Does The Nineteenth Century Novel Present A Critique Of Traditional Modes Of Masculinity?

Masculinity is a central theme in both The Picture of Dorian Gray and Wuthering Heights, and both novels examine traditional and modern models of masculinity, contemporary to the patriarchal nineteenth century which both are products of. While The Picture of Dorian Gray challenges the socially acceptable models of specifically bourgeois masculinity, Wuthering Heights reinforces class-based gender norms. The Picture of Dorian Gray focuses heavily upon the modern model of masculinity of the flâneur. The flâneur, whilst modern in the nineteenth century setting of the novel, relies upon traditional elements of masculinity, in terms of men being allowed the freedom to explore and wander the city, and the masculine trope of intelligence, which allows for the appreciation of art central to the identity of the flâneur. Charles Baudelaire, in his famous essay “The Painter of Modern Life”, defines the flâneur as a man who wants to “see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world” (Baudelaire, 9). The flâneur, Baudelaire writes, “goes and watches the river of life flow past him” (Baudelaire, 11) and “marvels at the eternal beauty and amazing harmony of life in the capital cities” (Baudelaire, 11). The flâneur is a model of masculinity preoccupied with the city, art, and the pursuit of pleasure. This, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, leads to immorality and debauchery, and is criticised as a model of masculinity by the novel. The more traditional forms of masculinity, specifically of the male defined through violence and power, or intelligence, are also undermined in the novel, and neither is depicted as a morally good, complete masculinity, both resulting ultimately in death. The novel promotes a non-traditional, non-heteronormative masculinity, allowing the development of male identity through interdependent, loving relations between men, reflected in Basil Hallward’s admiration of Dorian Gray. The selfish narcissism of the flâneur, who has an “air of coldness” (Baudelaire, 29) is criticised in contrast to this loving model of masculinity.
Wuthering Heights, by contrast, reinforces traditional bourgeois models of masculinity, specifically that of the gentleman. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “gentleman” as “a man of gentle birth, or having the same heraldic status as those of gentle birth properly, one who is entitled to bear arms, though not ranking among the nobility” (Oxford English Dictionary). The gentleman is a traditional model of masculinity specifically for bourgeois men, and is thus a role a man is entitled to by birth-right and middle class family lineage. It is a model of masculinity that is steeped in historical significance, and has connotations of chivalry and morality. The gentleman, as a result of his family lineage and laws of primogeniture, usually has wealth and property, or is in line to inherit these things. In Wuthering Heights, the traditional model of masculinity is brought into question through Heathcliff’s attempts to become a gentleman in spite of his lineage being not only unknown, but questionable. Heathcliff’s efforts are transparent, and Lockwood, the novel’s first narrator of many and a true gentleman, quickly sees that Heathcliff is not a gentleman by birth-right. Nevertheless, the novel’s presentation of the gentleman is not entirely straightforward, and through the characters of Hareton, Edgar Linton, and Heathcliff, the overall class-based notion of the gentleman is reinforced, but also questioned and explored in different lights. Wuthering Heights thus questions the traditional gentlemanly model of bourgeois masculinity, but offers no particularly compelling challenge to this model either, unlike The Picture of Dorian Gray, and traditional male gender norms are ultimately reinforced. The main model of masculinity presented in The Picture of Dorian Gray is that of the flâneur, a role perfectly embodied in Dorian Gray. Whilst Dorian begins the novel as a bourgeois gentleman, moving through the high circles of society in the manner typical of the flâneur, he is unconscious of the notion of flâneurism until Lord Henry draws his attention to his own life and his beauty. When Lord Henry makes Dorian conscious of the possibility of the flâneuristic lifestyle ceasing to exist for him, Dorian grows frantic, and goes to extremes of flâneuristic behaviour, which leads to moral debauchery. Previously unconscious of the power of his beauty, Lord Henry brings the question to Dorian that “now, wherever you go your beauty will charm the world. Will it always be so?” (Wilde, 21). In doing so, Dorian becomes aware of his own beauty, and terrified of losing it, and thereby losing his “charm”, losing that which has thus far allowed him to move so smoothly through upper class social spheres, giving him access to the high life of the flâneur. This consciousness of the power of beauty, beauty being a fascination of the flâneur’s, is what leads Dorian to wish to switch places with his portrait, and thus be perpetually beautiful, and perpetually a flâneur. Immediately, the flâneur is presented as narcissistic and self-absorbed, and Dorian shows himself willing to abandon all morality and “give my soul” (Wilde, 24) for beauty, and the pleasure-seeking life of the flâneur.

