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Detoxing Masculinity
in Anglophone Literature
and Culture
In Search of Good Men
Edited by
Sara Martín · M. Isabel Santaulària
Detoxing Masculinity in Anglophone
Literature and Culture
“A most timely contribution to Masculinity Studies. While most existing studies

focus on notions of toxic masculinity, this collection adopts a truly refreshing
approach to the subject by not only questioning hegemonic masculinity, but also
by offering new and distinct possibilities of being a man in contemporary society.
Drawing on cultural and literary representations, the book provides specific exam-
ples that show that “detoxing” masculinity in contemporary society is both possi-
ble and desirable, offering much-needed inspiration for change. A must-read for
anyone interested in changing masculinities and thus gender relations.”
—Josep M. Armengol, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Spain
“Is masculinity still in crisis? In this colourful, erudite anthology many of the most
eminent masculinity scholars use their richly diverse literary knowledge to answer
this question. Their goal is to find ways of finally ridding society of continuing
expressions of toxic masculinities by surveying the differing ways in which it is
instead possible for people to embrace forms of masculinity that are compatible
with building caring relations, whether with oneself or with others. A necessary
tonic for our times.”
—Lynne Segal, University of London, UK
Sara Martín • M. Isabel Santaulària
Editors
Detoxing Masculinity
in Anglophone
Literature and Culture
In Search of Good Men
Editors
Sara Martín M. Isabel Santaulària
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Universitat de Lleida
Barcelona, Spain Lleida, Spain
ISBN 978-3-031-22143-9 ISBN 978-3-031-22144-6 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22144-6
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2023
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To all the good people fighting to detox masculinity
and against patriarchy all over the world,
and in celebration of friendship.
Acknowledgments
We, the editors, are totally indebted to the authors, who graciously
accepted our invitation to contribute to the volume trusting that we fully
knew what we were doing. This is a book born of friendship, not only
because we, the editors, have been close friends for decades but also
because all the contributors have been approached primarily as friends to
engage in a common pursuit. We hope to make indeed new friends as the
call to detox masculinity and find (and celebrate) good men, in fiction and
in real life, spreads. We extend our thanks to our editors at Palgrave, Molly
Beck and Marika Lysandrou, for having welcomed our proposal and hav-
ing aided us in shaping it into the final text. Isabel would like to thank her
colleagues at the Departament d’Anglès i de Lingüística, Universitat de
Lleida Agnès Guardiola, Emma Domínguez, Enric Llurda, and Glòria
Vázquez for their constant support. Sara thanks once more the Departament
de Filologia Anglesa i de Germanística, Universitat Autònoma de
Barcelona, for allowing her to maximize her time for research and writing.
We also thank each other for being there at all times, offering totally indis-
pensable professional and personal support. Finally, Isabel thanks Toni and
Sara thanks Gonzalo for proving every day that life with a good man is as
fulfilling as life can be.
vii
Contents
1 Introduction:
Beyond Toxic Patriarchal Masculinity 1
Sara Martín and M. Isabel Santaulària
Part I Literature 19
2 The
Visible-Invisible Good Man in Jane Austen’s The
Watsons 21
David Owen
3 Ishmael’s
Detoxing Process: Escaping Domestic
Homogeneity in Moby-Dick 39
Rodrigo Andrés
4 From
Brutal to Spiritual Men in T.S. Eliot’s Poetry and
Drama: Sweeney and Beyond 55
Dídac Llorens-Cubedo
5 Hybrid
Masculinities in D.H. Lawrence’s “The Blind
Man” and Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” 75
Gerardo Rodríguez-Salas
ix
x Contents
Part II Transnational Fictions 93
6 Of
Tender Hearts and Good Men: Reading Australian
Masculinity in Tim Winton’s Fiction 95
Sarah Zapata
7 “A
Good Man is Hard to Find”: The Making of Michael
‘Digger’ Digson111
Bill Phillips
8 Black
Masculinities in the Age of #BLM: Zadie Smith’s
On Beauty127
Pilar Cuder-Domínguez
Part III Fantasy 145
9 “Some
Wizards Just Like to Boast that Theirs Are Bigger
and Better”: Harry Potter and the Rejection of
Patriarchal Power147
Auba Llompart
10 A
Lover Boy with Battle Scars: Romance, War Fiction,
and the Construction of Peeta Mellark as a Good Man in
The Hunger Games Trilogy163
Noemí Novell
11 Masculinity
and Heroism in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld:
The Case of Good Captain Carrot179
Isabel Clúa
Part IV Science Fiction 195
12 Skywalker:
Bad Fathers and Good Sons197
Brian Baker
Contents xi
13 Changing
the Script of “Human Is”: Re-visioning the
Good (Hu)Man in Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams215
Paul Mitchell
14 Between
Therapy and Revolution: Mr. Robot’s
Ambivalence Toward Hacker Masculinity231
Miguel Sebastián-Martín
Part V Close to Life 249
15 A
Few Good Old Men: Revising Ageing Masculinities in
Last Tango in Halifax251
Maricel Oró-Piqueras and Katsura Sako
16 Let
the Little Children Come to Me: Fred Rogers, the
Good Man as TV Educator267
Sara Martín
17 The
Part of the Iceberg That Doesn’t Show: Romance,
Good Husbands, and Mr Julia Child283
M. Isabel Santaulària
Index299
Notes on Contributors
Rodrigo Andrés teaches American literature at the Universitat de

Barcelona and is co-principal investigator (PI) of the research team “(Un)
Housing: Dwellings, Materiality, and the Self in American Literature”
funded by the Spanish government. He has authored Herman Melville.
Poder y amor entre hombres (Universitat de València 2007), articles in
Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies and Miranda. Revue pluridisci-
plinaire du monde anglophone, and chapters in American Houses: Literary
Spaces of Resistance and Desire (2022), Differences in Common: Gender,
Vulnerability and Community (2014), A Critical Gaze from the Old World
(2018) and The Oxford Handbook of Herman Melville (forthcoming).
Brian Baker is Senior Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at
Lancaster University. Dr. Baker has worked on science fiction, masculini-
ties and post-war British and American fiction, having had monographs
published, including Contemporary Masculinities in Fiction, Film and TV
(2015) and also The Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism in Science Fiction
(Palgrave, 2014). He is engaged in a writing project that considers the
relation between sound reproduction technologies, subjectivity and men-
tal health in contemporary culture. He completed an MA in Art Practice
in 2021 and is pursuing creative and critical projects concerning text and
image, of which Argo-0 and An Invention will be published in 2022.
Isabel Clúa is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Spanish and
Spanish American Literature, Universidad de Sevilla, Spain. Her research
focuses on the analysis of the mechanisms through which gender and
identity are constructed in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century
xiii
xiv NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Spanish culture, and on contemporary popular fictions from a Cultural

Studies perspective, especially examining genres such as science fiction,
fantasy and Gothic literature. She is the editor of the volumes Género y
cultura popular (2008) and Máxima audiencia. Cultura popular y género
(2011), and has recently had two monographs published: Cuerpos de
escándalo. Celebridad femenina en el fin-de-siècle (2016) and A lomos de
dragones. Introducción al estudio de la fantasía (2017).
Pilar Cuder-Domínguez is a Professor in the Department of English
at the Universidad de Huelva, Spain. Her research interests are the
intersections of gender, genre, nation, and race. Her latest publica-
tions are the article “The Legacy of Angélique in Late 20th-Century
Black Canadian Drama” (Journal of Postcolonial Writing 2021) and
the edited collection Cultural Representations of Gender Vulnerability
and Resistance, with M.I. Romero Ruiz (Palgrave, 2022). She is a
team member of the international project “Thanatic Ethics: The
Circulation of Bodies in Migratory Spaces” (http://www.cpch.hk/
thanatic-ethics-the-circulation-of-bodies-in-migratory-spaces/).
Auba Llompart has a PhD in English Literature (Universitat Autònoma
de Barcelona, 2014). She teaches English language and culture at the
Department of Translation, Interpreting and Applied Languages at the
Universitat de Vic–Universitat Central de Catalunya, where she is also a
member of the research group “Gender Studies: Translation, Literature,
History and Communication.” Her research interests focus on children’s
and YA (young adults) fiction, fairy tales, Gothic studies and gender stud-
ies. She has had several articles and book chapters published on these areas
and co-edited the collection of essays Contemporary Fairy-Tale Magic:
Subverting Gender and Genre (2020).
Dídac Llorens-Cubedo teaches English and American literature at the
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Spain. He
authored T.S. Eliot and Salvador Espriu: Converging Poetic Imaginations
(2013) and co-edited New Literatures of Old: Dialogues of Tradition and
Innovation in Anglophone Literatures (2008). His research focuses on
modernism, (neo)Victorianism, and comparative literature across lan-
guages and the arts. He coordinates the research project “T.S. Eliot’s
Drama from Spain: Translation, Critical Study, Performance” and pub-
lishes the academic blog T.S. Eliot and Drama.
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xv
Sara Martín is Senior Lecturer in English Literature and Cultural Studies

at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain. She specialises in gen-
der studies, particularly masculinities studies, which she applies to the
study of popular fictions in English, with an emphasis on science fiction.
Her most recent books are Masculinity and Patriarchal Villainy in British
Fiction: From Hitler to Voldemort (2020) and Representations of Masculinity
in Literature and Film: Focus on Men (2020). She co-edited with Fernando
Ángel Moreno a monographic issue on Spanish science fiction for Science
Fiction Studies (2017). Dr. Martín has been publishing the blog The Joys of
Teaching Literature since 2011.
Paul Mitchell is a Professor in the Department of English, Universidad
Católica de Valencia San Vicente Mártir, Spain. He is the author of Sylvia
Plath: The Poetry of Negativity (2011), as well as other articles on the work
of this poet. More recently, Dr. Mitchell has focused his research on con-
temporary film and television series. He has had several articles published
on new adaptations of Frankenstein, as well as on the Australian film The
Babadook. His research projects explore science fiction, Gothic, and post-
humanism, particularly in relation to representations of otherness, mon-
strosity, masculinity, and disability.
Noemí Novell holds a degree in English Literature from the Universidad
Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and a PhD in Literary Theory
and Comparative Literature from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
She is a full Professor at the Department of Modern Languages and
Literatures of the School of Philosophy and Letters (UNAM). Dr. Novell
is the coordinator of the Seminar on Critical Studies of Popular Culture at
the same school and is Mexico’s representative for the Science Fiction
Research Association (SFRA). She has had articles published in Mexico
and Spain and has collaborated with or coordinated projects in those
countries.
Maricel Oró-Piqueras is an Associate Professor at the Department of
English and Linguistics at the Universitat de Lleida, Spain. Her research
interests include ageing and old age in contemporary fiction as well as
representations of gender and ageing in film and TV series. She is co-
editor of Serializing Age: Ageing and Old Age in TV Series (with Anita
Wohlmann, 2016), Re-Discovering Age(ing): Narratives of Mentorship
(with Núria Casado-Gual and Emma Domínguez-Rué, 2019), and Age
and Ageing in Contemporary Speculative and Science Fiction (with Sarah
xvi NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Falcus, forthcoming). She has also had her research published in journals
such as the Journal of Aging Studies and The Gerontologist.
David Owen is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the Universitat
Autònoma de Barcelona. His publications include Rethinking Jane
Austen’s ‘Lady Susan’, critical editions of Hannah More’s The Search After
Happiness: A Pastoral and Anna Maria Porter’s Walsh Colville, or, A Young
Man’s First Entrance into Life, and the co-edited collection Home and
Away: The Place of The Child Writer. His research also concerns war writ-
ing; he has co-edited Writings of Persuasion and Dissonance in the Great
War and The Spectre of Defeat: Experience, Memory and Post-Memory. Dr.
Owen is editor of the Journal of Juvenilia Studies and is vice-chair of the
International Society of Literary Juvenilia.
Bill Phillips is Senior Lecturer in English Literature and Culture at the
Universitat de Barcelona, with a speciality in poetry. He has had his work
published widely on poetry, ecocriticism, postcolonial studies, gender
studies and popular fiction, including crime fiction and science fiction.
Between 2013 and 2017 he was head of “POCRIF (Postcolonial Crime
Fiction: a global window into social realities),” a Spanish government–
financed research project on postcolonial crime fiction. His most recent
publications have included articles on the American TV series True
Detective, Rudyard Kipling’s war fiction and (as editor and contributor) a
collection of essays titled Family Relationships in Contemporary Crime
Fiction.
Gerardo Rodríguez-Salas is Associate Professor in English Literature at
the Universidad de Granada, Spain. He holds an MA in Women’s and
Gender Studies from Oxford University. His research interests are the
intersections of gender, nation, and race in the literature of New Zealand
and Australia. He is the author of three books on Katherine Mansfield and
has co-edited the volumes Community in Twentieth-Century Fiction
(Palgrave, 2013) and New Perspectives on the Modernist Subject (2018).
His most recent articles have appeared in the Journal of Language,
Literature and Culture, Australian Literary Studies, Antipodes, and the
Journal of New Zealand and Pacific Studies.
Katsura Sako is Professor of English at Keio University, Japan. She is
interested in the intersection of literary studies and ageing studies. She is
the co-author and co-editor, with Sarah Falcus, of Contemporary
Narratives of Dementia: Ethics, Ageing, Politics (2019) and Contemporary
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xvii
Narratives of Ageing, Illness, Care (2021). She has had her work published
in journals such as Feminist Review, Women: A Cultural Review and
Contemporary Women’s Writing.
M. Isabel Santaulària is Senior Lecturer at the Department of English
and Linguistics, Universitat de Lleida, Spain. Her research interests include
popular narratives, cultural studies and gender studies. She has had a vol-
ume published on serial killer fiction, El monstruo humano. Una introduc-
ción a la ficción de los asesinos en serie (2009), and numerous articles in
national and international journals such as Lectora, Atlantis, the Journal of
Gender Studies, Clues: A Journal of Detection, Victoriographies and the
European Journal of English Studies.
Miguel Sebastián-Martín is a researcher and teacher in the English
Department at the Universidad de Salamanca, Spain, with a pre-doctoral
contract funded by Junta de Castilla y León. During 2021–2022, he was
the beneficiary of a visiting scholarship at the University of Oxford, UK,
and in 2018 he graduated with a Film and Screen Studies MPhil from the
University of Cambridge, UK. His PhD project examines contemporary
science fiction television from a perspective that tries to combine narratol-
ogy, audio-visual aesthetics, and critical theory. His research has been pub-
lished in Science Fiction Studies, Utopian Studies, and Science Fiction Film
and Television.
Sarah Zapata holds a PhD in English Literature and teaches courses on
English and postcolonial literature at La Trobe University, Australia. Her
research interests include contemporary Australian and postcolonial litera-
ture, gender studies, trauma theory and ethics. She has had articles and
book chapters published on contemporary Australian Literature, mascu-
linity and identity representations in literature, film and cultural studies,
and the intersection of trauma and masculine selfhood as depicted in liter-
ary texts.
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Beyond Toxic Patriarchal

