Bachelor’s Life, Idyllic Nostalgia, and Homoeroticism: Male Domesticity in Edwardian Children’s Literature
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Mok, Fan
Abstract
This thesis begins with my doubts on the close link between Victorian bourgeois domesticity and femininity. Recent scholars have studied “domestic masculinity” of mid-Victorian married men, yet they ignore “male domesticity” of late-Victorian and Edwardian bachelors, particularly when the cases come from children’s texts. In this thesis I intend to dissect bachelor’s life, idyllic nostalgia and homoeroticism in the representations of male domesticity in J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan (1911), Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows (1908), and Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes (1911). I also adopt two far-reaching series featuring bachelor’s friendship, male domesticity and homoerotic potentials as references. One is Thomas Hughes’ Tom Brown series, including Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857) and Tom Brown at Oxford (1861), both fusing Victorian boy’s adventure story and the public school story. The other is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes (1887-1927), the world-renowned detective series and male romance.
By juxtaposing adult fiction such as Sherlock Holmes with Edwardian children’s literature, I put the above three texts into the crossover fiction category with intertexuality to evidence the existence of adult issues like homoeroticism in children’s texts. With regard to scholars of children’s literature and gender theory, I share with them the critical perspectives of childhood, Victorian domesticity and male homosociality; however, I further analyze the ways writers of Edwardian children’s literature use to transform the tabooed issue of homosexuality into homoerotic hints. By targeting their texts at duel readership, they emphasize friendship of cohabited bachelors and exclude feminized domesticity in their works.
By juxtaposing adult fiction such as Sherlock Holmes with Edwardian children’s literature, I put the above three texts into the crossover fiction category with intertexuality to evidence the existence of adult issues like homoeroticism in children’s texts. With regard to scholars of children’s literature and gender theory, I share with them the critical perspectives of childhood, Victorian domesticity and male homosociality; however, I further analyze the ways writers of Edwardian children’s literature use to transform the tabooed issue of homosexuality into homoerotic hints. By targeting their texts at duel readership, they emphasize friendship of cohabited bachelors and exclude feminized domesticity in their works.
Subjects
homoeroticism
the Edwardian era
children’s literature
intertexuality
Peter Pan
The Wind in the Willows
Beatrix Potter
Tom Brown
Sherlock Holmes
Type
thesis
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