Dorian’s perpetual youth allows him to go to extremes of flâneurism, and consequently to extremes of immorality. Art is one of the chief passions of the flâneur, and in typically flâneuristic fashion, it is art which leads Dorian deeper into moral debauchery. Dorian finds the model of flâneurism in the book he is given by Lord Henry, which depicts the life of a model flâneur, a “young Parisian who spent his life trying to realise… passions” (Wilde, 100), the influence of which Dorian “never sought to free himself from” (Wilde, 102), and which inspires his own extreme behaviour and uninhibited pleasure seeking. Like the young Parisian, living in a capital city, Dorian Gray lives in London and explores the city and its beauty as is the custom of the flâneur. However, this trope of the flâneur is subverted in The Picture of Dorian Gray when Dorian, after murdering Basil Hallward and having a scientist and old friend dispose of the body, goes to the dark underbelly of the city, to opium dens, to dull the guilt this sin has engendered within him. The opium dens are places of pleasure, but not in the beautiful and artistic manner typically associated with the flâneur. Rather, they are described as “dens of horror, where the memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were new” (Wilde, 146), situated in a part of the city that is characterised by “ugliness… rather than… gracious[ness]” (Wilde, 147). In this subversion of the typical trope of the flâneur as an observer and explorer of the city, the novel shows the true immoral, self-centred nature of the flâneur, reflected by the dark and gruesome part of the city that the Dorian, the flâneur, is led to by the sins provoked by his self-absorbed life of pleasure and passion.

While Dorian at first revelled in his debauchery, observing the transition of his portrait from beautiful to ugly in accordance with his sins “with a monstrous and terrible delight” (Wilde, 103), his final sin of murder, a direct and irreversible act of violent immorality, forces Dorian to promise at last to “be good” (Wilde, 166), after his trip to the opium den to quell the anxiety and guilt of his actions. With this promise, Dorian is driven to destroy the painting, seized by “a wild longing for the unstained purity of his boyhood” (Wilde, 174), and tries to destroy the painting, thereby destroying the evidence of his immorality. However, in destroying the painting, Dorian kills himself- he cannot destroy his sins, without destroying himself, because despite his outward appearance, the painting speaks the truth of the sins that Dorian has in fact committed, the consequences of which are ultimately inescapable. In De Profundis, Wilde writes that “what one has done in the secret chamber one later has to cry aloud on the housetop” (Wilde, De Profundis). This view is expressed in The Picture of Dorian Gray in criticism of the flâneur, as the flâneur, embodied in Dorian, must ultimately bear the consequences of the immorality of his lifestyle, and when Dorian attempts to destroy the painting, not only is he killed himself, but he takes on all of the physical marks of his sins, while the painting returns to its original beautiful state, art being preserved while the flâneur, who professes to love art but actually, as Dorian shows, destroys art with his narcissism, is destroyed. Dorian dies ugly, “wrinkled, withered, and loathsome of visage” (Wilde, 177), his body finally bearing the marks of his immorality. Thus the flâneuristic model of masculinity is criticised in The Picture of Dorian Gray in spite of this model of masculinity being fashionable at the time of the novel’s production, as immoral, and the flâneuristic lifestyle, is punished with an ironically ugly death, in contrast to the flâneur’s preoccupation with the beautiful, at the close of the novel.