Masculinity
Sara Martín and M. Isabel Santaulària
Why Masculinity Needs to Be Detoxed

(and Good Men Found)
Writing from different theoretical stances, the scholars active in
Masculinities Studies and Critical Studies of Men and Masculinities
(CSMM) have effectively dismantled the assumption that masculinity is
fixed, natural, and universal. In the effort to read masculinity “as a highly
diverse and fragmented text, not as a fixed essence chained to biology, but
rather the outcome of socio-historical and cultural struggle and change”
S. Martín (*)
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
e-mail: Sara.Martin@uab.cat
M. I. Santaulària
Universitat de Lleida, Lleida, Spain
e-mail: isantaularia@dal.udl.cat
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2023
S. Martín, M. I. Santaulària (eds.), Detoxing Masculinity in
Anglophone Literature and Culture,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22144-6_1
2 S. MARTÍN AND M. I. SANTAULÀRIA
(Beynon 2010: 55), masculinity has been “successfully ‘problematized’”

(Beynon: 143). Masculinity is now perceived as an unstable and contin-
gent category which constantly needs to respond to challenges, accom-
modate changes, and negotiate or abdicate notions associated with
hegemonic models which had been regarded so far as essential. While this
process is, by and large, positive since it opens up space for the develop-
ment of different masculinities that do not adhere to the patriarchal, white,
cisgender, heterosexual traditional paradigm, it has also had the effect of
generating the perception that masculinity is constantly in crisis and is,
therefore, seen as a problem that demands a reaction instead of as a gen-
dered practice naturally subjected to a necessary transformation, including
disempowerment. In turn, despite the multifarious responses to this
alleged crisis (or crises), coming both from personal experiences and from
discursive practices, in the representational arts they have been mostly
articulated through the elusive (in real life) 1990s New Man and the ubiq-
uitous (also in real life) unreconstructed ‘old man’, the embodiment of an
enduring nostalgia for stoical, hard traditional men leading now toward
dangerous fascist, undemocratic avenues in diverse countries, from the
USA to Brazil, passing through Russia.
Our concern and governing principle in this book is related to the little
visibility given to other, more nuanced, positive representations of mascu-
linity, which are lost in a sea of unrealistic media idealizations of the so-
called New Man and of angry white men stubbornly holding the wagons
as different oppositional forces circle around them, threatening to undo
their power. We are much concerned with how little space there is for
accommodating new, freer models of masculinity unless the patriarchal
edifice that sustains hegemonic masculinity and engenders toxic behaviors
is effectively demolished. It is, indeed, the aim of this volume to radically
undermine that edifice by presenting goodness as a most potent tool to
detox masculinity and thus help men head toward a future in which patri-
archal masculinity will have ceased to exist, perhaps even masculinity itself.
Most importantly, it seems to us that not enough has been done to
distinguish patriarchy (the social organization which privileges men, but
also other individuals, according to their degree of power) from masculin-
ity (the gender construction connected with persons that identify as men)
and to counteract the negative effects of the former by offering positive
models of masculinity. We propose here, therefore, to start detoxing
patriarchy-dominated masculinity by offering a collection of studies of
positive representations of men in fictional and non-fictional texts
1 INTRODUCTION: BEYOND TOXIC PATRIARCHAL MASCULINITY 3
originally in English. This will hopefully allow other researchers in Gender

Studies to continue similar anti-patriarchal work and to find other positive
representations that might renew the images of masculinities for a future
in which patriarchal masculinity will hopefully be abandoned for a new
egalitarian model that eschews the obsession with power. If masculinity
and patriarchy are differentiated then the way is open for younger men to
get rid of toxic models and rebuild their sense of masculinity, even eventu-
ally abandoning binary models or gender altogether. The focus falls here
on cisgender masculinity simply because this is where the highest degree
of toxicity is found, and where it is less common to find alternative models
based on goodness, though this does not mean that other forms of mas-
culinity (trans, female, etc.) should not be explored in the collective effort
to dismantle patriarchy.
In Hegemonic Masculinity: Formulation, Reformulation, and
Amplification (2018), James Messerschmidt, Raewyn Connell’s disciple
and collaborator, acknowledges the importance of feminist thinkers in the
1970s in identifying male power and privilege as being at the root of all
forms of gender inequality. However, he also points at how the feminist
attacks against sex-role theory and its deployment of the discourse of sci-
ence to justify sex difference resulted in a confusing theorization of patri-
archy, which got excessively “entangled with biological arguments” (2).
This was finally discarded in the 1980s. Connell, like feminist theorists
before her, also defined patriarchy as a system of gender domination that
“guarantees (or is taken to guarantee) the dominant position of men and
the subordination of women” (2005: 77). However, in her groundbreak-
ing volume Gender and Power (1987), she laid the foundation for a study
of patriarchy that differed from the postulations made by early feminist
theorists, who saw the patriarchal institution as guarded by a unified male
front, a homogeneous and unchanging coalition of the willing, so to
speak. In line with feminist and pro-feminist critiques in the late 1970s
such as Sheila Rowbotham’s (1979) or Paul Atkinson’s (1979) which sug-
gested that “the concept of ‘patriarchy’ was too monolithic, ahistorical,
biologically overdetermined, and dismissive of women’s resistance and
agency” (Collinson and Hearn 2001: 147), Connell argued that patriar-
chy is “historically mutable” (1987: 63). Consequently, as the conditions
for its maintenance change in response to new challenges, “the kind of
masculinity which [can have access to power] also change[s] in response”
(2005: 192). Since gender is a cultural construct distinct from biological
sex, it follows that masculinity is a social category which is historically
contingent and continually shifting and, therefore, that there is not just
one way of being a man so that we must speak of “multiple (…) masculini-
ties” (1987: 63). These masculinities exist in different positions in the
gender order, which is still organized around what Collinson and Hearn
term “men’s structured domination” (2001: 153).
Against the notion of an immovable patriarchy, Connell developed the
controversial concept of hegemonic masculinity, a construction that does
not make reference to a fixed masculine type but to a “culturally idealized
form of masculine character” (1990: 83), afforded greater privilege in
given social and historical conditions. Deriving from Antonio Gramsci’s
analysis of how dominant classes sustain leading positions by negotiating
consent with subordinated others, Connell contends that hegemonic mas-
culinity also relies on constant negotiation with subordinated groups
(women, but also other men) for survival. In her view, this is the way
hegemonic masculinity accommodates change since it “folds in elements
of competing subaltern masculinities” (DeDauw and Connell 2020: 4).
While this principle suggests that hegemonic masculinity is legitimated
because it is flexible and adaptable, it also means that it is still a practice
that secures men in power. Furthermore, even though hegemonic mascu-
linity enfolds characteristics of subordinated groups, it is mostly “straight,
able-bodied, white, and ‘hard’” (2020: 4). Therefore, hegemonic mascu-
linity is not so different from what has been called traditional masculinity
and it ultimately guarantees the maintenance of patriarchy. Connell’s defi-
nition of the term clearly evinces this condition when she writes that hege-
monic masculinity is “the configuration of gender practice which embodies
the currently accepted answer to the problem of the legitimacy of patriar-
chy, which guarantees (or is taken to guarantee) the dominant position of
men and the subordination of women” (2005: 77).
Even though Connell’s theorization has been extremely influential
within the fields of Masculinity Studies and CSMM in order to explain
how patriarchy perpetuates itself, there are problems in her formulation of
how hegemonic masculinity incorporates change. By ascribing to hege-
monic masculinity the capacity to be fluid and shift by absorbing elements
of subordinated groups, she “deradicalizes the potential of resistance
inherent to subaltern masculinities” (DeDauw and Connell 2020: 4). In
her theorizations, therefore, oppositional groups seem to exist to modify
the contours of hegemonic masculinity and move gender boundaries but
have limited capacity to exact structural change. Furthermore, Connell
does not contemplate the material practices of violence associated with
misogyny and homophobia which accompany the progress of patriarchy,

painting a too generous picture of the processes that ensure its renewal. As
Robert Hanke has observed,
Apparent modifications of hegemonic masculinity may represent some shift

in the cultural meanings of masculinity without an accompanying shift in
dominant social structural arrangements, thereby recuperating patriarchal
ideology by making it more adaptable to contemporary social conditions
and more able to accommodate counter-hegemonic forces, such as liberal-
feminist ideology and gay/lesbian politics. (1992: 197)
In spite of these shortcomings, Connell’s theoretical production is still

fundamental to understand the persistence and durability of patriarchy
and of the ideologies that reify gender hierarchies and reinforce men’s
dominant status in spite of the crises that arise from distinct changes in
hegemonic masculinity. In fact, these crises are mostly conjured up every
time hegemonic masculinity is called into question because of changing
social conditions that lead to the appearance of new versions of masculin-
ity, so that men feel entrenched and threatened, fearing their debunking
from their privileged positions. Consequently, the concept of masculinity
in crisis is activated as a knee-jerk reaction to prevent change and to go
back to traditional forms of masculinity, which means it is fundamentally
“a set of discourses that work to discipline performances of masculinity
and often to reinforce traditional patriarchal versions of masculinity”
(Albrecht 2015: 9). The combination of enfolding palatable progressive
elements and resistance to unpalatable change means that hegemonic mas-
culinity continually regenerates itself, only to perpetuate its old archetypes
and gender roles. While some feminists, like Lynne Segal (1990, 2007),
are hopeful that the incorporation of progressive elements will facilitate
(slow) change into more progressive, anti-patriarchal, and egalitarian
forms of masculinity, others, such as Abigail Solomon-Godeau, are more
skeptical since all ostensible concessions from hegemonic masculinity are
just strategies that allow patriarchy “like the phoenix—an appropriately
phallic simile—[to] continually [rise] again, retooled and reconstructed
for its next historical turn” (1997: 39).
Demetrakis Z. Demetriou provides an illustrative example of the imper-
viousness to change of hegemonic masculinity in spite of the incorpora-
tion of features from apparently subordinated masculinities since the late
twentieth century. Instead of opening up hegemonic masculinities to new,
non-toxic forms of masculinity, society produces hybrid masculinities that

carry considerable baggage from a problematic past, but which offer the
possibility that future performances of masculinity may be different by
assimilating elements from groups which have historically existed outside
hegemonic masculinity. This “constant appropriation of diverse elements
from various masculinities (…) makes the hegemonic bloc dynamic and
flexible” (2001: 348). One of these assimilated elements is the pleasure in
consumption usurped from the diverse homosexual masculinities. Even
though Demetriou celebrates how homosexual masculinities impact the
dominant group, the hybridization he describes helps patriarchal mascu-
linity (the current hegemonic and dominant model) to appear more pro-
gressive while having no effect on the hegemonic order. The acceptance of
elements from subordinate groups, all in all, is not conductive to change:
it simply enhances patriarchy’s capacity for survival.
Other scholars have, therefore, examined from which positions effec-
tive change may emerge, considering not only the sociology of masculinity
but its textual representation. In this sense, an indispensable volume is
Brian Baker’s Masculinity in Fiction and Film: Representing Men in
Popular Genres 1945–2000 (2008). Baker, a participant in the volume pre-
sented here, noted in his monograph that “[w]here masculinity was once
a monolithic and unexplored subject in relation to gender studies”, it has
become in the early twenty-first century “a lens to focus a discussion of
what Raymond Williams called the ‘structures of feeling’ of the second
half of the twentieth century” (2008: xii). Peter Ferry’s Masculinity in
Contemporary New York Fiction (2014), Maggie McKinley’s Masculinity
and the Paradox of Violence in American Fiction, 1950–75 (2015), and
Harriet Stilley’s From the Delivered to the Dispatched: Masculinity in
Modern American Fiction, 1969–1977 (2018) follow a similar line, consid-
ering how the representation of masculinity in US fiction can be taken as
an index of the social and cultural history of the nation. Editor Sara
Martín’s book, Representations of Masculinity in Literature and Film:
Focus on Men (2020a), also follows this trend but from a multidisciplinary
angle, extending from Shakespeare to current science fiction.
Two other key volumes—also focused on literary representation—com-
bine this exploration with a reflection on which strategies should be fol-
lowed for actual change in gender relations. Alternative Masculinities for
a Changing World, edited by Àngels Carabí and Josep Maria Armengol
(2014), seeks to find non-hegemonic models of literary representation
that can offer positive role models for change, arguing that “literary works
(as creative works) become privileged spaces and sources to imagine alter-
native ways for men to experience their manhood and their gender rela-
tions” (5). Masculinities and Literary Studies: Intersections and New
Directions, edited by Armengol et al. (2017), expands the work done in
the previous volume to consider the latest advances in this field and to
propose new lines of research on the grounds that literary texts “shed new
light on some of the most pressing questions within current masculinity
scholarship, revealing the deeper connections between social and literary
models of men and masculinities” (3).
It seems to us, however, that the notion of alternative masculinity needs
to be reconsidered in view of the social upheaval caused by the #MeToo
campaign, started in October 2017, and the constant references since then
to toxic masculinity in the media, academia, and general public conversa-
tion. The non-hegemonic, alternative male characters of literature appear
to be too atypical to become effective role models, and although high-
lighting them is a valuable endeavor, the very word ‘alternative’ is too
open and too much in need of further definition. It seems, then, particu-
larly urgent to focus specifically on how to counteract the harmful patriar-
chal behavior that sustains toxic masculinity. In that sense it is interesting
to note the change in direction in the most recent work by American
sociologist Michael Kimmel, one of the key figures in Masculinities
Studies. Whereas his 2013 volume Angry White Men was written in a con-
frontational style aimed at undermining patriarchal privilege, his later vol-
ume Healing from Hate: How Young Men Get Into—and Out of—Violent
Extremism (2018) appeals to a very different spirit, seeking to detoxify
American masculinity as a necessary step to attack patriarchy’s foundations.
The volume we present goes, therefore, one step beyond the notion of
alternative masculinity, proposing to rethink Masculinity Studies (or
CSMM) from an angle that breaks away from the perception of a perpet-
ual crisis of masculinity and that highlights how the notions of hegemonic
masculinity and toxic masculinity have been too fixed on the exploration
of dominance and subservience, and too little on the men (and the male
characters in fiction) who behave following other ethical personal and
socially accepted patterns. The origin of our volume is, actually, a scholarly
and personal fatigue with the many negative representations of masculinity
and with the scarcity of positive representations that might bolster the
anti-patriarchal struggle, despite the evidence that many men are oppos-
ing patriarchy and understanding their own masculinity in non-toxic ways.
This may seem paradoxical since editor Sara Martín is the author of
Masculinity and Patriarchal Villainy in the British Novel: From Hitler to

