A Passing Phase or a Sexual Preference?
Understanding Homosexual Identities in Two Victorian Horror Stories
Nowhere is the Victorian obsession with illicit sexuality more obvious than in the horror
stories and the supernatural tales that the era produced. From Dracula’s voluptuous, sexually
aggressive brides to Heathcliff’s vaguely necrophilic obsession with Cathy’s body in Wuthering
Heights, tales abound in which sexuality is portrayed as dark and threatening. Yet, somewhat
surprisingly, Victorian authors did not always maintain a fearful posture toward portrayals of
homosexuality, one of the era’s most common forms of sexual “abnormality.” Rather, some
authors embraced the prevailing views of the Victorian era, which condoned expressions of
homoeroticism in youth as a developmental step toward heterosexual adulthood, while others
presented subtle arguments for the acknowledgement of an alternative sexual identity. In two
famous Victorian horror stories – Lady Audley’s Secret, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson – male characters exhibit
attraction toward members of their own sex. Yet the two authors differ in their views on the
sexual identity of such men. In Braddon’s work, she strongly implies a homoerotic attachment
between Robert Audley and his friend George, but she characterizes Robert’s homosexual urges
as a lingering element of his youth that he must overcome in order to enter adulthood. In
contrast, Stevenson’s novella implies that the homosexuality of Dr. Jekyll is an indelible element
of Jekyll’s character, and the doctor’s destruction is presented as a consequence of his inability to
reconcile his sexuality with social convention. Thus, while Braddon embraces the Victorian view
that individuals can outgrow same-sex attractions to become heterosexual adults, Stevenson
proposes a more modern viewpoint wherein same-sex attractions can comprise a wholly separate
sexual identity.
1 In Lady Audley’s Secret, Braddon repeatedly emphasizes the homoerotic elements of
Robert Audley’s relationship with George Talboys, but she carefully ties Robert’s same-sex
attractions to a notion of his inability to discard his youthful ways. In Robert’s introduction, he is
simultaneously described as both childishly listless and vaguely effeminate. Braddon writes that
he is a “handsome, lazy, care-for-nothing fellow of about seven and twenty” who enjoys
“reading French novels” and can often be found “with his shirt collar turned down and a blue silk
handkerchief tied loosely about his neck” (Braddon 32). She therefore draws a connection
between his failure to mature into fully functional adulthood and his flamboyant style of dress
and penchant for French literature, a symbol of sexually illicit material. Braddon deepens the
relationship between Robert’s idle, lethargic demeanor and his sexual ambiguity when she notes
that despite his female cousin’s obvious affection for him, the “highest point to which
enthusiasm [can] carry him” is to call her a “jolly girl” (33), rather than to court her. With this
subtext clearly established, the reader is unsurprised when Robert longs to reminisce with
George over “those good old times when they were together at Eton” (Braddon 35). As literary
critic Jennifer Kushnier notes, this reference to Eton, a well-known hotbed of homosexual
relationships among young men, “signal[s] to [Braddon’s] readers than this school was
instrumental in creating the homosocial-homoerotic Robert Audley” (Kushnier). In other words,
Braddon makes it clear that Robert’s sexual ambiguity represents an inability to move past the
homoerotic environment that he experienced at Eton in order to develop into a fully realized
adult man.