A similarly bourgeois figure of masculinity is brought into question in Wuthering Heights: the masculine figure of the gentleman. Judith Butler, in her essay “Critically Queer” discusses drag as a means of performing the stereotypical traits of a gender other than one’s own, and thereby bringing the artificial and contrived nature of these traits into sharper relief by demonstrating “the transferability of gender norms” (Butler: Lodge and Wood, 616). In Wuthering Heights, while Heathcliff does not take on the norms and behaviours of another gender, does in a sense perform gender norms that are not applicable to him socially because of his uncertain class and parentage. Heathcliff dons the dress of a gentleman, taking on specifically bourgeois masculine traits, which immediately subverts this model of masculinity and brings it into question. Abbie L. Cory argues that in doing so, Heathcliff “rebels against his place in the social hierarchy” (Cory, 1), and takes on the masculinity of men who are socially superior to him by birth right. However, Lockwood’s early descri ption of Heathcliff, one of the reader’s first impressions of him, suggests that this is not the case, and the transferability of the traits of the gentleman is questioned. Lockwood describes Heathcliff as “a dark-skinned gipsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman” (Bronte, 3), his outward appearance preventing Heathcliff from fully inhabiting the image of the gentleman, and undermining the rebellion that Cory proposes. Heathcliff, as a potential “gipsy”, is prevented from having the genteel lineage and ownership of land that is associated with being a gentleman, and it is evident in his appearance that he is not a member of the bourgeoisie, the class of the gentleman. Like Dorian Gray’s marred body at the end of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Heathcliff’s physical appearance shows what he attempts to conceal: that he is not a gentleman by rights. While Heathcliff attempts to become a gentleman as part of his vengeance upon both Hindley Earnshaw, who took away the bourgeois privileges Heathcliff had received when Hindley’s father was alive, and Edgar Linton, to whom Heathcliff’s love Cathy is married, because Heathcliff’s poverty and uncertain class made him a socially unacceptable choice as a husband, he fails in this endeavour. Heathcliff’s failure to become a gentleman reinforces the class-based definition of masculinity, specifically reinforcing the bourgeois model of masculinity of the gentleman, undermining Butler’s idea of “the transferability of gender norms”. That Lockwood passes this judgement upon Heathcliff strengthens this reinforcement of traditional models of masculinity, in that Lockwood is set up as a gentleman himself, and is, as Cory says, a source of authority for the reader as the novel’s first narrator, serving as “a guide for [the reader’s] own reactions” (Cory, 7).

Wuthering Heights also associates the gentleman with morality. In being at the top of the patriarchal hierarchy, as both the top of the class system and the superior gender, the gentleman naturally held some moral power in the society of nineteenth century England. This is reflected in Edgar Linton, who is a gentleman through the traditional manner of class and birth-right, and who is a magistrate, a legal arbitrator of morality. The moral element of bourgeois masculinity is another way in which Heathcliff’s class aspirations is brought into question and undermined. Heathcliff’s wealth, his only means of becoming a gentleman without any birth or class right, is treated with suspicion in the novel, with Nelly stating that “I know all about [his history] except where he was born, and who were his parents, and how he got his money at first” (Bronte, 30). The secrecy surrounding Heathcliff’s acquisition of wealth, especially for a gossip like Nelly, suggests immoral means, in contrast to the traditional means of inheritance and primogeniture. The things that Nelly confesses not to know about Heathcliff’s past undermine his claim to gentlemanliness, as these are the very things required for entitlement to this means of masculine self-definition. Later, Heathcliff increases his wealth and obtains more land, land in particular being associated with the bourgeois class of the gentleman, but this land is obtained by morally dubious means. Gambling is one of the main methods by which Heathcliff enhances his wealth, and is how he acquires Wuthering Heights. Yet gambling is an uncertain means of coming into possession of wealth, emphasising Heathcliff’s lack of class entitlement to the title of gentleman, while Edgar Linton, for instance, is guaranteed wealth through his class position and his inheritance of Thrushcross Grange under the laws of primogeniture. Masculinity is thus presented as inextricably bound up in class, and Heathcliff’s ultimate failure to embody bourgeois masculinity reinforces, rather than rebukes, the traditional class-based definition of masculinity.