Voldemort (2020b), though, precisely, this volume originates in her wish
to disconnect masculinity from patriarchy, which, it should be stressed, is
a form of social organization based on promoting a power-based hierar-
chy, and not as it is often believed masculinity itself. The label ‘toxic mas-
culinity’ has the unfortunate effect of suggesting that masculinity itself is
toxic, when in actual fact what is toxic is, we insist, patriarchy. Without this
distinction it is our impression that many men may wrongly assume that
all men are automatically inclined to behave in toxic ways. We think, there-
fore, that a way out of this dead end is highlighting the opposite value,
namely, goodness. We firmly believe that although the question of what
defines a good man is practically impossible to answer, it must be asked to
start detoxing the study of the diverse masculinities and of masculin-
ity itself.
How This Books Works

Following strategies similar to what editors Carabí and Armengol followed
in Alternative Masculinities for a Changing World, we, the editors,
approached the authors by invitation, knowing about their previous work
on gender, to suggest that they find examples of positive masculinities in
their own area of research and that they explain, each in their style, how
masculinity can be detoxed and where good men can be found. Those
examples, we told the authors, could come from any field in Anglophone
cultural production, including literature, film, TV, non-fiction, and from
any geographical area and historical period, provided the men analyzed
were found in representation. By this we mean that we did not exclude
real-life figures on condition that they appeared in textual representation
(biographies, documentaries, etc.).
It was never our intention to have the authors fill in a pre-designed
table of contents that could cover in representative ways certain periods,
geographical areas, or genres but to build the proposed volume on the
basis of what the concepts ‘detoxing masculinity’ and ‘good man’ sug-
gested to our guest authors. We believe that this openness and the rich
discussion it has elicited give extra value to the volume, since it gathers
together research that covers from the nineteenth to the twenty-first cen-
tury, from the canonical English novel to current US TV series, passing
through the American classics, Modernist drama, transnational literature,
fantasy, and science fiction. This wide-ranging, multidisciplinary scope is a
central part of our aim to explore how masculinity can be detoxed and to
search for good men whenever and wherever they can be found. We would
like to stress that, despite the openness of our call, the resulting proposal
is, in our view, well balanced. The first four chapters in Part I deal with
literary fictions; this is followed by three chapters on transnational fictions
in Part II; Part III contains other three chapters on fantasy followed by
Part IV with three more chapters on science fiction; finally Part V, which
is a bit more miscellaneous, covers aging and real-life men. A single vol-
ume cannot obviously cover all of Anglophone culture and we hope that
the fields that do not appear represented here (though none have been
specifically excluded) can be the object of further research.
Part I—‘Literature’—opens with Chap. 2, by David Owen, ‘The
Visible-Invisible “Good Man” in Jane Austen’s The Watsons’. Good and
bad men in Austen’s novels, Owen argues, are often read in pro- and anti-
Jacobin terms. The Jacobins are duplicitous, whereas the anti-Jacobins
turn out to be trustworthy, deserving of the heroines’ affections. In the
novels, similar distinctions hold for masculine behavior that is either detri-
mental to, or broadly supportive of, women’s emotional and social cir-
cumstances. In The Watsons the men are mostly churlish. However, there
is a shadowy character who offers distinct ways of understanding gender
relations, seeming to promise more egalitarian prospects: this is the visible-
invisible good man. Owen considers, therefore, how the novella distin-
guishes between the boorish men who probably peopled Austen’s real
world and the ‘good’ man she presents to her readership as a model
for change.
In Chap. 3, ‘Ishmael’s Detoxing Process: Escaping Domestic
Homogeneity in Moby-Dick’, Rodrigo Andrés explains that in Moby-Dick
Herman Melville responded critically to how his fellow white Americans
of the mid-nineteenth century were elaborating theories of and plans for
community living based on the politics of apartheid instead of accepting
life as living-with in exposure to difference. At the beginning of the novel,
its narrator, Ishmael, escapes that homogeneity and moves from toxic
aggressiveness to joy and kindness as a result of his exposure to, and con-
tact with, the very diverse components of a pluralistic community in the
form of two heterogeneous living spaces: the Spouter-Inn in New Bedford,
Massachusetts, and the whaling ship the Pequod. Melville thus suggests
that the domestic spaces that enable expansive encounters with diversity
are what men need to combat diminished moral imaginations.
Dídac Llorens-Cubedo focuses in Chap. 4, ‘From Brutal to Spiritual

Men in T.S. Eliot’s Poetry and Drama: Sweeney and Beyond’, on
T.S. Eliot’s character Sweeney, who appears in the 1920 collection Poems,
the long poem The Waste Land, and the play Sweeney Agonistes. The con-
troversial Sweeney embodies two opposed aspects of masculinity: a brutal,
threatening side associated with gender violence but also a spiritual, mysti-
cal side. Because of this polar duality, Sweeney sums up most of Eliot’s
male characters, including those in his early poems (Bleistein, the “young
man carbuncular”) and in his later plays (Harry in The Family Reunion or
Colby in The Confidential Clerk). The study of these characters reveals a
gradual detoxing of Sweeney’s masculinity, consisting of the attenuation
of his brutality and the growth of his spirituality, which conditions later
male characters in accordance with Eliot’s choice of illumination and
purgation.
Chapter 5, ‘Hybrid Masculinities in D.H. Lawrence’s “The Blind Man”
and Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral”’, by Gerardo Rodríguez-Salas, offers
a comparative analysis within the field of hybrid masculinities of the stories
by Lawrence and Carver in order to explore the toxicity of some masculine
models expressed through patriarchal entitlement to power and with the
aim to retrieve ‘good’ models beyond the stigma and suspicion recently
associated to hybridization. Rodríguez-Salas explores a space for redemp-
tion within inclusive masculinities and contends that the hybrid or inclu-
sive masculinity epitomized by Robert in Carver’s “Cathedral”—in clear
contrast with his counterpart’s orthodox masculinity in Lawrence’s
story—is in tune with Bob Pease’s proposal that pro-feminist men, aware
of their privilege and socially legitimized oppressive behaviors and their
potential in the struggle to transform gender relations, should change
dominant masculinities in cultures with diminishing homohysteria.
Part II—‘Transnational Fictions’—begins with Chap. 6, Sarah Zapata’s
‘Of Tender Hearts and Good Men: Reading Australian Masculinity in Tim
Winton’s Fiction’. As she notes, the subject of masculinity and the explo-
ration of the process of becoming and of being a man, a father, and a son
are at the heart of critically acclaimed Australian writer Tim Winton’s oeu-
vre. Her chapter probes into the representation of male figures in selected
works by Winton through the lens of contemporary discourses on mascu-
linity, identity configuration, and ethics criticism. Drawing on Winton’s
early works The Riders and The Turning and two of his most recent novels
Breath and Eyrie, this study seeks to investigate the ways in which Winton’s
works undo standard normative views of manhood through a poetics of

masculinity that inscribes sensitivity, tenderness, and vulnerability.
Chapter 7, ‘“A Good Man is Hard to Find”: The Making of Michael
“Digger” Digson’ by Bill Phillips, examines the fiction by Jacob Ross, an
award-winning author and fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, born
in the Caribbean island of Grenada. His first crime novel, The Bone Readers,
won the inaugural Jhalak Prize in 2017 and this was followed by the sequel
Black Rain Falling in 2020. Phillips analyzes the novels’ protagonist,
Grenadian police Detective Michael “Digger” Digson, as he struggles to
clean up a society in which violence, political corruption, and police bru-
tality are endemic. Against a historical backdrop of colonial oppression and
slavery, both the island’s poverty and pleasures are portrayed, but it is the
damage toxic masculinity does to social relations in general, and family life
in particular, which is central to the novels, with limited hope for change.
The tone of Chap. 8, Pilar Cuder-Domínguez’s ‘Black Masculinities in
the Age of #BLM: Zadie Smith’s On Beauty’, is, in contrast, more hope-
ful. She examines the representation of diverse black masculinities in Zadie
Smith’s third novel, On Beauty (2005), attending to how they are segre-
gated and policed but also how their borders can be often crossed. The
fluidity of those identities is proved through the analysis of the psychologi-
cal struggle of a mixed-race young man, Levi Belsey, who has to choose
the detoxed masculinity that will allow him to feel at home within his own
skin and to become a ‘good’ black man in his own terms. Underpinning
her analysis is the notion that, in the age of #BlackLivesMatter, black
youth struggle under pernicious conditions and that a non-toxic masculin-
ity is one that cultivates a broad ethics of social responsibility.
Whereas Part I and Part II deal with realistic fiction (and secondarily
drama), Part III and Part IV deal with fantasy and science fiction, respec-
tively. Part III—‘Fantasy’—includes in the first place Chap. 9 by Auba
Llompart, ‘“Some Wizards Just Like to Boast that Theirs Are Bigger and
Better”: Harry Potter and the Rejection of Patriarchal Power’. Llompart’s
chapter reads J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter as a positive model of masculin-
ity whose main asset is his absolute lack of attraction to patriarchal power.
In order to challenge previous readings contending that the series ulti-
mately promotes hegemonic masculinity, she examines the many ways in
which, throughout the seven novels, Harry Potter systematically threatens
patriarchal masculinities. Although it might be claimed that Rowling is
merely substituting one model of hegemonic masculinity by another one
equally idealized and constricting, Harry’s characterization as a flawed,
ordinary boy evades the imposition of unrealistic expectations. The Harry

Potter series thus celebrates Harry’s anti-patriarchal masculinity, at the
same time that it avoids alienating its readers with an excessively idealized,
archetypal hero.
In Chap. 10, ‘A Lover Boy with Battle Scars: Romance, War Fiction,
and the Construction of Peeta Mellark as a Good Man in The Hunger
Games Trilogy’, Noemí Novell explores the characterization of Peeta
Mellark from the well-known Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins.
Novell proposes that war fiction and romance play a key role in shaping
Peeta’s character traits as a pioneering hero that represents a detoxed form
of masculinity. While the inversion/subversion of Peeta’s conventional
male characteristics has been widely explored, the role of genre in making
possible such a configuration has not been sufficiently analyzed. Taking
this into account, Novell’s chapter explores the way in which genre aids in
the construction of an untraditional hero, alternative to hegemonic mas-
culinity, and suggests that both romance and war fiction are crucial for this
construction.
Chapter 11, ‘Masculinity and Heroism in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld:
The Case of Good Captain Carrot’ by Isabel Clúa, investigates one of the
most intriguing instances of male goodness. Terry Pratchett’s Discworld
series is known for its parody of the clichés of fantasy and its satirical
approach to cultural and political issues. Clúa explores his revisions and
parodies of masculinity in the Ankh-Morpork Guard novels, focusing on
the character of Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson, with whom Pratchett
deconstructs the traditional hero while constructing an appealing alterna-
tive masculinity. Although Carrot is linked to the trope of the return of the
lost heir, he is not a hero who vindicates his identity through a quest that
implies confrontation and violence. On the contrary, Carrot is fully aware
that his decisions have ethical and political implications and, thus, he
decides to serve his fellow citizens as a policeman rather than as a king,
approaching power through service rather than authority, and always dis-
playing a goodness which is both natural and, quite possibly, an elabo-
rated mask.
Part IV—‘Science Fiction’—opens with Brian Baker’s bold proposition
in Chap. 12 ‘Skywalker: Bad Fathers and Good Sons’ that in the Star Wars
saga detoxed, good masculinity is ultimately personified by the heroine
Rey. Luke Skywalker, the embodiment of good masculinity in the universe
which George Lucas invented, cannot but understand the ‘detoxing’ of
masculinity as the detoxing of the Jedi ethos and its institutions. The
central triangular conflict of the original trilogy is between Luke, Darth

