imaginative language they could reveal the power of their imagination
that concomitantly transcends and exceeds all forms of power that can be found in all
patriarchal and male-dominated society.

Victorian society measures the concept of masculinity by muscles and body strength so
delicate jobs like writing are stereotyped to be some kind of feminine. Victorian male writers
suffer from this social underestimation. As a response to such stereotyping, male writers to
create male characters holding certain masculine characteristics through themes such as
bravery and sacrifice.

Toxic masculinity is another type of masculinity that is also present in novels like Emily
Bronte’s Wuthering Heights as she builds the character of Heathcliff who is extremely strong
and has so much toxic masculinity in his attitudes. He is loved by Cathy who also holds some of
the masculine characteristics, i.e. female masculinity, despite her being as a female of the
Victorian age.

Through the Victorian era, many significant changes in the concept of gender
relationship has taken place. This may occur due to many reasons like the long period of time
the Victorian era has extended which witnessed the birth of more than one generation. The
beginnings of the Victorian era were still influenced by the Romantic era whether in literature or
in real life. The start of the industrial revolution has its own effect on social values and gender
relationships. The main changes in gender relationships are the start of understanding each
other’s feelings and that exceeds the only erotic and sexual relationships. In Anne Bronte’s The
Tenant of wildfell Hall a shifting in understanding each other’s problems and the support that
Gilbert Markham offers to Helen Graham, and the continual sympathy he continues to provide
for her even after he reads her diaries, and get the knowledge that she has abandoned her
husband fleeing with her child which is a strongly prohibited action in Victorian society. The
relationship between Gilbert and Helen is not for romance and sexuality; it represents the ideal
masculinity characteristics of the character of Gilbert Anne Bronte has created.

The Victorian age is the period of time that came between two important eras: The
Romantic and the Edwardian. In terms of the masculinity topic, each age has its own special
characteristics. In Victorian age literature, as well as through real life of that era, the roles of
both men and women are portrayed to be so clear and divided with no exceptions. Masculinity
and femininity are also presented to their extremes through the works of Victorian writers. In
spite of the fact that the Victorian era literary works are all named Victorian, critics divide the
era into two parts: early and late. This paper aims at presenting masculinity and the changes in
belief and action in the Victorian age literary works. In Coventry Patmore’s “Angel in the House”,
the heroine of the poem is an ideal wife who holds the perfect feminine characteristics from the
point of view of the male hero. Wives are considered to be “ideal” as long as they manage their
roles perfectly. A woman is expected to be so obedient to her husband, constricted to her
house, raise and teach her children, a beam of morality, and the one who helps her husband to
go to the heaven (anonymous, 2020).

• Key Terms and Theories

• Female Masculinity is a concept of a female having some or all masculinity

characteristics like bravery and strength. English literature has many examples of
female masculinity such as Catherine in Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights”.
• Masculinity, as defined by Oxford dictionary, is “qualities or attributes regarded
as characteristic of men” like being “handsome, driven and muscled“. (Stevenson
& Brown, 2005). There are many types of masculinity like domestic masculinity,
female masculinity and toxic masculinity. (Horlacher, 2012). According to
(Connell, 2018) the first attempt to define a scientific meaning of masculinity
through the male role dates back to the 19th century.

• Patriarchy is defined as a noun in The Oxford Dictionary with two meanings:

• a system of society or government in which the father or eldest male is head

of the family and descent is reckoned through the male line.

• a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women
are largely excluded from it.

The second meaning is the one related to the topic of masculinity, but the
first definition clears how the expression “patriarchy” has been applied to the
concept of the male identity. (Stevenson & Brown, 2005)

• Queen Victoria (24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901); was the queen of Great Britain
and Ireland from 1837 till her death in 1901. Queen Victoria’s era witnessed
prosperity in various life aspects including sciences and literature. She was
considered as the mother for most of the people of that era. GB started an
industrial revolution through Queen Victoria’s reign and London has become the
center of the world after Paris.

• Romance is a theme that signifies the literary work of Victorian female writers. It
is centered around deep emotional love and suffering. According to Oxford
Dictionary, romance is “a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with
love.” The word’s origin is “Middle English (originally denoting the vernacular
language of France as opposed to Latin): from Old French romanz, based on
 Latin Romanicus ‘Roman’. (Stevenson & Brown, 2005)

• The Bronte sisters are the three famous writers who lived through the Victorian
era. They were born in the village of Thornton, Yorkshire, England. Their only
brother Barnwell (1819- 1848) was a small clerk and no reputation. The three
sisters are Emily Bronte (1818- 1840), Charlotte Bronte (1816- 1855) and Anne
Bronte (1820- 1849).