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, two stereotypical tropes of masculinity are brought into contention: violence and intelligence. Andrew Smith points out that while both Frankenstein and The Picture of Dorian Gray are literary products of patriarchal nineteenth century England, “in Frankenstein, men make themselves men through science… it does not quite work like this in Wilde” (Smith, 172). Smith argues that in Oscar Wilde’s literature, science and intelligence “fail… to read character” (Smith, 172), and thus cannot be a means of defining identity, gender-based or otherwise. A dichotomy is set up between violence and debauchery, in Dorian’s character, and scientific intelligence in the character of Alan Campbell. While both of these characteristics are traditionally elements of the masculine identity, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, neither allows for a complete, or ethically sound, establishment of masculinity or male identity. While Dorian as the flâneur is set up as both violent and immoral, Alan Campbell is presented as a contrast to this model of masculinity, and is the embodiment of intelligent masculinity. While Alan Campbell feels himself to have a moral high ground over Dorian, and attempts to dissociate himself from him to the point that “when they met in society now, it was only Dorian Gray who smiled Alan Campbell never did” (Wilde, 131), he is also portrayed in a questionable light by the novel, and the intelligent model of masculinity which Smith describes is brought into question in The Picture of Dorian Gray. One of Campbell’s main flaws is that he has “no appreciation of the visual arts” (Wilde, 131). By contrast, the debauched flâneur is defined by an interest in and passion for art. The novel criticises both the flâneur, and the intellectual, as neither provides a complete model of masculinity, with the intellectual’s fault lying in one of the key elements of the flâneur. Furthermore, although Campbell has the traditionally masculine trope of intelligence, the overall impression of him in the novel is one of feminine weakness, both in his terror of Dorian, and his suicide. Suicide in literature is typically a feminine behaviour, which reflects female hysteria, weakness, and irrationality, yet it is how Alan Campbell meets his end, and the reader cannot help but wonder whether his suicide was provoked by the gruesome task he is set by Dorian of disposing of Basil Hallward’s body. The very thing which defines Campbell’s masculinity- science- is also that which potentially leads to his suicide. This link between Dorian and the death of Alan Campbell also adds to the criticism of masculinity through violence, as Dorian’s violent murder of Basil Hallward makes him indirectly responsible for yet another death, adding to Dorian’s sins.

There is a similar dichotomy set up between violence and masculinity in Wuthering Heights, which is bound up in the novel’s understanding of the masculine figure of the gentleman. This dichotomy reinforces traditional models of masculinity further, but not unquestioningly, and is explored through Heathcliff and his double Hareton Earnshaw, whom Heathcliff uses as a means of taking his revenge upon Hindley, Hareton’s father. Heathcliff enacts violence upon Hareton, by treating him in the way that Hindley treated him, in order to seek vengeance, confessing to Nelly that “Hareton seemed a personification of my youth” (Bronte, 288). However, unlike Heathcliff, Hareton is, according to the laws of primogeniture, the heir to land (Wuthering Heights belonging to Hindley Earnshaw), a member of the bourgeoisie- he is, according to social laws, a gentleman. Yet, as a consequence of Heathcliff’s violent abuse, Hareton becomes rough, while Heathcliff takes his land and takes on some of the traits of a gentleman, the two switching places. Hareton, denied the education that bourgeois boys would typically receive, and which Heathcliff himself received before Mr Earnshaw’s death, earnestly seeks to improve his intellect independently when young Cathy makes him ashamed of his illiteracy.

By contrast, Heathcliff fails to obtain the masculine quality of intellect, a particularly gentlemanly element of masculinity. Young Cathy points out, “Mr Heathcliff never reads” (Bronte, 226), and is even violent in preventing others from doing so, “he took it into his head to destroy my books” (Bronte, 226), the verb “destroy” suggesting an extraneous amount of vehemence in the removal of books from Cathy. Just as Heathcliff was stopped from being educated by Hindley, a privilege of the upper classes in nineteenth century, so he removes this privilege from those like Hareton and young Cathy, whose class entitled them to education, according to nineteenth century social norms. Hareton, by contrast, seeks to redress this educational lack himself, and does so with humility, in contrast to Heathcliff’s malice. In doing so, Hareton begins a chain reaction that leads to him coming to fully inhabit the traditional masculine figure of the gentleman that he was entitled to from birth. While Cathy is scornful of Hareton’s efforts to learn to read, she eventually feels guilty for mocking him, and “her conscience reproved her” (Bronte, 277). The notion that it is Cathy’s conscience, an innate sense of what is right and wrong, that tells her that working to perpetuate Hareton’s ignorance is wrong, furthers the novels adherence to the traditional model of bourgeois masculinity, as in spite of Hareton’s working class appearance, Cathy has an innate realisation of his entitlement to education, regardless of his appearance, because he is, in actuality, a member of the same upper class as she. This guilt leads to two important developments for Hareton: one is that Cathy, teaches him to read, and the other is that in doing so, he and Cathy fall in love. Thus, in learning to read, Hareton begins to have the education that most middle class men were entitled to, and begins to develop the characteristic intelligence of the gentleman. His matrimonial engagement to Cathy also enables Hareton to inherit the property that would originally have been his by the laws of primogeniture, laws of property inheritance that ensure the continuation of male bourgeois superiority, the superior wealth and power of the gentleman. Not only this, but Hareton also stands to inherit additional land, that of Thrushcross Grange, through his marriage to Cathy.