When George later vanishes, Robert’s homoerotic attachment to his friend leads him to
investigate the crime and to uncover the malevolence of Lady Audley; but rather than lending
legitimacy to his homosexual desires, Robert’s quest forces him to symbolically “overcome” his
2 sexual ambivalence. In the immediate wake of George’s disappearance, Robert establishes a
direct tension between his passion for George and his potential for a heterosexual lifestyle when
he notes that he would “freely give up” both his fortune and the prospect of marrying Alicia if
“George Talboys could stand by [his] side” (Braddon 161). Yet in the course of investigating
Lady Audley’s role in George’s apparent death, Robert is forced to face his conflicted feelings
about the female sex through the bond he forges with George’s sister, Clara. When Robert first
encounters Clara, he repeatedly emphasizes her similarity to George, noting that she is “so like
George Talboys” (Braddon 187), and shares his “brown eyes” (Braddon 197) and even his
handwriting (Braddon 209). Almost immediately, these similarities lead Robert to begin
transferring his affections for his friend to Clara; he remarks, “If poor George were sitting
opposite to me, or—or even George’s sister…existence might be a little more endurable”
(Braddon 208), thus demonstrating a conflation of the Talboys siblings in Robert’s mind. This
growing affection for a woman forces Robert into a painfully reflective state, in which he wildly
oscillates between passionate devotion to Clara and embittered rage at all women. He initially
declares, “I’d better submit myself to the brown-eyed girl [Clara]…What a wonderful solution to
life’s enigma there is in petticoat government!” (Braddon 206), but soon thereafter remarks, “I
hate women…They’re bold, brazen, abominable creatures, invented for the annoyance and
destruction of their superiors” (Braddon 207). In this apparent self-contradiction, Robert finally
engages with his ambivalence about women in order to prepare himself for a relationship with
Clara – and indeed, he emerges from his contemplation again “thinking of George’s sister”
(Braddon 208). This passage can therefore be read as a pivotal moment in his development
toward manhood and heterosexuality.
3 The fact that Robert progresses from youthful homoeroticism to mature heterosexuality
in the process of pursuing Lady Audley is no accident, as his ability to overpower his uncle’s
wife represents his conquest of female sexuality and the final banishment of his same-sex
desires. Throughout the novel, Braddon reveals that Lady Audley, despite her “childish”
appearance (Braddon 73), is a highly sexualized woman. In a dream sequence, she is portrayed
as a “mermaid, beckoning [her husband] to destruction” (Braddon 246), an allusion to the
sexually enticing images of mermaids in classical works. In a later scene, she demonstrates a
clear sense of the potency of her own sexuality when she “ben[ds] over her husband’s chair, and
put[s] her lips to his broad forehead” (Braddon 290) as she tries to manipulate him against
Robert. Thus, as Robert and Lady Audley attempt to outmaneuver each other, their battle of wills
parallels Robert’s own fear of female sexuality and his inability to “possess” or “dominate” it by
having sex with a woman. Lady Audley is even able to use his ambiguous orientation against
him, when she attempts to convince her husband that Robert is a “monomaniac” whose
obsession with George has done “fatal and unhealthy work” (Braddon 287) to his psyche. In this
accusation, she subtly implies that Robert’s homoerotic attractions have led him to madness, an
allegation he can overcome only by both conquering Lady Audley and demonstrating his
heterosexual virility. He is ultimately able to accomplish both these tasks by surviving Lady
Audley’s murder attempt and forcing her to reveal her past to her husband. In his final victory
over Lady Audley, when she no longer makes any “attempt at resistance to his will” (Braddon
342) and ultimately “fall[s] upon her knees” (Braddon 347) in his presence, Robert relegates
Lady Audley to a passive state and thus establishes his dominion over the sexualized female.
Braddon completes her depiction of Robert’s journey into heterosexual adulthood by
giving the novel an idyllic domestic conclusion. After his victory over Lady Audley, Robert fully
4 renounces his past life of idleness, and with it, his prior sexual ambiguity. He declares to Clara
that he “might indeed have striven to be something better than idle flaneur [stroller]” (Braddon
436) had they met earlier, again drawing on the connection between the immaturity, laziness, and
homoeroticism that characterized his past. This renunciation is further underscored by his plans
to sell “his bachelor possessions, including all Michel Levy’s publications” (Braddon 437); as
Levy was Flaubert’s publisher, the sale of these books symbolizes the rejection of sexual taboos.
