When presented with the Labouchere Amendment in 1885, Queen Victoria refused to sign due to the references to lesbianism saying, “Women didn’t do such things”. It’s an entertaining story and yet, it’s a myth, one that began circulating in the 1970’s (“Background: Myth on Victorian and ban on Homosexuality”), and its popularity continues since it fits with the modern idea of prudish, sexually repressed Victorians. While we don’t know Queen Victoria’s views on homosexuality, we do know she had a happy, fulfilling sexual relationship with her husband and therein lies the dichotomy about the Victorian’s attitude to sexuality and gender, too reticent to speak about sexual matters in plain words and yet sexuality and gender roles was at the
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Hyde, with its all-male world where no character has a significant relationship with a woman; they are “men who thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company” (9). Utterson and Enfield treasure their Sunday walks together, though “it was a nut to crack for many, what these two could see in each other, or what subject they could find in common” (5) and the infrequent appearance of women as maids or servants do not interrupt this world of male bonding. Eve Sedgwick called gothic fiction “the first novelistic form in England to have close, relatively visible links to male homosexuality” (Sedgwick, 91) and her theory of male bonding giving rise to a fear of homosexuality is demonstrated in Jekyll and Hyde. Utterson immediately thinks of blackmail to explain the nature of Jekyll’s relationship to Hyde “It turns me cold to think of this creature stealing like a thief to Harry’s bedside” (12). The Labouchere Amendment which was enforced in 1885, just before the novella was published, quickly became known as “the Blackmailer’s charter” (Tucker, 135), with many gay men fearful of being ‘outed’ by blackmailers. Therefore, in Stevenson’s London, a man’s reputation is a precarious thing and must be protected. Enfield can even threaten someone who flouts society’s rules like Hyde with “we told the man we could and would make such a scandal out of this as should make his name stink …show more content…
The strange murder of Danvers Carew “An aged beautiful gentleman” and “a very pretty manner of politeness”, is observed by a maid looking out the upstairs, she does not hear what is said, only “It did not seem as if the subject of his address were of great importance; indeed, from his pointing, it sometimes appeared as if he were only inquiring his way” (14). The homosexual undertone here is obvious; a feminised man approaches a young man on the street at night, causing the younger man (Hyde), to beat him to death. Though Stevenson gives the explanation later that occurred due to the violent makeup of the monstrous Hyde’s character, to the reader it would have seemed like a homophobic attack, perhaps by one who feared his sexuality was evident to others, after all, Jekyll calls him “closer than a wife”. Stevenson places homosexuality, or rather, the implication of homosexuality, in a world of doctors and lawyers, preventing the reader from disassociating themselves from it, unable to dismiss homosexuality as the provenance of the aristocrats or artists. Instead, it’s there at the heart of the most respectable of Victorian society, the middle-class.
Roger Luckhurst in his introduction to Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde unsure about the queer readings of the novel, calling it the “modern obsession with
Hyde, with its all-male world where no character has a significant relationship with a woman; they are “men who thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company” (9). Utterson and Enfield treasure their Sunday walks together, though “it was a nut to crack for many, what these two could see in each other, or what subject they could find in common” (5) and the infrequent appearance of women as maids or servants do not interrupt this world of male bonding. Eve Sedgwick called gothic fiction “the first novelistic form in England to have close, relatively visible links to male homosexuality” (Sedgwick, 91) and her theory of male bonding giving rise to a fear of homosexuality is demonstrated in Jekyll and Hyde. Utterson immediately thinks of blackmail to explain the nature of Jekyll’s relationship to Hyde “It turns me cold to think of this creature stealing like a thief to Harry’s bedside” (12). The Labouchere Amendment which was enforced in 1885, just before the novella was published, quickly became known as “the Blackmailer’s charter” (Tucker, 135), with many gay men fearful of being ‘outed’ by blackmailers. Therefore, in Stevenson’s London, a man’s reputation is a precarious thing and must be protected. Enfield can even threaten someone who flouts society’s rules like Hyde with “we told the man we could and would make such a scandal out of this as should make his name stink …show more content…
The strange murder of Danvers Carew “An aged beautiful gentleman” and “a very pretty manner of politeness”, is observed by a maid looking out the upstairs, she does not hear what is said, only “It did not seem as if the subject of his address were of great importance; indeed, from his pointing, it sometimes appeared as if he were only inquiring his way” (14). The homosexual undertone here is obvious; a feminised man approaches a young man on the street at night, causing the younger man (Hyde), to beat him to death. Though Stevenson gives the explanation later that occurred due to the violent makeup of the monstrous Hyde’s character, to the reader it would have seemed like a homophobic attack, perhaps by one who feared his sexuality was evident to others, after all, Jekyll calls him “closer than a wife”. Stevenson places homosexuality, or rather, the implication of homosexuality, in a world of doctors and lawyers, preventing the reader from disassociating themselves from it, unable to dismiss homosexuality as the provenance of the aristocrats or artists. Instead, it’s there at the heart of the most respectable of Victorian society, the middle-class.
Roger Luckhurst in his introduction to Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde unsure about the queer readings of the novel, calling it the “modern obsession with