[This document is a note to the author's Trollope's Comfort Romances for Men: Heterosexual Male Heroism in his Work — GPL.]
Against Tom's enthralled state, we have Stubbs's "great" self-control and for Trollope unusual "heroism." Stubbs is declared "manly" and "gallant" when he refuses to fightm (45:431). His refusal to duel is highly unusual in Trollope's corpus, and unashamedly defended (36:344-45; 44:428). In previous novels Trollope's narrator defended men who sought to resolve conflicts, and reciprocate injuries, and struck spontaneously even to the point of murdering the opponent. These include defenses of Thady Macdermot (The Macdermots of Ballycloran), the idea that Roger Scatcherd's murder of Henry Thorne should not get a long sentence (see Dr Thorne, 2:29), acceptance of Phineas Finn's duel with Lord Chiltern (Phineas Finn). On duelling in Victorian culture, see Peter Gay, The Cultivation of Hatred (NY: Norton, 1993):3-128.
Last modified 9 August 2006