In the act of establishing this new heterosexual lifestyle, Robert also reorients his feelings toward
George into those of proper masculine love. When he asks Clara to marry him, he refers to
George as “our brother” (Braddon 441), indicating that he has reformulated his warmth toward
George into familial, rather than erotic, affections – a final step in the development of his adult
heterosexual self. The novel concludes with George, Robert, and Clara living happily together in
a “fairy cottage” (Braddon 445), with no apparent sexual tension remaining between the men. In
presenting this final image, Braddon brings to a close Robert’s journey of sexual maturation by
implying that the homoerotic affections of his youth have been fully discarded, allowing him to
achieve a blissful life as a heterosexual man.
In contrast, Robert Louis Stevenson implies in his novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde that same-sex attractions comprise an inherent part of the individual identity,
rather than a vestige of youthful homoeroticism. Stevenson establishes this message via a twostep process: first, he heavily implies that Dr. Jekyll and his male friends are all repressing an
attraction to other men; and second, he ties Jekyll’s personal and sexual duality to the doctor’s
downfall, thus stressing his inability to reconcile homoerotic urges with the heterosexual norm.
In his initial depiction of Jekyll’s social circle, Stevenson includes a number of clues about the
sexual appetites of Jekyll and his friends Utterson and Lanyon. All three men are bachelors
5 whose social lives seem to revolve around “pleasant dinner” with “old cronies” (Stevenson 50).
Jekyll “cherishe[s] for Mr. Utterson a sincere and warm affection” (Stevenson 50), while Lanyon
welcomes Utterson to his home “with both hands,” exhibiting a “theatrical… geniality” for the
arrival of a man whose company he “thoroughly enjoys” (Stevenson 44). Furthermore, when
Utterson begins to fear that Edward Hyde holds undue influence over Jekyll, he imagines Hyde
“stealing like a thief to [Jekyll’s] bedside” (Stevenson 50) and forcing him to “rise and do [his]
bidding” (Stevenson 45). Utterson’s immediate suspicion that Jekyll’s “strange preference”
(Stevenson 46) for Hyde must be a sexual one underscores the notion that the three men nurture
well-hidden same-sex attractions. Yet even analyzing these characters’ ages and professions
provides meaningful insight into Stevenson’s views, for they are “all intelligent, reputable men”
(Stevenson 51) of middle age who work in learned professions. By this authorial choice,
Stevenson implies that homoerotic attractions are neither a phase nor a characteristic of an
immature lifestyle, for they are experienced by respectable gentlemen well past their thirties.
After establishing these homoerotic overtones, Stevenson introduces the supernatural
connection between Jekyll and Hyde with the implication that Hyde embodies Jekyll’s sexual
duality along with his moral duality. Hyde is characterized as having a number of feminine
qualities, such as his small stature, his “whispering and somewhat broken voice” (Stevenson 48),
and his “luxury and good taste” (Stevenson 54). Yet simultaneously, he is described as having a
“troglodytic” (Stevenson 48) appearance and a “bestial” (Stevenson 84) love for pleasure. This
combination of feminine demeanor and unbridled hedonism within a male character evokes a
clear allusion to homosexual stereotypes (Conahan). Furthermore, Stevenson heavily implies that
Jekyll’s secret adventures as Hyde represents the dual lifestyle of a practicing homosexual. Jekyll
says he is committed to a “profound duplicity of life,” due to his possession of certain moral
6 “irregularities” (Stevenson 80), but he never fully explains the nature of these abnormalities. He
retains the same suggestive secrecy when discussing his actions in the body of Hyde. Jekyll
writes, “the pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise were…undignified” (Stevenson
84), and he describes his actions as “unmanning” (Stevenson 61). These allusions to a forbidden
and emasculating joy further underscore the notion that Hyde is the embodiment of Jekyll’s
homosexual urges. Yet the sheer corporeality of Hyde is itself an expression of Stevenson’s
views on same-sex attraction, for Jekyll’s homoerotic tendencies are capable of taking a literal
and physical form in the body of Hyde. Even when Jekyll returns and Hyde ostensibly
disappears, he lies “caged in [Jekyll’s] flesh” (Stevenson 92), aching to reemerge. Thus, Hyde –
and by extension, Jekyll’s attraction to other men – is an ineradicable part of Jekyll’s identity.