Vader, and Obi-wan Kenobi, three Jedi in a patrilinear conflict, but Luke
resolves Jedi masculinity at the end of Return of the Jedi through ‘saving’
his father. In the final trilogy, further issues with Jedi masculinity are prob-
lematically resolved in the figure of Rey, and by revising masculinity away
from action heroics and toward giving. Rey, in becoming Skywalker, is,
thus, the Star Wars films’ final multiply gendered embodiment of the
‘good man’.
Chapter 13, ‘Changing the Script of “Human Is”: Re-visioning the
Good (Hu)Man in Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams’ by Paul Mitchell,
discusses the anthology series, Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams (2017),
which comprises ten inventive adaptations of the renowned author’s short
stories from the 1950s. More specifically, Mitchell argues that, as a televi-
sion production, the episode “Human Is” literally makes visible Dick’s
interrogation of what constitutes the good (hu)man. Scripted by Jessica
Mecklenburg and directed by Francesca Gregorini, their depiction of Silas
Herrick (Bryan Cranston) as a man who undergoes a profound bodily and
psychological crisis remains highly apposite to current conceptions of (de)
toxified masculinity. Using science fiction’s capacity for cognitive estrange-
ment, “Human Is” illustrates how television is an important popular
medium through which to re-vision our understanding of positive mascu-
linities in the third millennium.
Also centered on TV and science fiction, Chap. 14 by Miguel Sebastián-
Martín, ‘Between Therapy and Revolution: Mr. Robot’s Ambivalence
towards Hacker Masculinity’, examines how this television series
(2015–2019), generally regarded as a dark dystopia of digital capitalism,
contains a utopian counternarrative in its representation of masculinity.
Although the series reproduces certain imaginaries of the hacker hero
which cater to masculinist fantasies of control, it counterbalances this by
decidedly emphasizing the hacker’s vulnerability and interdependence.
Thus, Mr. Robot offers an ambivalently dialectical account of hacker mas-
culinity: even though the hacker is still associated to toxic power fantasies,
he is also capable of subversive change, potentially inspiring viewers to
hack capitalism and patriarchy. By narrating a hacker’s personal and politi-
cal struggle, the series can thus be interpreted as a powerful critical dysto-
pia, both critical and hopeful toward contemporary masculinity.
Finally, Part V—‘Close to Life’—deals with good men considered along
the complete trajectory of their lives. In Chap. 15, ‘A Few Good Old
Men: Revising Ageing Masculinities in Last Tango in Halifax’, Maricel
Oró-Piqueras and Katsura Sako consider how this British TV series

(2012–2020) questions ideal aging masculinity, expressed in the fit able
body that signifies physical and sexual functionality and productive citi-
zenship. Focusing on the main male protagonist, Alan Buttershaw, they
analyze the various ways in which the series depicts and narrativizes his
caring personality and the vulnerable aging masculinity that he represents,
through romantic and intergenerational narratives and in relation to other
characters who differently highlight and interrogate hegemonic masculin-
ity. As their analysis demonstrates, Alan is one of the ‘few good old men’,
a form of aging masculinity characterized by caring and an openness to
vulnerability, qualities that were often repressed in youth.
In Chap. 16, ‘Let the Little Children Come to Me: Fred Rogers, the
Good Man as TV Educator’, Sara Martín pays homage to Fred Rogers
(1928–2003), an outstanding American man and TV personality whose
show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood (1968–1975, 1979–2001) became an
iconic feature of US children’s TV. Martín examines how Rogers’s essen-
tial goodness and detoxed masculinity is represented in the biography by
Maxwell King The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers (2018),
the documentary by Morgan Neville Won’t You Be my Neighbor? (2018),
and the fiction film by Marielle Heller A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
(2019). Rogers’s irreproachable, honest dealing with little children shows,
in these times when adult men’s interest in children is always viewed with
suspicion, that extremely positive role models may emerge from encourag-
ing sensitive men like him to approach little children.
Finally, Chap. 17, ‘The Part of the Iceberg That Doesn’t Show:
Romance, Good Husbands, and Mr. Julia Child’ by M. Isabel Santaulària,
looks outside the script of popular romance to find more progressive
approaches to what constitutes an ideal life partner. For this purpose, it
concentrates on the husband of famous cuisine TV popularizer Julia Child,
Paul Child, as he is portrayed in Norah Ephron’s film Julie & Julia (2009)
and in biographical works devoted to his wife. Given Julia’s towering pres-
ence and the immensity of her media persona, Paul was literally the man
behind the woman, an arrangement with which he was seemingly happy.
Underlying this analysis there is an interrogation of romance as a genre
that nurtures women’s fantasies of love and lovers and an attempt to work
toward an understanding of what constitutes a good, anti-patriarchal man
through Paul Child’s supporting and supportive role as a husband.
Although the volume started originally as an invitation to find good
male characters, taken together the chapters indicate that these are scarce
because the process of detoxing masculinity is facing many obstacles. Not

even Jane Austen, as David Owen argues, found it unproblematic to place
a fully good man as a protagonist; even the much admired Darcy is, at
points, churlish. Two hundred years later, this male churlishness is still
widespread in fiction, and unfortunately in real life, and although, as the
chapters show, there is a constant struggle to establish a better balanced
masculinity, the alternatives offered are not always optimistic. In the worst-
case scenario, as Paul Mitchell shows in his analysis of Dick’s adaptation,
only alien possession seems to guarantee that the toxic man can be detoxed.
An additional problem—as the cases of Captain Carrot, Peeta Mellark,
Fred Rogers, and Paul Child show—is that it is next to impossible to
explain what motivates the men who can be called ‘good’ with no hesita-
tion. In that sense, Rowling’s great merit is that she has her hero Harry
Potter explicitly reject power in one of the fundamental acts of anti-
patriarchal resistance in recent fiction, as Auba Llompart explains. If, how-
ever, we conclude with Brian Baker that detoxing masculinity leads to
degendering the hero, as happens with Rey in Star Wars, this opens new
possibilities for which the current gender discourse (or the scholarly field of
Gender Studies) is not yet ready. The fast growth of non-binary identities
among the youngest generations might be a promising solution to current
binary toxic schemes, but before femininity and masculinity are abolished
(if they ever are) it is important to complete the process by which ‘good’
rather than ‘toxic’ should be the adjective always attached to masculinity.
Beyond the tensions that can be observed between the different contri-
butions, as some authors appear to celebrate isolated pockets of male resis-
tance within an unchanging patriarchy while others aim at exposing how
that resistance may thoroughly undermine patriarchal hegemonic mascu-
linity, the editors and the authors share a deep concern about the lack of
an overt agenda by men to demolish patriarchy. The general impression is
that the more privileged type of man (cisgender, heterosexual, white, mid-
dle class) may be now more alert to how patriarchy is damaging the lives
of underprivileged individuals but he is not sufficiently aware of his own
damage, hence the widespread confusion about which values he should
defend and the regrettable embrace of toxicity as a response to the errone-
ous identification of masculinity with patriarchy. Neither the editors nor
the authors believe that the positive examples of masculinity suffice to raise
awareness or to uproot patriarchy, but we defend that the detoxed, good
men we present here are not exceptions to the generalized rule of an
unswerving patriarchy but the wrecking balls that, as we hope, can bring
the whole edifice tumbling down.
References
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Atkinson, Paul. 1979. The Problem with Patriarchy. Achilles Heel 2: 18–22.
Baker, Brian. 2008. Masculinity in Fiction and Film: Representing Men in Popular
Genres 1945–2000. London and New York: Continuum.
Beynon, John. 2010. Masculinities and Culture. Maidenhead, Berkshire: Open
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for a Changing World. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
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———. 1990. An Iron Man: The Body and Some Contradictions of Hegemonic
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———. 2005. Masculinities. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
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———. 2020b. Masculinity and Patriarchal Villainy in the British Novel: From
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PART I
Literature
CHAPTER 2
The Visible-Invisible Good Man in Jane

Austen’s The Watsons
David Owen
“By Indirections Find Directions Out”

In Act 2 Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (c. 1599–1601), Polonius,
Chief Counsellor to the new Danish King, offers a series of recommenda-
tions to his servant Reynaldo in order to investigate the activities of
Laertes, Polonius’s son. Amongst the many pedantic suggestions prof-
fered by the Counsellor, the most renowned is the following: “By indirec-
tions find directions out” (l.65). This might be taken as something of a
general guideline for all textual enquiry, not least when—as with this chap-
ter—such enquiry obliges us to perceive the shapes to the shadows or, to
put it differently, to discern the presence of a particular figure (in this
instance, a good man) when the text under discussion seems to be present-
ing us, by and large, with everything but the boy. And yet, an implicit
D. Owen (*)
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
e-mail: david.owen@uab.cat
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 21

Switzerland AG 2023
S. Martín, M. I. Santaulària (eds.), Detoxing Masculinity in
Anglophone Literature and Culture,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22144-6_2
22 D. OWEN
presence can be just as powerful as an explicit one and may even act—as I
will argue for Austen’s novella—to undermine the disagreeable ideals and
modes of what is raucously present and to point us optimistically towards
better ways.1
The Watsons
Austen is, of course, a far cry from Shakespeare, although toxic masculin-
ity is hardly absent from the works of either writer. My purpose here,
however, is not so much—or not only—to trace and enumerate the many
instances of masculine toxicity in Austen’s novella but, rather, to point to
what I read as an implicit narrative detoxing of questionable behaviour
and attitudes in The Watsons through means of a shadowy better version of
a man, of whom the text’s female protagonist clearly approves. Stated
more broadly, Austen appears to forward an ideal that she presumably
favours and thereby offers as an alternative to other forms of toxic male
behaviour in this novella, which is in turn condemned by the narrative
voice throughout. This is significant, given the importance of this text to
Austen’s writing, in spite of its relative obscurity outside the world of
Austen studies. Although unfinished,2 The Watsons clinches the author’s
move away from her often anarchic and impressionistic juvenilia writing
(in which toxic masculinity actually abounds, but which is handled in an
ironic and uproarious fashion that lacks the necessary gravitas for a more
serious reflection on this); and it directly foreshadows both the themes
and the sedateness of approach that we find in her mature fiction.3 That is,
The Watsons lays down the foundations for, amongst other concerns, the
meditated distaste for certain types of male comportment, and for the
assumptions underlying this (namely, that such comportment is disre-
spectful to women, harmful to society, and crass for everyone concerned,
and that it deserves to be roundly censured), which will form a systematic
part of Austen’s later authorial perspective on such matters.
Jane Austen (1775–1817) began writing The Watsons in 1803 or 1804
and abandoned it probably in 1805, the year her father died.4 It remained
unpublished until 1871, over fifty years after Austen’s death, when her
nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh added the text to the revised edition
of his A Memoir of Jane Austen (originally published in 1869).5 Whilst the
transitional nature of this text is often remarked upon positively,6 since it
represents a clear departure from most of Austen’s often chaotic and
unruly juvenilia writing towards the more elegant style and form of her
2 THE VISIBLE-INVISIBLE GOOD MAN IN JANE AUSTEN’S… 23
later fiction, an equally frequent comment—one dating from at least the

1930s—is that the unrelentingly pessimistic tone of the novella would
appear to reflect Austen’s own intense sadness at the time of writing and
that this assuredly motivated her to abandon the project.7 Teleological
ideas of this sort are frequently applied to Austen’s early and relatively
early work, and The Watsons is clearly no exception. Nevertheless, however
compelling such ideas may seem in this instance, they have the defect of
assuming that the extant text (never intended for publication, never
revised or otherwise prepared for circulation) is essentially what its author
would have presented to a reading public, given the opportunity of full
editorial intervention. As such, it is often treated critically as a final version
rather than the draft work that it most certainly is.8 So the undeniably
downbeat mood of this novella in its surviving form should be viewed cau-
tiously: in the theoretical case of Austen ever having wanted to finish this
work—in itself an assumption of no small magnitude—its eventual plot
development and presiding tone can never be other than matters of specu-
lation.9 This caution should also be carried over into our consideration of
the male characters in The Watsons. In the three significant cases that I will
discuss more fully, there is ample evidence for toxic masculinity seen
through the almost intolerable presumption and arrogance of these men.
But a more fully worked-out and edited version of the text might very well
have smoothed down many of these characters’ rougher edges and left us
with a considerably less hostile outlook. This much needs to be acknowl-
edged from the outset.
The Watsons describes events that occur over an approximately two-
week period in the village of Stanton and “the town of D. in Surrey” (TW
79). It concerns the protagonist, Emma Watson (about 19), who had
been separated from her elder brothers and sisters at a very early age and
brought up by a wealthy aunt—not an uncommon practice for large fami-
lies in eighteenth-century England, with Austen’s own family providing an
example,10 as does the case of Fanny Price in Mansfield Park (1814)—into
a life that was rather more elegant and refined than that of her five siblings.
Emma’s aunt has recently re-married, and, as it is no longer convenient for
the young woman to remain in that household, she returns to her own
family, presided over by Emma’s father, a widowed and now rather bed-
bound clergyman. In far more straightened circumstances than those she
had become accustomed to, Emma is dismayed by the openly competitive
husband-hunting of her sisters Penelope and Margaret, whom she clearly
finds somewhat vulgar, though she also quickly builds a far happier
24 D. OWEN
relationship with her eldest sister, Elizabeth. Through the events of a local
ball and a family visit, the novella pays particular attention not only to the
Watson sisters but also to members of the Osborne family (the neighbour-
hood aristocracy) and most especially to Lord Osborne; to Tom Musgrave,
a dynamic but rather over-bearing young man who is the object of much
female attention; to Emma’s brother Robert, an insufferable and well-to-
do lawyer, along with his snobbish wife, both of whom are on a visit to the
Watson family home; and to Mr Howard, the polite and agreeable vicar in
the Osborne’s parish. Robert and his wife ask Emma to accompany them
back to their house in Croydon (fundamentally to try to find a husband
for her), but—not untellingly—Emma refuses the invitation. The text
ends at this point.
The question that motivates me in this chapter is how exactly does this
novella present a detoxing of the manifold toxicities running through
Austen’s narrative? By what means do we come to understand not only the
protagonist’s entirely understandable aversion to the demarcating patriar-
chal views so insistently imposed upon her, but also—and, I would sug-
gest, more significantly as regards the incipient development of the
author’s narrative consciousness—how do we become aware of the presid-
ing attitude in this work towards such abusive behaviour? To answer these
questions, I will focus on several key instances of toxic conduct, as well as
on Emma’s own reaction to this. More specifically, I will also suggest how
the narrative voice that orchestrates this text consistently undermines
these toxic views, and by doing so seeks to detox the corruptive masculine
attitudes that so thoroughly permeate this brief and unfinished novella. As
an essential part of this detoxing, I argue that the narrative implicitly draws
a contrast between these corrosive attitudes and those shown by a distinct
male figure (albeit one that is rather shadowy in this unfinished tale) who
embodies the constructive and responsible values of a good man, respect-
ful, dignified, and worthy of Emma’s trust and friendship. It may well be
that the text obliges us by indirections to find this man out, but his presence
once perceived is undeniable.
What Is Toxic Masculinity for Jane Austen?

