Domesticated Bachelors and Femininity in Victorian Novels

by Jennifer Beauvais

Overview

Domestic issues, chastity, morality, marriage and love are concerns we typically associate with Victorian female characters. But what happens when men in Victorian novels begin to engage in this type of feminine discourse? While we are familiar with certain Victorian women seeking freedom by moving beyond the domestic sphere, there is an equally interesting movement by the domestic man into the private space through his performance of femininity.

This book defines the domesticated bachelor, examines the effects of the blurring of boundaries between the public and private spheres, and traces the evolution of the public discourse on masculinity in novels such as Bronte's Shirley, Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret, Eliot's Daniel Deronda, and Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This bachelor, along with his female counterpart, the New Woman, opens up for discussion new definitions of Victorian masculinity and gender boundaries and blurs the rigid distinction between the gendered spaces thought to be in place during the Victorian period.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786460366
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	10/23/2020
Pages:	198
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jennifer Beauvais teaches Gothic and Victorian literature at John Abbott College in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec. Her research questions the definition of masculinity and the public and private spheres by focusing on the domesticated man in Victorian fiction. She has published essays as well as teaching guides for Emily Brontë, George Eliot, and Mary Shelley.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments v

List of Abbreviations vi

Introduction: The Domesticated Bachelor 1

1 Male Models: Performance and Transformation in Charlotte Dacre's Zofloya and Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights 19

2 Between the Spheres: "Dual Natures" Louis and Robert Moore in Charlotte Bronte's Shirley 38

3 The Domesticated Gentleman: Robert Audley in Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret 62

4 "Domesticated Theatricality": The Gentleman Actress in George Eliot's Daniel Deronda 93

5 Men Gone Wild: Male Exclusivity in Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 122

6 The Reconfigured Sphere: Dandyism and Decadence in The Picture of Dorian Gray 152

Conclusion: The Reconfigured Sphere 168

Chapter Notes 171

Bibliography 177

Index 189