Sexuality In Victorian England

The Victorian era is considered by many to be a period of intense sexual repression, as expressed in Sexualities in Victorian Britain: 'the Victorians were notorious as the great enemies of sexuality; indeed, in Freud's representative account, sexuality sometimes seems to be whatever it was that the middle-class Victorian mind attempted to hide, evade, repress, deny' (Miller and Adams, 1996). Modern critics such as Michal Foucault have recognised that Victorian prudery is no more than a ‘repressive hypothesis’ (Foucault, 1978) due to the ‘institutional incitement [in Victorian England] to speak about [sex], and to do so more and more; a determination on the part of the agencies of power to hear it spoken about, and to cause it to speak through
This essay aims to explore the manner in which the sexually repressed Victorian male manifests through the application of literary theory to Mr Rochester of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Doctor Jekyll of Robert Louis Stephenson’s The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Basil Hallward, of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian
Oscar Wilde’s aesthetic novel pertains to a Faustian contract which allows the titular character to lead a decadent, immoral lifestyle by causing the portrait’s image to change rather than Dorian’s, thus becoming an embodiment of his soul. Basil Hallward, the reclusive artist who painted Dorian’s portrait, is the character wherein the sexual subtext is most prevalent due to his obsessive idolisation of Dorian. This is evident from the incipient passages of the book, due to his reluctance to reveal Dorian’s name to Lord Henry for fear that he would spoil him. Additionally, there are a myriad of passages throughout the novel which hint at an infatuation rather than a simple artistic admiration; Basil professes that he ‘couldn’t be happier if [he] didn’t see him every day’ (Wilde and Elfenbein, 2007), that Dorian is ‘absolutely necessary to [him]’ (Wilde and Elfenbein, 2007),, and that Dorian ‘is much more to [him] than a model or a sitter’(Wilde and Elfenbein, 2007),. These quotes show the intensity of Basil’s affection for Dorian, which seems to extend beyond the realm of friendship. Additionally, Basil is depicted as becoming increasingly jealous throughout the novel, which is most prominent once the engagement of Dorian and Sybil is announced. Basil is described as being ‘silent and preoccupied’(Wilde and Elfenbein, 2007), with ‘a gloom over him’(Wilde and