Before continuing, there is a need to remark the particular difficulty of
discussing a somewhat contemporary concern (namely, our current under-
standing of toxic masculinity, however much the topic has been with us
since before the flood) in the context of a novella that was written over
two centuries in the past. In what meaningful sense can we assume that
Austen—the woman, even before the writer—understood the imposition
of patriarchal restrictions on herself, on her much-loved sister Cassandra,
and on her other female relations and women friends? Is our own resis-
tance to the patriarchy, if this exists, at all in consonance with the resis-
tance shown in Austen’s world (to the extent that this was ever even
allowed to express itself)? The matter, in one patently obvious sense, is
entirely beyond our ability to glean. Notwithstanding this, inasmuch as
Austen’s texts act as faithful soundboxes of a bygone age, reflecting and
repeating the often-subliminal anxieties and apprehensions of her own
times, it is entirely feasible to question these texts and to assess the ways in
which answers to these questions throw light on the understanding that
Austen’s society may have had of such issues. All the same, there are cave-
ats to be lodged in this discussion.
One such caveat is that expressed by John Tosh, who makes the salient
point that our current understanding of ‘masculinity’ runs the risk of over-
simplifying it, ignoring many aspects that the notion would have denoted
to Austen’s world. As Tosh observes:
Recent work on the period 1750–1850 [shows that] ‘Masculinity’ stands for
a bewildering diversity of approaches: the gendering of public discourse
about the state of the nation, the marking of class difference, the experience
of sexuality, the exercise of household authority, the rise of the work ethic,
and so on. (…) At the level of popular stereotype, no greater contrast could
be imagined than that between the uninhibited ‘Georgian’ libertine and his
sober frock-coated ‘Victorian’ grandson; if only at the level of social mores
there are clearly significant changes to be explained.⁠ (2016: 62)
Related to this is the need to understand how their reshaping over time
affects these notions of masculinity. Raewyn Connell rightly reminds us
that the binary categories at the heart of this debate have been subjected
to the vicissitudes of historical change: “[O]ur concept of masculinity
seems to be a fairly recent historical product, a few hundred years old at
most. (…). This should be borne in mind with any claim to have discovered
transhistorical truths about manhood and the masculine” (2005: 68, my
italics). And so, as well as needing to understand that the concept may
now refer to a narrower spectrum—as Tosh remarks—we must also accept
the inherent difficulty of approaching the issue of masculinity, toxic or
not, as if it were a monolithic concept, enduring in saecula saeculorum,
26 D. OWEN
and impervious to the currents of social change. One conspicuous conse-

quence of this, relevant to The Watsons and to Austen’s work in general, is
a call to recognise that, through the unquestionably complex interplay of
many historical, social, and cultural factors, what may now appear to us as
intolerable masculine conduct and attitudes may well have been perceived
in Austen’s day (with greater or lesser resignation) as fairly unexceptional
modes of behaviour and thought. Side by side with this, we also have to
concede that, in an Austen novel, what may now seem to us to be wom-
en’s overly timid response to obnoxious masculine behaviour may, at the
time, very well have approached the outer limits of oppositional reaction.
Toxic Masculinity in The Watsons

In light of all this, when we turn to discuss toxic masculinity in The Watsons
and try to discern ways in which Austen’s narrator seeks to undermine and
limit this (as I will argue is the case), the signifiers are therefore not neces-
sarily familiar, nor indeed even evident. An essential observation pertinent
to writings that are part of what is broadly termed romantic comedy in the
long Regency Era (c. 1795–c. 1837)11 is that this toxicity does not (usu-
ally) take the form of overt physical aggression; palpable bodily violence by
men against women is largely absent. Instead, toxicity is seen through the
insidious imposition of male privilege, patriarchal power, and hegemonic
right, and the multiple ways in which these are made evident. It is seen in
the ways that women are objectified and perceived as possessions (some-
times valuable, sometimes mere chattels) to be appraised and bargained
over. It is seen through the ways that they are turned into prey. It is felt
and expressed, by women, through an inability to escape the social
spaces—both public and private—in which they are marketed for con-
sumption, spaces in which the toxic male presses home his advantage.
Beneath the amiable plots and trivial exchanges of romantic comedy there
run far deeper and far more malignant currents. Perhaps because Austen
never troubled to conceal these currents more fully in this incomplete
work, or perhaps because the text really does express a weariness at the
depressing prospects faced by so many women in Austen’s milieu, The
Watsons is almost a catalogue of male boorishness. That in itself is of con-
siderable interest (since these things are substantially attenuated, though
certainly not absent, in Austen’s later fiction); but it is the narrative drive
to undermine and thereby to detox this boorishness that is most remark-
able. And, by reading The Watsons in this way, we reshape its reputation as
an unremittingly dour tale to see it, instead, as a brief illustration of female

resistance and inflexibility.
Prior to looking at the narrative detoxing that occurs in this novella,
and the appearance of positive masculinity to respond to its toxic counter-
part, I would first like to draw attention to the actions and perspectives of
three characters whose conduct with respect to Emma is particularly note-
worthy. These are (principally) Tom Musgrave and, to a slightly lesser
extent, Lord Osborne and Robert Watson. Variously, these men impose
themselves onto Emma’s company, or stalk her, or attempt to coerce her
further attention, or act as genteel pimps, or are disdainful of her circum-
stances, or maladroitly point out the tenuousness of her situation, or push
her inexorably towards the pantomime of husband-hunting. It is in this
sense that The Watsons can be read as a catalogue of male boorishness, reveal-
ing an incessant series of unkindnesses to which Emma is exposed, all of
which signal a seemingly inescapable fate: to be the prize of the man who
most successfully bargains for her.
We are introduced to Tom who, like many other characters in this
novella, is something of a blueprint for a particular type that will frequent
Austen’s later novels. Redolent of characters such as John Willoughby
(Sense and Sensibility), George Wickham (Pride and Prejudice), or Henry
Crawford (Mansfield Park), to name only a few of the men in Austen’s
major works of a broadly similar nature, he is attractive and has an easy
charm; and yet an air of untrustworthiness hangs about him. Tom is clearly
aware of his privileged role in the local marriage stakes (he is the proverbial
eligible bachelor; there are several young women in the district of a mar-
riageable age; the women do not have time on their side; the bachelor,
however, can afford to delay making his decision). Elizabeth, for whom
the status of old maid12 is swiftly becoming likely, plaintively says of him
that he is “[a] young man of very good fortune, quite independent, and
remarkably agreeable, an universal favourite wherever he goes. Most of the
girls hereabout are in love with him, or have been” (TW 80).
That Tom appears to play the field can hardly be called toxic behaviour.
Where his conduct takes on a disturbing undertone, however, is in his self-
appointed (and troublingly sycophantic) role as a procurer to Lord
Osborne. It is in this role that his sinister disregard for Emma’s own wishes
is made evident. It is, in effect, as Lord Osborne’s pimp, that Tom reveals
his acquiescence with the objectification of Emma, treats her merely as an
item to be obtained, and, under the pretence of genial sociability, pursues
this objective unwaveringly. Emma is uncomfortable with Tom but is
28 D. OWEN
initially unable to protect herself. A highly charged moment that illustrates

this comes the night after the ball around which the novella is largely con-
structed. Emma expects her sister to take her back to Stanton from the
house of her friends, the Edwards, where she has spent the night, but is
disturbed by the unexpected appearance of Tom insisting that he, instead,
should accompany her home: “My reward is to be the indulgence of con-
veying you to Stanton in my curricle. Though they are not written down,
I bring your sister’s orders for the same” (TW 107). In this instance,
Emma is saved from Tom by the perceptive intervention of her host, but
the threat has made itself felt: she is, in a very real sense, exposed to being
assailed and—given the social and economic expectations of her situa-
tion—is little able to act in her own defence. Later in the novella, the yet-
again uninvited Tom appears (an informality with social protocol that no
single woman would ever dare to contemplate in those times),13 on this
occasion in Stanton, where the Watsons are gathered at home for the eve-
ning. Once more, he moves in on his prey. This time, through unsolicited
observations regarding Osborne’s predilection for Emma, he gives her to
understand that she is now a commodity of interest. That his remarks are
made in the intimate setting of Emma’s own sitting room subliminally
underlines the point that she has absolutely nowhere to run. On hearing
her name mentioned in a short exchange among the company gathered in
the Watsons’s front room, Emma asks if she is the subject of their conver-
sation. Tom replies: “Not absolutely (…) but I was thinking of you, as
many at a greater distance are probably doing at this moment. Fine open
weather, Miss Emma! Charming season for hunting” (TW 128), a remark
that reveals Tom’s perturbingly predatory instinct.
If Tom’s appeal in this novella is ambiguous for at least a short time, the
same cannot be said for Lord Osborne. In our introduction to him we are
told that he had “an air of coldness, of carelessness, even of awkwardness
about him” (TW 96). Regrettably, these qualities are not his worst. As I
have suggested, a version of The Watsons that had been prepared for pub-
lication would arguably have led Austen to modify certain aspects of this
depiction, but—as it stands—Osborne is distressingly voyeuristic, with a
penchant for silently leering at Emma. This behaviour is, in turn, ridicu-
lous, uncomfortable, and threatening. Within two short paragraphs, we
are taken from Osborne’s first attempt to look Emma over (“after a time
Lord Osborne himself came, and under pretence of talking (…), stood to
look at [her]” TW 98) to the image of the stalker sizing up his victim: “On
entering the tea-room, in which two long tables were prepared, Lord
Osborne was to be seen quite alone at the end of one, as if retreating as far
as he could from the ball, to enjoy his own thoughts and gape without
restraint” (TW 99–100). Although our contact with Osborne is relatively
slight, our predominant impression is of this sad figure of a man who
spends his time “gaping”.14 This is the case throughout the ball-room
scene and is repeated when Tom and Osborne unexpectedly visit the
Watsons shortly afterwards. The narrative effect is to create the sensation
of a purveyor of goods assessing the quality of the wares on sale. Osborne
is wholly indifferent to the effect that such evaluations might have on
Emma. For him, she is an object to be viewed, acquired, and possessed,
and this is undeniably a reflection of his unthinking concurrence with his
own position of masculine privilege. To my mind, one of the most chilling
remarks made in this regard is addressed to the ever-attentive Tom shortly
before the Osborne contingent leaves the ball; Osborne’s parting instruc-
tions are: “Let me see you soon at the castle, and bring me word how she
looks by daylight” (TW 104), as if Emma were mere horseflesh to be
inspected from all angles and in all lights before any commitments are
made. Like the horse, Emma would presumably have very little say in any
resulting transaction.
Finally, in this trio of masculine delights, the novella introduces us to
Emma’s brother Robert.15 He is one of two sons in the Watson family
(Sam, the other brother—a trainee surgeon—is mentioned only in pass-
ing, though very affectionately). As a successful and wealthy lawyer,
Robert is in effect the family’s business manager. In this capacity, Emma is
of immediate concern to him. In strictly financial terms, her unexpected
return to the family’s keeping is a setback. It had been assumed that Emma
would make a very good marriage when living with her wealthy aunt. This
has not only proved to be wrong, but she is now also again in the family’s
charge and so has returned to compete with three other unmarried sisters
in finding a husband. But, in Robert’s first substantial conversation for
many years with his youngest sister, one might hope that strictly financial
terms would be put aside in favour of kind-hearted sibling concerns for
Emma’s welfare and happiness. This is emphatically not the case. In his
opening salvo to her, he remarks:
“So, Emma (…) you are quite a stranger at home. It must seem odd enough
for you to be here. A pretty piece of work your Aunt Turner has made of it!
By Heaven! a woman should never be trusted with money. I always said she
ought to have settled something on you, as soon as her husband died.”
30 D. OWEN
“But that would have been trusting me with money”, replied Emma;
“and I am a woman too”.
“It might have been secured to your future use, without your having any
power over it now. What a blow it must have been upon you! To find your-
self, instead of heiress of 8000 or 9000 l., sent back a weight upon your
family, without a sixpence. I hope the old woman will smart for it.”
(TW 122–123)
In two brief exclamations, Robert manages to establish his sterling misog-

ynistic credentials, insult the woman who had provided a comfortable
home for Emma over many years, make Emma understand the financial
burden she now imposes on her family, remark upon her own lack of
money, and draw to her fullest attention the fact that any hopes for a
happy future that she might once have entertained have more or less
entirely evaporated. This serves to highlight the other side of the arena in
which Emma now finds herself. In the left-hand corner, the purchasers
assessing her market value; in the right, her manager making it clear that
a quick sale to any half-decent buyer is about as much as she can realisti-
cally hope for. And above all, Tom, Osborne, and Robert show how
Emma, unprotected by the easiness of her former circumstances, is forced
to accept the attitudes, attentions, and comportment of men who see
her—fundamentally—as an object to be assessed, bargained over, bought,
and sold. These men act in undeniably injurious ways throughout their
respective interventions, which—given the brief nature of the narrative—
weigh heavily on the overall fabric of the novella. Their various exchanges
with or about Emma are acutely expressive of her fragile position and,
however much the veneer of social respectability may momentarily conceal
the real nature of their views, The Watsons insistently reveals the toxic mas-
culinity that surrounds its protagonist.
Remedying Toxic Masculinity in Emma’s World

