“To his finger-tips a fighting man”: toxic masculinity in fin-de-siècle imperial gothic literature

Abstract

In our modern times, toxic masculinity has become a buzzword spouted by the media, scholars, and the woman on the street venting to her friends. Many conceive of this as a new phenomenon in which a small subset of men are regressing to cavemen mentality as a reactionary response to newfound gender ideologies that have proliferated in modern society. “To His Fingertips a Fighting Man:” Toxic Masculinity in Fin-de-Siècle Imperial Gothic Literature aims to refute this notion of toxic masculinity as a modern phenomenon by looking at its underpinnings in the late Victorian era. The rise of the New Woman, threats to British imperialism, and an increasingly visible immigrant class constituted significant concerns to white men’s traditionally unquestioned place of power at the fin de siècle. I highlight how figures of change like the New Woman and imperial subjects were demonized in literature of the period in an attempt to foster suspicion and animosity toward their growing autonomy. Through an exploration of Imperial Gothic texts, I demonstrate how divisive rhetoric was weaponized against women and people of color in order to justify their continued subjugation under patriarchal control. I also exhibit toxic masculinity as not simply limited to the extreme misogyny, racism, and violence that most people today associate with the term, but instead illustrate how discourses that patronize, dehumanize, or alienate marginalized groups are implicated in toxically masculine culture. I exhibit toxic masculinity as insidious due to the antagonistic relationships that it fosters between men within the dominant society and everyone with whom they interact. I additionally show how toxic masculinity harms men within the dominant culture by limiting them to a narrow expression of supposedly appropriate masculinity. The discursive techniques that I analyze in fin-de-siècle texts are remarkably similar to those used by toxically masculine men today, proving a consistency to these beliefs that belies the century plus difference between them