• Toxic masculinity is the type of masculinity when the man uses extreme strength
and physical abilities without any rational considerations. Toxic masculinity is a
characteristic that marks uncivilized behavior, and is not acceptable in more
modernized communities where rational thinking and polite behavior control any
problematic issues. Toxic masculinity may be harmful not only for the victims, but
also for the person who holds it.

• Victorian literature is literature written during the period of Queen Victoria’s

reign (1837- 1901). It has significant characteristics the make it unique. Although
the novel is the dominant type of literature at that time, other types of literature
like poetry, prose, and plays are also present. Many famous novelists, who signify
that era, like Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, and later on Thomas Hardy, are
still famous for their masterpieces which have great influence beyond GB. Many
female novelists at that age like the Bronte sisters and George Eliot also marked
the era with their creative novels.

• Literature review

This chapter summarizes some of the previous studies and theories that present the topic
of masculinity in Victorian literature. The relationship between the topics presented by these
studies and the approach of this research paper is discussed after the summary of each
resource.
• In her article, Masculinity, Power and Play in the Work of the Brontes in The Victorian
Novel and Masculinity (2015), Sara Lodge argues how the sense of alienation from the
real world of male-domination and gender differences to the Brontes’ sisters contributed
to form a strong sense of using male figures in their fictional works by contending that:
“Maleness is the condition of power and of action in the world. As all the children want
to have power, they choose male names through which to exercise their imagination.”
(7) According to Lodge’s view, it can be affirmed that the Brontes’ sisters deeply resort to
employ the male-figures in their works as a way of confirming the power of their identity
and ability to write in a creative way that knows no boundaries and limits.

• (Adams, 1995) in his book “Dandies and Desert Saints: Styles of Victorian Masculinity”
clarifies that there has been a gap between the imaginary world of masculinity in
literature and real-life manliness identity. Adams justifies this opinion by the claim that
the masculine heroes of most Victorian literary works are only a presentation of a small
group of characters like prophets, saints, soldiers and dandies. For him, these models are
just few ideal examples of men in the real-life Victorian British community. So Adams
underestimates the role of masculinity in Victorian literature in making any considerable
social changes to the concept of ideal masculinity. Masculinity in fiction is presented in
characters made up by real male and female writers, so this research continues what
Adams has stated in “Dandies and Desert Saints”

• (Frantz & Rennhak, 2011) in their book, ”Women constructing men: Female novelists
and their male characters, 1750-2000” focus on the way women novelists write about
men in an implicit way through their character creation, while at the same time they
create their own imaginative masculinity they prefer it to be. The book also contains
articles that help to fill a gap in the understanding of the how female writers create their
own male characters which are occurred because of the incomplete concourse in the
female and masculinity studies, so narrowing this gap may consequently serve the better
understanding of the inner feelings and actions of male characters created by female
writers may eventually lead to the understanding of the writers’ inner feelings and
emotions. According to (Frantz & Rennhak, 2011) Charlotte Smith wrote in the preface
of “Desmond” that she is interested so much in the depiction of a character that is
capable of a passion that seeks only its objectives. In her novels, Smith draws male
characters that may serve ideal heterosocial and heterosexual partners. This research
continues what is stated in the book and adding more by comparing the way female
 writers create masculine characters in their novels to those created by male writers.

• (Kimmel & Aronson, 2004) in Men and masculinities: A social, cultural, and historical
encyclopedia. Wrote about how Charles Dickens presented masculinity through his
novels by bringing the way a child is raised and the building of masculinity among a
society that is rapidly growing and has distinctive class identification and inequality. A
child raised as an orphan may not have the same chance to build ideal masculinity
norms under the lack of parental control. Dickens also presents models of children
raised in the middle class Victorian who gain a descent education. This research build
more information on the same topic and also presents the way female writers build
masculine characters.

• In his book, “Gender at work in Victorian culture: Literature, art, and masculinity”,
(Danahay, 2016) discussed the topic of labor under the Victorian ideologies which
consider manly work as being sweaty, muscled and mainly outdoor while considering
the careers that require intellectual efforts only to be some sort of feminine careers
especially when being practiced in their homes like the job of the writer. Writers like
Charles Dickens and Tennyson suffered a lot from the struggle of their masculine image
in a society holding such consideration and their work as writers especially when a
writer is poor and has no job except the writing career. This research contributes more
to the topic of the impact of gender of the on the way such writers work.