This sorry picture, however, is not the end of the matter. In the midst of
this triple onslaught, the text provides us with the counterbalancing ele-
ments provided by the presiding narrative perspective, which includes
Emma’s own thoughts and words and, most significantly, the shadowy yet
consequential figure of Mr Howard, in whose positive masculinity the
novella places its hopes of remedy from the toxicity of Messrs Musgrave,
Osborne, and Watson.
It is a narrative axiom, and not simply in Austen’s works, that the pro-
tagonist is generally presented in such a way that heightens the attribution
of reader sympathy to that figure. So it proves to be in The Watsons.
Emma’s own thoughts and words have a special weighting in the novella
and are narratively significant in allowing readers to interpret the thoughts
and words of other intervening characters. In this respect, she acts as a
pointer towards the values inherent in the text itself. And these values, it
hardly needs adding, are distinctly in disagreement with the toxic values
outlined earlier. The first moment in which this is made transparent is in a
comment attributed to Emma but actually articulated by the narrator (in
the free indirect style that Austen was beginning to experiment with at this
time), reacting against Tom’s wolfish attempt to take Emma home from
the Edwards. The text informs us that “Emma felt distressed; she did not
like the proposal—she did not wish to be on terms of intimacy with the
proposer; and yet, fearful of encroaching on the Edwardses, as well as
wishing to go home herself, she was at a loss how entirely to decline what
he offered” (TW 107–108). This underlines in absolute clarity Emma’s
unease with Tom; it indicates the inappropriateness of his actions. It also
hints at the falseness of his apparent civility through causing Emma’s con-
fusion at how to proceed. Shortly after this, when Tom presents himself at
the Watsons’s home, the narrative once again sets out a line of defence
against the attempts by Tom to corral Emma into his schemes. On asking
her opinion of Osborne (in effect, his client), Emma responds:
“He would be handsome even though he were not a lord, and perhaps, bet-
ter bred; more desirous of pleasing and showing himself pleased in a
right place.”
“Upon my word, you are severe upon my friend! I assure you Lord
Osborne is a very good fellow.”
“I do not dispute his virtues, but I do not like his careless air.” (TW 109)
These are hardly acidic remarks from Emma, but—within the social
decorum of the Regency Era—they are about as plain-speaking a response
as are realistically possible from a woman to a man. The words puncture
Osborne’s eerie mode of behaviour, show it to be unacceptable, and point
by implication to a less threatening, alternative form of conduct. And lest
we be left in any doubt about the novella’s over-riding attitude towards
the values espoused by Tom (and indeed shared by Osborne), Emma gives
voice to the single most significant condemnation of him in her response
32 D. OWEN
to Elizabeth’s rather plaintive comment: “[Y]ou must have been struck

with [Tom] altogether”, to which she replies:
I do not like him, Elizabeth. (…) he seems very vain, very conceited,
absurdly anxious for distinction, and absolutely contemptible in some of the
measures he takes for becoming so. There is a ridiculousness about him that
entertains me, but his company gives me no other agreeable emo-
tion. (TW 111)
Clearly, this show of disdain does not—and cannot—limit the very real
peril that Tom represents to Emma, but it is a key narrative signal of antip-
athy towards him, his ideals, and his endeavours, including his machina-
tions on behalf of Osborne. It is a narrative means of calling attention to
the fact that this character and those of his ilk are not to be favoured in this
novella.
Nor does the novella favour the bullying insensitivity of Robert Watson,
whose own sense of self-assurance derives not only from his professional
and financial status but from his socially validated role as overseer of his
sisters’ future lives. As such, what is most telling—and most damning of
him—is the way in which he not only fails to show any delicacy towards
Emma’s newly and greatly reduced circumstances (which, in themselves,
ought to have inspired his fraternal compassion), but also actually steam-
rollers his way through a list of what he sees as the errors, weaknesses, and
foibles that have led to Emma’s return. Here, it is the juxtaposition of his
bullish remarks with Emma’s mild but dignified responses that reveal the
narrative preference. Speaking of the uncle whose will has been to Emma’s
disadvantage, he remarks: “I thought Turner [Emma’s uncle] had been
reckoned an extraordinarily sensible, clever man. How the devil came he
to make such a will?”, to which Emma answers:
My uncle’s sense is not at all impeached in my opinion by his attachment to

my aunt. She had been an excellent wife to him. The most liberal and
enlightened minds are always the most confiding. The event has been unfor-
tunate; but my uncle’s memory is, if possible, endeared to me by such a
proof of tender respect for my aunt. (TW 123, both fragments)
It can therefore come as no surprise that Emma declines Robert’s invita-

tion to his home, a rejection that has as much symbolic value as pragmatic.
And thus Emma, the narrator, and the narrative arrangements within the
novella, counter and foil the various masculine unkindnesses, impositions,

and malignancies that are on show throughout. In this way, the narrative
signals its opposition to such modes of thought and behaviour. It goes
further still, though, by also pointing to an alternative form of masculine
comportment in the guise of a character whose presence is very slight, but
whose effect on the text is particularly notable.
“I should like to know the man you do think agreeable”, Elizabeth
enquires of her sister the day after the ball, to which Emma replies: “His
name is Howard” (TW 112). Clergyman to the Osborne’s parish, Mr
Howard is this novella’s visible-invisible good man. His direct appearance
in The Watsons amounts to little more than fifteen lines and is vastly out-
weighed by that of the toxic gang. But whereas they are consistently
objectionable, Howard displays the very opposite qualities to theirs. In
stark opposition to the various infelicities shown by Tom, Osborne, and
Robert, Howard is never anything other than courteous, serene, and
(appropriately) attentive. And by being so, he provides the narrative not
simply with a glimmer of relief from the persistently dire sense of pursuit
faced by Emma, but also suggests a way in which the novella equips itself
with a positive model of masculinity, whose fuller development in a com-
pleted version of the text might help Emma attain the respect and dignity
so consistently denied her. “His manners are of a kind to give me much
more ease and confidence than Tom Musgrave’s” (TW 111), Emma
remarks approvingly of Howard, yet also diplomatically understating (and
lexically implying) the lack of ease and confidence that Tom inspires in her.
The narrative clue to Howard’s importance is, of course, the manner in
which he affects Emma, who finds his qualities to be especially appealing.
But what are these qualities that so impress her and act to oppose the
other men who people this brief story? On this, the novella tells us only
the following: “In himself, [Emma] thought [Howard] as agreeable as he
looked; though chatting on the commonest topics, he had a sensible,
unaffected way of expressing himself, which made them all worth hearing”
(TW 103). He is, in short, easy to get along with, sensible, natural. These
are not by any means extraordinary qualities; and yet they are the basis for
normal, healthy, constructive interaction. He speaks “on the commonest
topics”, not on subjects such as those that Tom forces onto his listeners in
which the attainment of his own objectives is never far from view, nor on
those that Robert indelicately insists upon in spite of his sister’s evident
discomfort. Unlike the sinister, voyeuristic Osborne, Howard is engaging
and unaffected. Above all, in this briefest of cameos, he never makes Emma
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inadequately investigated, it will probably prove to be a very distinct
and isolated one. The species are not well known, but are probably
numerous, and the individuals are believed not to be rare, though the
collections of entomologists are very badly supplied with them. The
resemblance of the tegmina or front wings to leaves is certainly of
the most remarkable nature. During the early life the Insect does not
possess the tegmina, but it is said then to adapt itself to the
appearance of the leaves it lives on, by the positions it assumes and
the movements[196] it makes. When freshly hatched it is of a reddish-
yellow colour. The colour varies at different periods of the life, but
"always more or less resembles a leaf." After the young Insect has
commenced eating the leaves it speedily becomes bright green; and
when the metamorphosis is completed the female Insect is
possessed of the leaf-like tegmina shown in Figs. 154, 156. Before
its death the specimen described by Murray passed "through the
different hues of a decaying leaf." Brongniart has had opportunities
of observing one of these leaf-Insects, and has, with the aid of M.
Becquerel, submitted their colouring matter to spectral analysis,[197]
with the result of finding that the spectrum exhibits slight distinctions
from that of solutions of chlorophyll, but does not differ from that of
living leaves. Mr. J. J. Lister when in the Seychelles brought away
living specimens of Phyllium; and these becoming short of food,
nibbled pieces out of one another just as they might have done out
of leaves. The Phasmidae are purely vegetable feeders, and these
specimens did not seriously injure one another, but confined their
depredations to the leaf-like appendages and expansions.
The males of this genus are totally different from the females; the
foliaceous tegmina being replaced by appendages that are not leaf-
like, while the posterior wings, which are large and conspicuous
parts of the body, have no leaf-like appearance (Fig. 155).
Fig. 156.—Alar organs and one side of thorax of Phyllium crurifolium:
A, tegmen; B, rudiment of wing; C, pronotum; D, anterior division
of mesonotum; E, posterior division; F, metanotum; a, b, c, d, e,
chief wing-nervures; a, mediastinal; b, radial; c, ulnar; d,
dividens?; e, plicata?.
In the female Phyllium the hind wings are not present, being
represented by a minute process (Fig. 156, B). The tegmen of the
female Phyllium is, from various points of view, a remarkable and
exceptional structure. It is the rule that when there is in Insects a
difference between the alar organs of the two sexes it is the male
that has them largest; this is the case in Phyllium so far as the hind
wings are concerned, but in the fore-wings the rule is departed from,
the leaf-like tegmina of the female being very much larger than the
rudimentary wing-covers of the male. In Phasmidae it is the rule that
the tegmina are atrophied, even when the hind wings are largely
developed. This is the case in the male of Phyllium, but in the female
this normal condition is reversed. Although the alar organs of
Phasmidae have received hitherto but a small amount of attention, it
is probable that the female tegmen of Phyllium is as peculiar
morphologically as it is in other respects. In Fig. 156 we give an
accurate representation of the chief nervures in the tegmen of a
female P. crurifolium. It is interesting to compare this with the
diagrams we give of the tegmina of a Blattid (Fig. 121) and of an
Acridiid (Fig. 167); the tegmen of the Phyllium is very different, the
radial vein and all the parts behind it being placed quite close to the
posterior edge of the structure. A similar view is taken by both
Redtenbacher and Brauer. The latter says,[198] "In Phyllium (the
walking-leaf) almost the whole of the front wing is formed by the
praecostal and subcostal fields; all the other fields with their
nervures, including even the costa, are compressed towards the hind
margin into a slender stripe. In the hind wing the costa is, however,
marginal." Unfortunately no examination appears to have been made
of the male tegmen, so that we do not know whether that of the
female differs from it morphologically as strongly as it does
anatomically. It is, however, clear that the tegmina of the female
Phyllium not only violate a rule that is almost universal in the Insecta,
but also depart widely from the same parts of its mate, and are
totally different—and, for a Phasmid, in an almost if not quite unique
fashion—from the other pair of alar organs of its own body.
Fig. 157.—Egg of Phyllium scythe. (After Murray.) A, The whole egg,

natural size; A', magnified; B, the capsule broken, showing the
true egg inside, natural size; B', magnified.
Fig. 158.—Portion of a longitudinal section of the egg capsule of

Phyllium crurifolium: a, external; b, middle; c, inner zones; d,
elongate alveoli. × 100. (After Henneguy.)
We have already alluded to the resemblance to seeds displayed by

the eggs of Phasmidae. The eggs of Phyllium have been studied by
several entomologists, and their resemblance to seeds excites
general astonishment. Murray describes the egg-capsule of Phyllium
scythe, and says: "It looks uncommonly like some seeds; if the
edges of the seed of Mirabilis jalapa were rubbed off, the seed might
be mistaken for the egg. The ribs are all placed at equal distances,
except two, which are wider apart, and the space between them
flatter, so that on the egg falling it rolls over till it comes to this flatter
side, and there lies.... At the top there is a little conical lid, fitting very
tightly to the mouth.... On removing the lid we see a beautiful
porcelain chamber of a pale French-white colour, bearing a close
resemblance to the texture of a hen's egg, but it is not calcareous,
and has more the appearance of enamel." The eggs of P. crurifolium
have been examined by Joly and Henneguy; their account confirms
that of Murray. Henneguy adds that a prominent lozenge on the egg
represents the surface by which the achene of an umbelliferous plant
is united to the column, and that the micropyles are placed on this
lozenge. The minute structure of the capsule has also been
examined by several entomologists; and Henneguy,[199] who has
described and figured some of the details of the capsule of P.
crurifolium, says, "Almost every botanist, on examining for the first
time a section of this capsule, would declare that he is looking at a
vegetable preparation."
We may remark that, although there is difference of opinion on the

point, the evidence extant goes to show that the egg-capsules are
formed in the egg-tubes, only one egg being produced at a time in a
tube,[200] the others in it remaining quite rudimentary.
About 600 species of the family are known; there are only four or five
kinds found in Europe, and they are all confined to the south, only
one of them extending as far north as Central France. The males of
these European Bacilli are extremely rare in comparison with the
females, which are common Insects. Phasmidae are of almost
universal distribution in the warm parts of the world, and even the
species whose individuals are of large size seem to be able to
continue their existence in comparatively small islands. Australia is
perhaps the region where they are most largely developed at
present. Macleay says of Podacanthus wilkinsoni that it is rare in any
part of Australia to find in the summer season a gum-tree without a
few of these Insects grazing on it; and occasionally this Insect has
been so abundant there that the trees for miles around have been
denuded of their foliage by it, and the dead and dying Insects have
been found lying beneath the trees almost in heaps. There are
several Phasmidae in New Zealand, all wingless forms, and different
from those found in Australia. In Brazil a species of the genus
Prisopus has the peculiar habit of seeking shelter under the stones
submerged in the mountain streams; to enable it to do this it is
remarkably constructed, the under side of the body being hollowed,
and various parts set with a dense fringe of hairs; the Insect is
supposed to expel the air from the body in order to adhere to the
upper surface of a stone, where it sits with its fore legs extended in
front of its head, which is directed against the current. Attention has
been called to a still more remarkable form said to be allied to the
Prisopi, by Wood-Mason,[201] who calls the Insect Cotylosoma
dipneusticum. This Insect is apparently known only by a single
example of the female sex; it is 3 or 4 inches in length, has
rudimentary organs of flight, and along the lower margins of the
metathorax there are said to be on each side five conspicuous
fringed plates of the nature of tracheal gills; these coexist with open
stigmata for aerial respiration, as in the imago of Pteronarcys. The
writer has examined this curious Insect, and thinks it very doubtful
whether the plates are branchiae at all. The locality for this Insect is
the island of Taviuni, not Borneo, as stated by Wood-Mason. These
and one or two Acridiidae are the only Insects of the Order
Orthoptera at present believed to possess aquatic habits.
Fig. 159.—Calvisia atrosignata, female. Tenasserim. (After Brunner.)