Ultimately, however, Stevenson goes further than merely presenting his own belief in
homosexuality as a separate sexual identity. The author characterizes Jekyll’s destruction as an
unavoidable consequence of his inability to reconcile his impulses with the lifestyle expected of
him. In doing so, Stevenson calls for broader social acknowledgment of alternative sexual
identities. In an early scene, a suspicious Utterson tries to help Jekyll by becoming his
confidante, telling the doctor he can surely “get [him] out of” any bad situation (Stevenson 51).
Jekyll responds by dodging the question and asking Utterson to “let it sleep” (Stevenson 51). Yet
as literary critic George Haggerty points out, there is a distinct imbalance in this discussion.
Utterson believes Jekyll is hiding a specific instance of sin, but “Jekyll knows he is dealing with
not a behavior so much as a feature of identity” (Haggerty) from which he cannot be rescued.
Jekyll is clearly more aware than his friend that his homosexual urges can be neither removed
nor fully controlled, yet he is also deeply committed to his public reputation, describing himself
as “fond of the respect of the wise and good” (Stevenson 80). Thus, Jekyll later recalls that he
7 “found it hard to reconcile” his socially unacceptable identity with his “imperious desire to carry
[his] head high” (Stevenson 80). It is clear that Jekyll’s same-sex yearning directly conflicts with
his desire to live as a Victorian man. The doctor is therefore inevitably forced to create Hyde in
order to “relieve” himself “of all that [is] unbearable” (Stevenson 81) in his irreconcilable
existence. Yet Jekyll ultimately loses control of the Hyde identity and is forced to commit
suicide in order to stop Hyde from taking over completely. Thus, Jekyll’s death symbolizes the
tensions that emerge when society cannot acknowledge homoerotic urges as an indelible
component of the individual identity.
In these two differing models of sexual identity, many of the tensions of the modern
discourse on homosexuality are evident. Stevenson’s views, which were almost certainly
iconoclastic for his time, have been widely adopted in the modern era among those with liberal
attitudes toward homosexuality. Yet many still retain viewpoints similar to those of Braddon,
wherein they believe that expressions of same-sex attraction may preface a heterosexual
adulthood. The social and political ramifications of both opinions are omnipresent. For instance,
the raging debate on gay marriage often invokes the question of whether or not homosexuality is
immutable, or whether those who identify as gay can ultimately develop attractions to the
opposite sex. In truth, there is some validity to considering both arguments. While Stevenson’s
views are ostensibly far more accepting, Braddon’s attitudes – when taken more broadly – imply
a belief in the fluidity of sexuality that might be key to understanding orientations that lie outside
the heterosexual-homosexual binary, such as bisexuality and asexuality. Thus, despite writing in
an era with entirely different attitudes about eroticism and desire, both Braddon and Stevenson
present viewpoints that are meaningful to our modern-day understanding of sexual identity.
8 Works Cited
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Lady Audley’s Secret. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Print.
Conahan, Jacqueline K. “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: A Case of Deviant Sexual Expression.”
2009. Lehigh University Digital Library. < http://jsaw.lib.lehigh.edu/viewissue.php>
Haggerty, George. Queer Gothic. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006. Google Books.
Web. 7 May 2009. <books.google.com>
Kushnier, Jennifer S. Educating Boys to Be Queer: Braddon's “Lady Audley's Secret.” Victorian
Literature and Culture, Vol. 30, No. 1 (2002), pp. 61-75. JStor. Web. 6 May 2009.
<jstor.org>
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Crime and Horror in
Victorian Literature and Culture: Volume 1. Ed. Matthew Kaiser. Harvard University,
University Readers, 2010. Print.
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