In falling in love with and becoming engaged to Cathy, he not only obtains a wife, but also inherits her property when Heathcliff dies, thereby obtaining not only the land that he was entitled to by primogeniture before Heathcliff’s intrusion, but also additional land, that of Thrushcross Grange. Hareton thus has all of the material attributes of the gentleman, exactly those attributes which Heathcliff had and which, before his death, he told Nelly “I wish I could annihilate it from the face of the earth” (Bronte, 296), so anxious was he to avoid this property offering any benefit to the people he had used so carefully in his pursuit of revenge. In Hareton acquiring Heathcliff’s property, the imagery of doubling between the two is important again, as Hareton has all that Heathcliff had, but unlike Heathcliff, Hareton is able to fully inhabit the role of the gentleman. While Lockwood’s descri ption of Heathcliff at the start of the novel shows a questionable figure of a gentleman, his descri ption of Hareton at the end of the novel brings the novel full circle, reinforcing traditional gender norms as Hareton inhabits the role of the gentleman completely in Lockwood’s descri ption, a role to which he is entitled to by birth:

“…he was a young man, respectably dressed, and seated at a table, having a book before him. His handsome features glowed with pleasure, and his eyes kept impatiently wandering from the page to the small white hand on his shoulder…” (Bronte, 273).

Lockwood describes an image frequently found in nineteenth century novels depicting gentleman, of a gentleman reading, a typically bourgeois pastime. Use of the adverb “respectably” marks just how changed Hareton is, as before Lockwood was unsure as to whether Hareton was even a member of the family living in Wuthering Heights, or simply a work boy. His appearance, unlike Heathcliff’s, confirms that Hareton is a gentleman, as he physically embodies the role. Furthermore, Hareton’s happy ending with Cathy is in contrast to Heathcliff’s turbulent love with Cathy’s mother. This final doubling between Heathcliff and Hareton reinforces social norms, as it is the true bourgeois gentleman, and the socially sanctioned relationship between the bourgeois man and woman, that is triumphant, whilst attempts at inter-class relationships such as Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, ultimately lead only to misery.

However, Hareton does not become a gentleman solely by birth-right- as his struggle to read shows, he must work to fulfil this role. While the novel does support the class element of the gentlemanly manifestation of masculinity, this is not done unquestioningly. In particular, Edgar Linton shows that being a gentleman by birth-right is not necessarily an assurance of being treated as superior in the way that is that is socially expected for the bourgeois man. Although Edgar is a gentleman in terms of owning property and his genteel family lineage, he is presented as feminine in many ways, and is frequently under female control, undermining his masculinity and denying him the respect that a gentleman was socially entitled to. A strong example of this femininity is when Nelly praises his care for his dying wife to Lockwood, telling him that “no mother could have nursed an only child more devotedly than Edgar tended her” (Bronte, 118). Nelly describes Edgar in an overtly feminine manner, comparing him to a “mother”, and while this seems intended as praise, it nonetheless undermines Edgar’s masculinity by making him the inferior in his relationship with Cathy, placing him under her control and in her service, while the opposite, according to nineteenth century gender hierarchies, ought to be the case. The novel thus opens up questions about what it means to be a gentleman, both criticising violence, which undermines the moralistic element of being a gentleman, and questioning gentleness, which denies one the treatment of a gentleman. Yet the novel goes full circle, Heathcliff beginning as inferior, and in death returning thus, as his property passes back into the possession of its rightful owner, back into normative social structures. The novel opens up questions about masculinity, but provides no conclusive answer to these, and offers no major challenge to gender and class norms with regard to the bourgeois man’s entitlement to being a gentleman. This perhaps implies an apathy to these norms, a sense that they are questionable, but ultimately fixed.

