Maria Pirgerou

The Vicissitudes of Victorian Masculinity: the Case of the Bachelor Maria Pirgerou

This book interrogates the construction and representation of bachelor figures within canonical Victorian narratives. In particular, it focuses on the dominant Victorian ideology of hegemonic masculinity arguing that bachelor figures are unrepresentable as masculine subjects in the selected Victorian narratives because they both disrupt and subvert the cultural patriarchal prerogatives and stereotypes. The analysis is based on Lacanian theory as well as Judith Butler's gender theory and examines four major Victorian narratives, namely, E. Bronte's Wuthering Heights, W. M. Thackeray's Vanity Fair, H. James's Roderick Hudson and O. Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.