Authority Undone: The Fragility of Patriarchal Masculinity and Emotional Power in Elizabeth Inchbald’s A Simple Story
Synopsis
This study examines the construction of masculinity and the fragility of patriarchal authority in Elizabeth Inchbald’s A Simple Story (1791), focusing on Dorriforth’s transformation from a Catholic priest into Lord Elmwood. While critical scholarship on the novel has predominantly addressed female sensibility, marriage, women’s education, and the restrictions imposed by patriarchal society, this study investigates how masculine identity is shaped by institutional and social expectations. The self-discipline, emotional restraint, and detachment cultivated during Dorriforth’s clerical life conflict with the responsibilities he assumes as an aristocratic patriarch. Inheritance, marriage, and fatherhood consequently become stages that expose the limitations of masculine authority rather than confirm its stability. His emotional estrangement from Miss Milner and his troubled relationship with Matilda demonstrate how the preservation of patriarchal power comes at the expense of intimacy, reciprocity, and forgiveness. By interpreting masculinity as a social performance continually reconstructed through competing institutional demands, this study offers a perspective on A Simple Story that contributes to eighteenth-century masculinity studies and challenges the assumption that patriarchal authority constitutes a coherent and secure form of masculine identity.
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