In Victorian culture the paradigms of masculinity shifted over the period of time. The First Boer War of 1880, for example, changed many aspects of Victorian cultural and social map. The crisis of masculinity becomes an acute issue for Victorian men as they are losing, power or privilege relative to their prior status in places such as family, work, education. There is also a shift in men’s “experiences of their position as men, their maleness, and what it means” (Dyer 8). They feel powerless and uncertain, confused and even lost.

Many works of fiction give meaning to a disintegrated body through the power of language. A wounded, displaced, lost, or even a disabled male body, in the case of the returned veteran, is associated with the ‘Other’, fragile and passive. The male is often estranged from a collective identity and suffers in solitude in an attempt to achieve a meaningful masculine identity, having to come to terms with the notion of what men are and what they should be. The project will explore the ambiguities of manhood and masculinity in the selected novels of the Victorian and Edwardian era, which deal with the instability of masculinity, male rivalry and female disdain.



Keywords: manhood, masculinity, crisis, identity, gender roles, disability, male body