Virility and Respectability: Goldfield Fiction and Male Culture in Colonial New Zealand, 1865-1914

Abstract

The vast majority of goldfield fiction written in New Zealand during the nineteenth and early twentieth-century was by men. The thesis studies these texts (plus one chapter on women writers and the goldfields) primarily in terms of their representation of men, masculinity, mateship and the colonial male culture. Past critical neglect of our colonial fiction means that an important first step is simply the recovery and detailed discussion of the fiction concerned. The texts are divided into three chronological periods: (1) 1865-1873, the earliest stages of fiction writing in New Zealand where, via a discussion of the work of Benjamin Farjeon, we discuss how early writers wrote for a 'Home' audience and portrayed romantic images of the digger; (2) 1873-1881, a period when local issues can be seen operating in the fiction of Vincent Pyke, with his writing of a 'moderated' masculinity, and in Henry Lapham's domesticated diggers; (3) 1881-1914, when the goldfields begin to move from the centre of the nation's fiction into the background of the narratives, along with a corresponding trend to marginalise the colonial male culture in favour of a more 'respectable' colonial society. The overall argument seeks historical contextualisation by considering how the fiction negotiates the tension inherent in the writing of a 'virile' colonial masculinity within narratives of 'respectability'.At its broadest the thesis is about the interaction of gender, fiction and history in the production and utilisation of ideas about masculinity (and to a lesser degree, femininity) in colonial New Zealand.