Masculine Identity in Hardys Novels :: Biography Biographies Essays

Masculine Identity in Hardys NovelsIn Hardys novels, masculine identity operator is explored, evolving from the solid, monolithic, patriarchal role of the mid-1800s, to less typical, nearly feminine styles of manhood. With the increasing power of women during the victorian Era, Hardy creates men who are in a state of ambivalence about their sexuality they either reach for the well-worn stereotype of the manly man, or they attempt to explore their own complicated emotions, sensitive to the needs of the emerging immature Woman. Though action in Hardys novels centers predominately around the female person, life is often seen finished the eyes of the males in his works. The typical male is often associated with money, power, and prestige, while the realists and chaste men are almost unmasculine in thoughts and action, and frequently fall victim to the New Woman. By depicting a man like Henchard, who goes from being an obsessive power seeker to one who is, in a sense, unmanned, Hardy shows readers the male identity which he tends to favor. The state of the economy and the political events of the 1880s and 1890s were unstable, and in their public roles, men began to feel gradually overwhelmed. Their personal lives were even more chaotic, as women began to challenge old ideas with their new, feminist ones. The Woman Question was ubiquitous, and women were gradually given rights that they never before had the Married Womens Property Act, two Matrimonial Causes Acts, and the Maintenance of Wives Act, were trinity laws which allowed for more equality in marriage. The introduction of birth control literature also significantly changed womens attitudes toward their sexuality and matrimonial duties. Federico maintains that as a result of these changes, go existed during the era. Men meditated upon their patriarchal inheritance, and by the end of the century, contradictory middle-class attitudes still existed, contributing to the sketchy construct of Victorian masculin ity (Federico 18-19). Southerington has placed some of Hardys male characters into one of four categories (although it is important to note that these groupings are permeable, and characters are not confined to any one category) the virile romantic realist and chaste. Though virility in such men as Fitzpiers, Troy, Wildeve, and Alec dUrberville was believed to be the keynote to all that is best and most forcible in the masculine character (according to Grant Allen in the semiweekly Review, October, 1889), inwardly their egoist self-assurance was steadily eroded by perceived threats to their masculinity.