Masculinity in the Later Novels of Thomas Hardy

This thesis explores the representation of masculinity in Thomas Hardy’s works, in an attempt to understand his reactions to the socio-economic changes and materialism of the late nineteenth century. With the spread of a credit finance economy, Hardy saw investment culture generating economic, social and psychological turmoil. His particular concern was with the disappearance of absolute value (of gold), which was replaced by the relativism of fictional paper money, such as shares, bonds, and cheques. The objective of the thesis is to examine Hardy’s male characters in connection with the exchange systems of money, women and words, which I call, as one integrated system, the symbolic economy. To do this, the thesis adopts two perspectives. The first is the analysis of male characters according to the constructionist gender theories initiated by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. What becomes clear is that male homosocial desire is interlaced with non-gender issues, such as national identity, and the rise of writing culture replacing orality. Through these interactions, the analysis will consider the formation of distinctive styles of masculinity. However, a pattern emerges that is incongruous with gender studies. Compromised masculinity is accompanied by a ghostly image of the world. In this, the issue of gender relationships recedes into the background, and the world of objects comes forward as a threat to men. At this point, my argument shifts to focus on the connection between men in relation to the world of objects. To augment the argument for this second perspective, I adopt Bill Brown’s Thing Theory. By exploiting his concept of ‘thingness’, in conjunction with a consideration of allegory and metonymy, the thesis exposes materialism in the act of abstracting human subjectivity. In Hardy’s novels, male subjects are threatened by objectification into simulacra by the world of objects. By employing these two perspectives, the thesis reveals Hardy’s philosophy about the integrated network of the symbolic economy, in which gender is only a part, albeit an important one. The novels examined in the thesis are: The Trumpet-Major, The Mayor of Casterbridge, The Woodlanders, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure.