Quotation: Champnell on Lessingham: “He might have been almost shaken to pieces, – but the very severity of the shaking served to divert his thoughts from the one dread topic which threatened to absorb them to the exclusion of all else beside. Then there was the tonic influence of the element of risk…it seemed to me that he was getting a firmer hold of the strength which had all but escaped him, and that with every jog and jolt he was becoming more and more of a man.” (p. 342)

Comment:

This quote showcases a very common theme throughout this book that I have noticed, which is the contrast between femininity and masculinity.  Multiple times, women have been depicted as hysterical and associated with a lack of control, such as with Dora’s apparently unnecessary rage at Atherton near the beginning, while masculinity has been characterized by bravery, sensibility, and calm.  This is remarked upon in one essay as being present in the novel and embodying “the Victorian ideal of masculinity as a combination of abundant energy and masterly self-control” (Jones 2011).  The abundant energy portion is defined in The Beetle as the willingness to undertake missions that contain risk and even on occasion to physically fight, while the self-control, as I have defined, is the capability to remain cool in these situations and not take on feminine characteristics.

This consideration of checking oneself brings us to another lesson given by The Beetle: one on transformations.  Lessingham’s fear of The Beetle has been approximated as even reaching the point of “feminine hysterics.”  Much as The Beetle regularly changes forms between young and old, man and woman, and of course insect and human, Paul Lessingham frequently undergoes a transformation between two forms, feminine and masculine, in his form of reaction to the situation unfolding.  Another essay remarks that Gothic literature often refers to liminality between human and animal in the form of a monster that is not quite either, as The Beetle functions in this case.  This essay, however, seems to have not noticed that some form of transformation or, to relate the human more to the animal as that essay does, “evolution” takes place in Lessingham as well.  As said article states, “the processes by which the monster becomes a monster have now to be understood in the context of Darwinian evolution” (Ortiz-Robles 2015). The monster goes from human to animal, reflecting Victorian fears that humans would evolve, or rather devolve, to a more despicable state; The Beetle was not initially the horror it is depicted as, though it did start as an unrespectable person.  In the same way, the experience that Lessingham underwent in Cairo caused him to evolve into a fearful being, though he was mostly able to keep this secret, and he is often able to return from that state.  This state, in its fight-or-flight mentality, can be thought of as just as primal and animalistic as the antagonist.

Question: What sort of events might the author have experienced or witnessed that made him realize the importance of self-control? Was he inspired to write Paul Lessingham the way he did upon noticing masculine heroes in other Gothic literature that also had to maintain self-control but did not do so as obviously and so could not offer as much of a lesson in that area; for instance, Mr. Utterson in his first encounter with Hyde?

Works Cited

Mario Ortiz-Robles (2015) Liminanimal, European Journal of English Studies, 19:1, 10-23, DOI: 10.1080/13825577.2015.1004922

Anna Maria Jones. (2011) CONSERVATION OF ENERGY, INDIVIDUAL AGENCY, AND GOTHIC TERROR IN RICHARD MARSH’S THE BEETLE, OR, WHAT’S SCARIER THAN AN ANCIENT, EVIL, SHAPE-SHIFTING BUG? Victorian Literature and Culture, Cambridge University Press. 39, 65–85. doi:10.1017/S1060150310000276