Sowing Wild Oats: The Fallen Man in Late-Victorian Society Melodrama

Abstract

This essay won the 2006 Literature Compass Graduate Essay Prize, Victorian Section.

Perhaps better known for its portrayal of the fallen woman, late Victorian social melodrama also includes a group of plays which concentrate on profligate men. These plays reveal differences in Victorian attitudes to the moral behaviour of men and women. In ‘fallen woman’ plays the straying female protagonist almost invariably dies at the denouement. ‘Fallen men’ plays usually show a remorseful profligate attempting suicide by taking poison. But unlike his female counterpart, he does not always die. He is nearly always saved through the intervention of a good and pure woman. However, variations on this pattern of male self-poisoning do occur. In some plays the philanderer actually dies on stage. In other dramas with a hidden homosexual agenda, (by Wilde, Gray and Raffalovich), the ‘fallen’ male protagonist evades suicide and escapes to another life. Confrontation with a hidden past is another basic ingredient of late Victorian social melodrama. It is common to both those plays dealing with fallen men and those concerning fallen women. However, while the position of the central female protagonist is considerably stronger, men are shown to be weak and flawed. They lead secret lives which bring into question the ethics of moral purity. Dramatists, however, are restrained by the Lord Chamberlain's censorship. Although some, like Pinero, are highly critical of upper-class male philandering, major social issues, such as venereal disease, remain carefully veiled for the stage. Late Victorian dramatists go as far as they dare in portraying male dissolution, but ultimately they pander to the expectations of their audiences. The fallen man is reclaimed by female purity, while sympathy is invited for his plight from a predominantly upper-class audience. At the same time, the genre of the late Victorian ‘fallen man’ play attempts to provide a moralistic example for men tempted to stray.