Although the number of species of Phasmidae is small in
comparison with what we find in many of the large families of
Insecta, yet there is probably no other family that equals it in
multiplicity of form and diversity of external appearance.
Fig. 160.—Eurycantha (Karabidion) australis, male. Lord Howe's

Island. (After Westwood.)
Fig. 161.—Anisomorpha pardalina. Chili. (After Westwood.)
Karabidion (Fig. 160), a genus found in some of the islands of the

southern hemisphere, has the hind legs enormously thickened in the
male. Some Phasmids, e.g. Orxines zeuxis, have the hind wings
marked and coloured after the manner of butterflies or moths.
Lamponius laciniatus has an elaborately irregular outline, looking like
a mass of moss, and some species of Bacteria are so very slender
that the linear body is scarcely equal in size to one of the legs it
bears. Among the most interesting forms are the Insects for which
the genera Agathemera and Anisomorpha (Fig. 161) have been
established; they are remarkably broad and short, have the
mesothorax but little elongated, with the tegmina attached to it in the
form of two short, thick, leathery lobes; while the wings are seen as
marks on the metanotum looking like a mere sculpture of the
surface; these Insects have quite the appearance of larval forms,
and it is worthy of note that the elongation of the mesothorax, which
is one of the most marked features of the Phasmidae, is in these
forms only very slight.
Fig. 162.—Palophus centaurus. Old Calabar. Half natural size. (After

Westwood.[202])
Fig. 163.—Titanophasma fayoli. Carboniferous formation at

Commentry. × ⅕. (From Zittel.)
Fig. 164.—Titanophasma fayoli (restoration). × ⅒.
Some Insects said to belong to the genera Phasma and Bacteria

have been found in amber. A single Insect-fossil found in the Tertiary
strata in North America has recently been referred by Scudder to the
family, and even to a genus still existing in the New World—
Agathemera; the fragment is, however, so defective, and the
characteristic points of the Phasmidae are so little evident in it, that
not much reliance can be placed on the determination. No Phasmid
has been unearthed from Mesozoic strata, so that, with the
exception of the fragment just mentioned, nothing that evidently
belongs to the Phasmidae has been discovered older than the
remains preserved in amber. In the Carboniferous layers of the
Palaeozoic epoch there are found remains of gigantic Insects that
may possibly be connected with our living Phasmidae. These fossils
have been treated by Brongniart and Scudder as forming a distinct
family called Protophasmidae. The first of these authors says[203]
that our Phasmidae were represented in the Carboniferous epoch by
analogous types differing in the nature of the organs of flight: these
ancient Insects were of larger size than their descendants, being 25
to 50 centimetres long, and as much as 70 in spread of wing. To this
group are referred, on somewhat too inferential grounds, the fossil
wings found in the Carboniferous layers, and called by Goldenberg
Dictyoneura.
We reproduce from Zittel's handbook a figure (Fig. 162) of one of

these gigantic Insects, and add an attempt at a restoration of the
same after the fashion of Scudder (Fig. 163). From these figures it
will be seen that the relation to our existing Phasmidae must at best
have been very remote.[204] It will be noted that the larger of the two
figures is on a ⅕ scale.
The classification of Phasmidae was left in a very involved state by

Stål, but has recently been brought into a more satisfactory condition
by Brunner von Wattenwyl. We give a translation of his table of the
tribal characters:—
1. Tibiae beneath carinate to the apex, without an apical area.

2. Antennae much longer than the front femora, many jointed, the joints
being above 30 in number and only distinct at the base and towards
the apex.[205]
3. Median [true first abdominal] segment much shorter than the
metanotum.[206] The species all apterous.
4. The anal segment of the males roof-like, more or less bilobate. The
female has a supra-anal lamina. The species inhabit the Old
World. Tribe 1. Lonchodides (Fig. 148, Lonchodes nematodes.)
4′. The anal segment of the males arched, straight behind. No supra-
anal lamina in the female. The species are American. Tribe 2.
Bacunculides.
3′. Median segment as long as, or longer than the metanotum. Species
with the male or both sexes winged.
4. Females apterous or rarely possessed of short wings.[207] Males

winged. Femora dentate beneath, or lobed, or at least armed with
one tooth. Species occur both in America and in the Old World.
Tribe 3. Bacteriides. (Fig. 162, Palophus centaurus.) 4′. Each
sex winged. Femora smooth beneath. The species belong to the
Old World. Tribe 4. Necroscides. (Fig. 159, Calvisia
atrosignata.)
2′. Antennae (at any rate in the females) shorter than the front femora, the
joints distinct, not more than 28 in number. The species belong to the
Old World.
3. Median segment shorter than the metanotum. Apterous species.
Cerci plump. Tribe 5. Clitumnides. (Fig. 160, Eurycantha
australis.)
3′. Median segment longer than the metanotum. Species usually
winged. Cerci (except in some genera of the group Platycraninae)
flattened, elongate. Tribe 6. Acrophyllides. (Fig. 153,
Cyphocrania aestuans.)
1′. Tibiae furnished beneath with a triangular apical area.
2. Antennae many jointed, longer than the front femora.
3. Median segment shorter than the metanotum. Apterous species.[208]

4. Either head, thorax, or legs spiny or lobed. Tribe 7.
Cladomorphides. (Fig. 149, Heteropteryx grayi.)
4′. Head, thorax and legs unarmed. Tribe 8. Anisomorphides. (Fig.
161, Anisomorpha pardalina.)
3′. Median segment longer than the metanotum.
4. Claws unarmed. Tegmina lobe-like, either perfectly developed or
entirely absent. The winged species are all American, the
apterous are both African and Australian. Tribe 9. Phasmides.
4′. Claws toothed on the inner side. Tegmina spine-like. Wings well
developed. The species are Asiatic. Tribe 10. Aschipasmides.
(Fig. 150, Aschipasma catadromus.)
2′. Antennae shorter than the anterior femora,[209] formed of not more
than 20 joints. Old World species.
3. Body slender. Apterous. Tribe 11. Bacillides.
3′. Body very broad, lamina-like. Either wings or tegmina present. Tribe
12. Phylliides. (Fig. 155, Phyllium scythe, male; Fig. 154, idem.,
female.)
CHAPTER XII
ORTHOPTERA CONTINUED—ACRIDIIDAE
Fam. VI. Acridiidae—Locusts and Grasshoppers.
Orthoptera with the hind legs differing from the others by being
more elongate and having their femora broader near the base.
Antennae short, with less than 30 joints. No exserted ovipositor
in female. Tarsi short, with three distinct joints. The auditory
organ placed on the side of the upper part of the first abdominal
segment.
Fig. 165.—Tryxalis nasuta, female. Natural size. Europe.
We commence the consideration of the saltatorial Orthoptera with

the family Acridiidae. It includes the grasshoppers of our native fields
as well as the destructive migratory locusts of foreign countries, and
is the most numerous in species and individuals of any of the
Orthopterous families. Our native grasshoppers, though of small
size, give a very good idea of the Acridiidae. Active little Insects, with
large head, conspicuous eyes, laterally somewhat compressed body,
long hind legs with femur directed upwards and backwards, the
knee-joint forming an acute angle, the organs of flight pressed to the
sides of the body, our common grasshoppers represent the
Acridiidae quite as truly as do the gigantic exotic forms, some of
which measure 9 or 10 inches across the expanded wings.
Fig. 166.—Front of head of Porthetis sp. Transvaal.
The large head is immersed behind in the thorax; the front is

deflexed, or even inflexed, so as to be placed in a plane at an acute
angle with that of the vertex (Fig. 165); the compound eyes are
placed at the sides of the head and rather widely separated; in front
there are three small ocelli. Two of these are placed one on each
side close to the eye between the eye and the base of the antenna;
the third ocellus being in the middle just in front of the insertion of the
antennae, between the edges of the margined space that usually
runs down the middle of the front. The positions of these ocelli and
the shape of the front and upper parts of the head are of importance
in the classification of the family; the ocelli vary much in their
development, being in some species beautifully clear and prominent
(Fig. 166), while in others they are small, not easily detected,
apparently functionally imperfect. The antennae are never very long,
are sometimes compressed and pendent from the front of the head.
The parts of the mouth are very large. The prothorax is much
arched; it is often carinate or crested along the middle of the notum;
this part is frequently prolonged backwards, forming a sort of hood
over the base of the wings; the surface may be rugged or warty,
forming in some species inexplicable structures; the legs are widely
separated, all of them being placed at the sides of the body; the
edge of the pronotum is distinct and situate close to the base of the
leg; the prosternum frequently bears a large projection extending
directly downwards between the front legs. The mesothorax is short,
its chief sternal piece is very broad, the middle legs being very
widely separated. The metathorax is larger; its sternal plate usually
exhibits behind a sort of embrasure filled up by a portion of the first
ventral plate.
Fig. 167.—Alar organs of Acridiidae (Bryodema tuberculata). A, Left

tegmen; B, left wing: ar.med, area mediastina; ar.sc, area
scapularis; ar.disc, area discoidalis; ar.an, anal area; v.m, vena
mediastina; v.r, vena radialis; v.r.a, vena radialis anterior; v.r.m,
vena radialis media; v.r.p, vena radialis posterior; v.i, vena
intercalata; v.u.a, vena ulnaris anterior; v.u.p, vena ulnaris
posterior; v.d, vena dividens; v.pl, vena plicata. (After Brunner.)
The hind body is elongate, and shows distinctly eight dorsal
segments, behind which are the pieces forming—in the female, the
fossorial organs which replace an ovipositor—in the male, the
modified parts connected with the terminal segment. The alar organs
(Fig. 167) exhibit, according to Brunner, the same areas as we have
described in Blattidae. According, however, to Redtenbacher[210] the
tegmina of the Acridiidae and other saltatorial Orthoptera differ from
those of the cursorial group (with the exception of the Phasmidae) in
that they possess a praecostal field, due to the fact that the vein
which in the Cursoria is costal, i.e. forms the front margin, in the
Saltatoria lies, on the contrary, in the field of the wing. If this view be
correct the mediastinal area of Brunner is not homologous in the two
divisions. The tegmina are long and comparatively narrow; they are
of firm parchment-like texture, with several longitudinal veins, which
divide beyond the middle, so as to become more numerous as they
reach the extremity of the wing; there is much reticulation, dividing
the surface into numerous small cells. The hind wings are much
more ample, and of more delicate texture; the longitudinal veins fork
but little, the numerous cross veinlets are fine. In repose the hind
wings fold together in a fan-like manner, and are entirely concealed
by the upper wings. The front and middle legs are similar and small,
the coxae are quite small, and do not completely fill the articular
cavities, which are partly covered by membrane; all the tarsi are
three-jointed. The basal joint, when looked at beneath, is seen to
bear three successively placed pads, so that from beneath the tarsi
look as if they were five-jointed (Fig. 185, C). The hind legs are
occasionally very long; their femora, thicker towards the base, are
generally peculiarly sculptured, bearing longitudinal ridges or
grooves, which are more or less spinose, and are also very
frequently marked with short parallel lines meeting a central
longitudinal line at similar angles, so as to give rise to a well-marked
pattern; where the legs are broader the pattern is more complex (Fig.
168). The long tibiae bear two rows of spines on their upper or
posterior edge; this part of the hind leg can be completely bent in
under the femur. The stigmata consist of one prothoracic, one
metathoracic, and eight abdominal pairs.
Fig. 168.—Hind leg of Porthetis sp. Transvaal.
In reference to the ocelli, which are shown in Fig. 166, we may

remark that the Acridiidae is one of the large groups of Insects in
which the coexistence of compound and single eyes is most
constant, though in some of the wingless forms the ocelli are very
imperfect. We know at present of nothing in the habits of Acridiidae
to render two kinds of eyes specially necessary. We shall
subsequently see that a similar condition in regard to the function of
hearing is believed to exist in this family.
Acridiidae are remarkable amongst the Orthoptera for the