• Nemesvari R. (2002) in a “The Thing must be Male, we suppose’: Erotic Triangles and
Masculine Identity in Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Melville’s Billy Budd” presents that
the conflict the two heroes have is the same in both novels and it concentrates on how
to balance between love and erotic desire towards a woman and holding their masculine
identity. The writer considers that desire for a woman threatens the man’s masculinity,
and so the problem is solved by the death of the female hero. The reader may find this
death as losing an important part of the story while the heroes find it relaxing because
this death helps to neutralize the threat on to their masculinity. Nemesvari’s
presentation of the two heroes in two novels supports the approach of this research
about the importance of the writer’s identity in creating masculine heroes.
• (Greenblatt, 2018) in The Norton Anthology of English literature talks about the great
efforts the Victorian writers and social critics have put to improve the social life of
people, and their attempts to make changes that cope with the rapid advancement of
the industry and economy of Britain. This has its reflection in their writings which
present many social problems like the situation of orphans and their work at an early
age under hard circumstances and cruel employers. The social equality between genders
is also another request that writers and philosophers demand and ask for through their
literary writings. Greenblatt’s ideas about the social obstacles that face Victorian writers
meet the approach of this research paper.

• (Gouws, 2000) in a dissertation named "Typical Victorian men: Representations of men

and masculinity in George Eliot's novels" argues that the presentation of male characters
in George Eliot’s novels is dependent on one of two resources: They are either historical;
from her family and friends or creation of her mind. Masculinity in both types of
characters is presented to be either negative and oppressive or neglected. Gouws
discussed how George Eliot portrays British masculinity qualities in a negative way that
is, compared with the normal qualities of masculinity, far away from the real masculine
identity. This book suggests that Eliot, as a Victorian female writer, has a unique writing
style that sets her aside from other Victorian female novelists. Eliot is one of the
example writers used to support the approach of this research paper.

• Methodology

In order to get a clear opinion on the topic of rethinking of masculinity, this

study is prepared using the qualitative method of research. Data used to be
collected from many resources like books, articles and online websites.
Thorough reading of numerous novels and other literary works of the
Victorian age writers to check for the building of masculinity in their
characters. The research adopts the descriptive approach.
 • Research Questions.

This research paper is expected to answer the questions below:

• What are the main characteristics of masculinity presented in Victorian literature?

• How does the gender of the Victorian writer affect the presentation of masculinity in
their works? How do female writers create their male characters?

• How is toxic masculinity presented in Victorian literature?

• Does the presentation of masculinity in Victorian fiction represent the masculinity

qualities of a British gentleman in Victorian era’s real life? How is that?

• How is patriarchy maintained through sexual recognition in Victorian literature?

• References

ADAMS, J. E. (1995). Dandies and Desert Saints. Cornell University Press.

Anonymous. (n.d.). Angel in The House by Coventry Patmore, Summary and Analysis.
Retrieved August 24, 2020, from http://victorian-era.org/angel-house-coventry-patmore.html.

Connell, R. (2018). Masculinities. Vancouver, B.C.: Langara College.

Danahay, M. A. (2016). Gender at work in Victorian culture: Literature, art and

masculinity. London: Routledge.

Frantz, S. S., & Rennhak, K. (2011). Women constructing men: Female novelists and their
male characters, 1750-2000. Lanham: Lexington Books.

George Eliot. (2020, August 21). Retrieved August 24, 2020, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eliot

Gouws, Dennis Sean, "Typical Victorian men: Representations of men and masculinity in
George Eliot's novels" (2000). Doctoral Dissertations. AAI9984069.
https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/AAI9984069

Greenblatt, S. (2018). The Norton anthology of English literature (Eighth ed., Vol. 1).
London: W.W. Norton and Company.

Horlacher, S. (2012). Constructions of masculinity in British literature from the Middle

Ages to the present. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kimmel, M. S., & Aronson, A. (2004). Men and masculinities: A social, cultural, and
historical encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

Nemesvari R. (2002) ‘The Thing must be Male, we suppose’: Erotic Triangles and
Masculine Identity in Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Melville’s Billy Budd. In: Mallett P. (eds)
Thomas Hardy: Texts and Contexts. Palgrave Macmillan, London.
https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403919335_6

Phillip Mallett (ed) The Victorian Novel and Masculinity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
(2015).

Stevenson, A., & Brown, L. (2005). New Oxford dictionary for writers and editors:
Adapted from the Oxford dictionary for writers and editors, second edition, edited and compiled
by R.M. Ritter. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Morgan, Thaïs E. “Reimagining Masculinity in Victorian Criticism: Swinburne and Pater.”

Victorian Studies, vol. 36, no. 3, 1993, pp. 315–332. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3828326.
Accessed 10 Sept. 2020.
 Tosh, John. “Masculinities in an Industrializing Society: Britain, 1800–1914.” Journal of
British Studies, vol. 44, no. 2, 2005, pp. 330–342. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/427129.
Accessed 10 Sept. 2020.