The public reception of both Wuthering Heights and The Picture of Dorian Gray has been heavily shaped by their relationship to and portrayal of masculinity. In the case of The Picture of Dorian Gray, the contemporary public response to the novel’s first publication was one of scandal, and the novel’s author, Oscar Wilde, was questioned by Edward Carson about the homosexual subtext of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Carson asking whether “The affection and love of the artist of Dorian Gray might lead an ordinary person to believe that it might have a certain tendency?” (Smith, 150). This is, of course, in reference to Basil Hallward’s fixation with Dorian Gray, and reflects just how ingrained in society gender norms truly are, as when these norms are called into question, as they are in Dorian Gray, the challenge is treated as criminal, so threatening is it to social norms. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Basil Hallward evinces a deep affection for Dorian, describing him to Henry as “the one person who gives my art whatever charm it possesses” (Wilde, 15). Dorian, for Basil, serves as a means of understanding and expressing himself, shown through his feeling that “I have put too much of myself into” (Wilde, 6) his painting of Dorian. This undermines social conceptions of male superiority and challenges heteronormative sexuality, as it sets up a dependent relationship between Basil and Dorian, with Basil not having an independent, masculine sense of identity, but requiring another man for this.

When the art through which Basil experiences self-realisation is destroyed, as a reflection of the destruction of Dorian, Basil can no longer exist, as he is dependent upon Dorian for his sense of identity. The change in Basil’s painting marks a change in the individual upon whom his identity is reliant, thus Basil must die because his identity is, along with the painting in which it is revealed, destroyed. Inter-dependent male relationships are depicted as beautiful by the novel through the medium of art. It is Basil’s artistic portrayal of Dorian, which is inspired by non-heteronormative, male admiration and love of another male, which survives at the end of the novel. The painting, upon the death of its destroyer, returns to its original beautiful state, and is “splendid” (Wilde, 177) once more- art inspired by love is preserved and is triumphant in its beauty, . By contrast, self-love in its extreme manifestation as narcissism, is destroyed, and Dorian dies ugly and miserable, paying for his sins while the legacy of Basil, in his art, and the original, pure image of Dorian, which inspired love and art, is ultimately beautiful. The only male behaviour that the novel presents in a positive light is a non-heteronormative, romantic model of masculinity, far from the independent and self-serving models traditionally promoted in patriarchal society, such as that of the flâneur.

Similarly, Wuthering Heights caused scandal in the first few years of its publication. When Wuthering Heights was originally published in 1847, it was published under the male pseudonym Ellis Bell, hiding the true identity of its female author, Emily Bronte. While the novel received much attention and criticism for failing to fit in with the perceived moralistic purpose of the novel in the nineteenth century, with readers struggling to find a conclusive moral or message in the novel, it also attracted much praise while readers believed the author to be male. Violence as a masculine trait was reinforced by the first reaction to Wuthering Heights. Nicola Thompson points out that “when Wuthering Heights was thought to be by a male Ellis Bell, it was shocking, but at the same time was praised for its masculine-associated qualities- power, originality, the way in which it differentiated itself from ‘effeminate works’. Its problem was that it went too far in this direction: ironically, it was too ‘male’” (Thompson, 361). While the content of the novel seems to advocate traditional masculinity, the violent narrative style, including obscenities, and the uncensored expression of passion and violence within the novel transfer masculine traits to the novel’s female author, allowing the author herself to subvert gender norms.