possession of air sacs or vesicular dilatations in the interior of the
Insect in connexion with the tracheae (Fig. 176). Such vesicles are
found in many of the higher winged Insects, but not in larval forms,
or in those that are destitute of powers of flight.[211] They, no doubt,
assist the Insect in its movements in the air. The body of a large
grasshopper or locust is naturally of considerable weight, and it is
more than probable that true flight can only be accomplished when
these vesicles are dilated and filled with air. The exact mode in which
the sacs are dilated is not known; possibly it may be accomplished
by the elasticity of the structure of the vesicles coming into action
when the other contents of the body are not completely developed,
or are temporarily diminished. Although air vessels are absent in the
neighbouring groups of Orthoptera, Dufour says they are present
even in apterous forms of Acridiidae, but he gives no particulars.[212]
Packard has given an account[213] of the arrangement of these
remarkable sacs in the Rocky Mountain Locust. He finds that there
are two sets: a thoracic group, consisting of a pair of very large size,
with which are connected some smaller sacs placed in the head; and
an abdominal set, which forms a very remarkable series. The figures
we give (Fig. 176, A, B) show that these sacs are of such large size
that if fully distended they must interfere with the development of the
ovaries, and that they must be themselves greatly diminished, if not
obliterated, by the distension of the alimentary canal. We may look
on them as only coming into full play when the normal distension of
the canal is prevented, and there is only small development of the
reproductive organs. Under such circumstances the locust becomes
a sort of balloon, and migrates. In addition to the air sacs there are
many dilatable tracheae, placed chiefly in parts of the body where
there is not space for the large air sacs. These are, for the sake of
clearness, omitted from our figure.
The ganglia constituting the brain are simpler in Acridiidae than they
are in the higher Insects, such as bees and wasps, and have been
specially studied by Packard[214] and Viallanes.[215] The other
ganglia of the nervous cord are eight in number, three thoracic and
five abdominal.
Fig. 169.—Ovaries of Oedipoda caerulescens: a, calyx; b, its gut-like

appendage; c, sebific gland; d, termination of body. (After Dufour.)
The salivary glands are small. The alimentary canal is capacious but
not coiled. It has no gizzard, but the crop has a peculiar structure,
apparently as a substitute. There are diverticula connected with the
true stomach. The Malpighian tubes are elongate and extremely
numerous. The pair of testes is united in a single envelope. The form
and arrangement of the ovaries is remarkable (Fig. 169); the egg-
tubes are united by the convergence of their terminal threads into a
single mass; outside of each ovary there extends a large calyx, into
which the tubes open; each calyx is prolonged at its extremity, and
forms a long, convoluted tube.
Fig. 170.—Inner face of femur of Stenobothrus, male, showing line, a-

a, of musical beads. (After Landois, magnified three times.)
Acridiidae possess structures for the production of sound, together

with others that are, no doubt, for hearing. The chirping of
grasshoppers is accomplished by rubbing together the outer face of
the upper wing and the inner face of the hind femur. This latter part
bears a series of small bead-like prominences placed on the upper
of the two lower ridges that run along the side that is nearest to the
body (Fig. 170); the tegmen or wing-case has projecting veins, one
of which is slightly more prominent, and has a sharp edge; by
scraping this edge over the beads of the femur the wing is thrown
into a state of vibration and a musical sound is produced. The
apparatus for producing sound was for long supposed to be confined
to the male sex of grasshoppers; it was indeed known that females
made the movements appropriate for producing music, but as they
appeared to be destitute of instruments, and as no sound was known
to follow from their efforts, it was concluded that these were merely
imitative. Graber has, however, discovered[216] that rudimentary
musical organs do exist in the females of various species of
Stenobothrus (Fig. 171, B). It is true that in comparison with those of
the male (Fig. 171, A) they are minute, but it would appear that they
are really phonetic, though we can hear no sounds resulting from
their use.
Fig. 171.—A, Some of the knobs projecting from the surface of the
femur of Stenobothrus melanopterus, male; B, same of the
female. Highly magnified. (After Graber.)
Graber considers that the musical pegs of Acridiidae are modified

hairs, and he states that in certain females the stages intermediate
between hair and peg can be found. There is apparently much
variety in the structure of these instruments in different species, and
even in individuals of the same species. In Stenobothrus lineatus,
instead of pegs, the instrument consists of raised folds.
In some of the aberrant forms of Acridiidae—certain Eremobiides

and Pneumorides—the males are provided with sound-producing
instruments different to those we have described, both as regards
situation and structure.
Fig. 172.—Middle of body of Pachytylus nigrofasciatus, to show

tympanum, e. (After Brunner.)
Fig. 173.—Mecostethus grossus: A, Insect with wings expanded; B,

profile of head and prothorax. (After Brunner.)
If the dorsal aspect of the first segment of the hind body of an

Acridian Insect be carefully examined there may be seen in the
majority of species an organ which has somewhat the appearance of
an ear (Fig. 172), and which there is great reason for believing to be
really an organ of that nature. It is situate a little over the articulation
of the hind leg, very close to the spot where the sound is, as above
described, produced. There are three forms of these Acridian ears
as described by Brunner:[217] (1) a membrane surrounded by a rim;
(2) the membrane somewhat depressed, a portion of the segment
projecting a little over it; (3) the depression very strongly marked,
and the sides projecting over it so much that all that is seen
externally is a sort of broad slit with a cavity beneath it. This last is
the condition in which the ear exists in the genera Mecostethus (Fig.
173) and Stenobothrus, which are among our few native
grasshoppers. On minute examination this ear proves to consist of a
tympanum supplied internally with nerve and ganglion in addition to
muscles, and tracheal apparatus of a complex nature; it is no doubt
delicately sensitive to some forms of vibration. Unlike the stridulating
organ, these ears exist in both sexes; they are found in a great
majority of the species of Acridiidae. The forms in which the ears are
absent are usually at the same time wingless and destitute of organs
of stridulation; but, on the other hand, there are species—some of
them wingless—that are, so far as is known, incapable of stridulation
and yet possess these ears.
It is, indeed, a matter of great difficulty to decide as to the exact

function of these ear-like acoustic organs, which, we may remind the
reader, are peculiar to the saltatorial Orthoptera, and we must refer
for a full discussion of the subject to Graber's masterly works,[218]
contenting ourselves with a brief outline, which we may commence
by saying that the Orthoptera with ears are believed to be sensitive
to sounds by means other than these organs. This suggests that the
latter exist for some purpose of perception of special sound. But if so
what can this be? Only the males possess, so far as we know,
effective sound-producing organs, but both sexes have the special
ears; moreover, these structures are present in numerous species
where we do not know of the existence of phonetic organs in either
sex. Thus it appears at present impossible to accept these organs as
being certainly special structures for the perception of the music of
the species. It is generally thought that the females are charmed by
the music of the males, and that these are stimulated to rivalry by the
production of the sounds; and Dufour[219] has suggested that this
process reacts on the physiological processes of the individual.
There has not been a sufficient amount of observation to justify us in
accepting these views, and they do not in any way dispose of the
difficulty arising from the existence of the acoustic organs in species
that do not, so far as we know, produce special sounds. It is possible
that the solution of the difficulty may be found in the fact that these
apparently dumb species do really produce some sound, though we
are quite ignorant as to their doing so. It is well known that sounds
inaudible to some human ears are perfectly distinct to others.
Tyndall, in his work on Sound, has illustrated this by a fact that is of
special interest from our present point of view. "Crossing the
Wengern Alp with a friend," he says, "the grass on each side of the
path swarmed with Insects which to me rent the air with their shrill
chirruping. My friend heard nothing of this, the Insect world lying
beyond his limit of audition." If human ears are so different in their
capacities for perceiving vibrations, it of course becomes more
probable that auditory organs so differently constituted as are those
of Insects from our own may hear sounds when the best human ear
can detect nothing audible. On the whole, therefore, it would appear
most probable that the Orthoptera provided with acoustic organs,
and which we consider dumb, are not really so, but produce sounds
we cannot hear, and do so in some manner unknown to us. If this be
the case it is probable that these ears are special organs for hearing
particular sounds.
Scudder, who has given considerable attention to the subject of

Orthopteran music, says that in N. America "the uniformity with
which each species of Stenobothrus plays its own song is quite
remarkable. One kind, Stenobothrus curtipennis, produces about six
notes per second, and continues them from one and a half to two
and a half seconds; another, S. melanopleurus, makes from nine to
twelve notes in about three seconds. In both cases the notes follow
each other uniformly, and are slower in the shade than in the sun."
Some of the species of Acridiidae, it should be noticed, produce a

noise during their flights through the air, due to the friction of the
wings; whether this has a definite importance, or whether it may be
entirely incidental, has scarcely yet been considered.
Information of a satisfactory kind as to the post-embryonic

development of the Acridiidae is but scanty. We have represented in
Fig. 84, A, the condition in which a migratory locust, Schistocerca
peregrina, leaves the egg, and we will here complete the account of
its growth; following Brongniart,[220] whose statement is confirmed
by Lestage and other naturalists. Immediately on leaving the egg the
young locust casts its skin, and is then of a clear green colour, but it
rapidly becomes brown, and in twelve hours is black. At this early
age the gregarious instinct, possessed by this and some other
species of Acridiidae, becomes evident. In six days the individual
undergoes a second moult, after which it is black, spotted and
banded with white, and with a rose-coloured streak on each side of
the hind body. The third ecdysis occurs in six or eight days after the
second; the rose colour becomes more distinct, and the head is of a
brown tint instead of black. After eight days the fourth ecdysis
occurs; the creature is then about 35 millimètres long; its colour has
much changed, the position of the markings is the same, but the
rose colour is replaced by citron yellow, the line of the spiracles is
marked with white, and at this time the creature has the "first
rudiments of wings," and is very voracious. In ten days another
ecdysis takes place, the yellow colour is more vivid, the prothorax is
definitely speckled with white, and the hind body is increasing much
in size. In fifteen or twenty days the sixth moult occurs, and the
Insect appears in its perfect form; the large tegmina now present are
marked with black in the manner so well known, and the surface
generally is variegated with bluish and rosy marks. Although this is
the colour in Algeria, yet apparently it is not so farther south; the
Insects that arrive thence in the French colony are on some
occasions of a different colour, viz. reddish or yellowish, those of this
latter tint being, it is believed, older specimens of the reddish kind.
M. Brongniart points out that some Phasmidae—of the Phyllium
group—undergo an analogous series of colour-changes in the
course of the individual development, though other species do not.

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Detoxing Masculinity in Anglophone

Literature and Culture: In Search of

“A most timely contribution to Masculinity Studies. While most existing studies

ISBN 978-3-031-22143-9 ISBN 978-3-031-22144-6 (eBook)

Cover illustration: ©Eivind Hansen / 500px/Gettyimages

Part II Transnational Fictions 93

Part IV Science Fiction 195

Part V Close to Life 249

Rodrigo Andrés teaches American literature at the Universitat de

Spanish culture, and on contemporary popular fictions from a Cultural

Sara Martín is Senior Lecturer in English Literature and Cultural Studies

Introduction: Beyond Toxic Patriarchal

Sara Martín and M. Isabel Santaulària

Why Masculinity Needs to Be Detoxed

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

(Beynon 2010: 55), masculinity has been “successfully ‘problematized’”

originally in English. This will hopefully allow other researchers in Gender

misogyny and homophobia which accompany the progress of patriarchy,

Apparent modifications of hegemonic masculinity may represent some shift

In spite of these shortcomings, Connell’s theoretical production is still

non-toxic forms of masculinity, society produces hybrid masculinities that

Masculinity and Patriarchal Villainy in the British Novel: From Hitler to

How This Books Works

Dídac Llorens-Cubedo focuses in Chap. 4, ‘From Brutal to Spiritual

works undo standard normative views of manhood through a poetics of

ordinary boy evades the imposition of unrealistic expectations. The Harry

central triangular conflict of the original trilogy is between Luke, Darth

Oró-Piqueras and Katsura Sako consider how this British TV series

because the process of detoxing masculinity is facing many obstacles. Not

Messerschmidt, James W. 2018. Hegemonic Masculinity: Formulation,

The Visible-Invisible Good Man in Jane

“By Indirections Find Directions Out”

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 21

later fiction, an equally frequent comment—one dating from at least the

What Is Toxic Masculinity for Jane Austen?

and impervious to the currents of social change. One conspicuous conse-

Toxic Masculinity in The Watsons

an unremittingly dour tale to see it, instead, as a brief illustration of female

initially unable to protect herself. A highly charged moment that illustrates

In two brief exclamations, Robert manages to establish his sterling misog-

Remedying Toxic Masculinity in Emma’s World

to Elizabeth’s rather plaintive comment: “[Y]ou must have been struck

My uncle’s sense is not at all impeached in my opinion by his attachment to

It can therefore come as no surprise that Emma declines Robert’s invita-

novella, counter and foil the various masculine unkindnesses, impositions,

Fig. 157.—Egg of Phyllium scythe. (After Murray.) A, The whole egg,

Fig. 158.—Portion of a longitudinal section of the egg capsule of

We have already alluded to the resemblance to seeds displayed by

We may remark that, although there is difference of opinion on the

Fig. 159.—Calvisia atrosignata, female. Tenasserim. (After Brunner.)

Fig. 160.—Eurycantha (Karabidion) australis, male. Lord Howe's

Fig. 161.—Anisomorpha pardalina. Chili. (After Westwood.)

Karabidion (Fig. 160), a genus found in some of the islands of the

Fig. 162.—Palophus centaurus. Old Calabar. Half natural size. (After

Fig. 163.—Titanophasma fayoli. Carboniferous formation at

Some Insects said to belong to the genera Phasma and Bacteria

We reproduce from Zittel's handbook a figure (Fig. 162) of one of

The classification of Phasmidae was left in a very involved state by

Part II Transnational Fictions 93

Part IV Science Fiction 195

Part V Close to Life 249