Within the novel, while traditional masculinity prevails, traditional femininity is gently challenged, and more questions are opened up about femininity than masculinity, in the content of the novel and in the fact that such a masculine novel has a female author. This is reflected in the intelligence of young Cathy as she teaches Hareton to read, in spite of him being the supposedly superior male in their relationship. Young Cathy’s greater intelligence gives her the superior position over Hareton, and she playfully mocks his intellect as she teaches him to read, calling him a “dunce” (Bronte, 273), and teasing him from her position of elevated intelligence, undermining his masculinity just as her mother undermined that of Linton. Unlike her mother, young Cathy plans to marry for love, not for social advantage, as was socially expected. In spite of this, young Cathy’s marriage does fulfil social norms even whilst being for love, in that Hareton is by rights a gentleman and a member of the bourgeoisie. Once again, even whilst challenging gender norms, the novel reinforces them in relation to class norms. Women may have power, but only to an extent. Cathy may teach Hareton to read, but she must still marry a gentleman, must still subscribe to the female role of the wife. In marrying Hareton, Cathy’s beloved Thrushcross Grange passes into his hands, and her home is only allowed to remain hers through the medium of a man. Bourgeois masculinity, in the novel, is the ultimate source of power, in spite of all of the power that strong women threaten.

Modern readers remain preoccupied with the portrayal of masculinity in Wuthering Heights and The Picture of Dorian Gray, still uncomfortable with the questions posed to traditional, socially entrenched gender norms in both. Contemporary interpretations of both works have tended to rework the novels to fit more comfortably in with the prevailing superiority of traditional masculinity in the patriarchal society that remains predominant in England. Oliver Parker’s film adaptation of Wilde’s novel is simply titled Dorian Gray, rather than taking on the full title of the novel. The film places Dorian himself as thus subjugates the importance of art that is so central to the novel, to the importance of the man. The trailer for the film presents Dorian as sexy and mysterious, appealing rather than disgusting as he is in the novel, subverting the novel’s criticism of the flâneur to make the degradation of the flâneur in the novel less repellent, and thus making the flâneur more socially acceptable. Similarly, while nineteenth century readers struggled with the absence of a clear moral message in Wuthering Heights, Thompson asserting that while “almost all reviewers search for a moral, are troubled at their inability to find one, and sometimes invent their own in compensation.” (Thompson, 346), modern interpretations of Wuthering Heights have been careful to read a promotion of gender normativity in Wuthering Heights, in spite of the questions posed by the novel. Kate Bush’s song “Wuthering Heights”, which is inspired by the novel, portrays Heathcliff’s immorality in a most dramatic manner, referring to Heathcliff as “cruel Heathcliff” and showing the misery and isolation Cathy experiences at the hands of this powerful but immoral and self-serving man. Heathcliff is thus undermined as a gentleman and portrayed as a villain in this modern interpretation. Both Wuthering Heights and The Picture of Dorian Gray ultimately pose questions about traditional models of masculinity which would have been unsettling for their original nineteenth century audiences, and which in many ways remain so for the modern reader. While both pose questions, Wuthering Heights does not offer a strong challenge to traditional models of masculinity, or propose any real alternatives, ultimately reinforcing the bourgeois model of masculinity that is the gentleman. The Picture of Dorian Gray, however, does challenge traditional models of masculinity, and it is only non-heteronormative, potentially homosexual portrayals of masculinity, which defy the traditional models, that escape criticism and have any positive consequences at all in the novel.

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Works Cited

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Kate Bush. “Wuthering Heights”, The Kick Inside. Parlophone Records Ltd, 1978. CD.

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Cory, Abbie L. “ ‘Out of My Brother’s Power’: Gender, Class, and Rebellion in Wuthering Heights.” Women’s Studies: An inter-disciplinary journal, 34:1 (2006). pp. 1-26. Print.

gentleman. Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford University Press, n.d. Web. 21.04.2015.

Dorian Gray. Dir. Oliver Parker. Momentum Pictures, 2010. DVD.

Smith, Andrew. Victorian Demons: Medicine, Masculinity and the Gothic Fin-de-Siècle. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004.

Thompson, Nicola. “The Unveiling of Ellis Bell.” Women’s Studies: An inter-disciplinary journal, 24:4 (1995). pp. 341- 367. Print.

Wilde, Oscar. “De Profundis.” The Project Gutenberg eBook. Transcribed from the 1913 Methuen & Co. edition by David Price. 13.04.07. Web. 20.04.2015.

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Ltd, 1992. Print.

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