The Ironies of Degeneration: The Dilemmas of Bourgeois Masculinity in Theodor Fontane's Frau Jenny Treibel and Mathilde Mohring

Abstract

�� ��� I. Scholars have called the nineteenth century a “bourgeois epoch,” as members of Germany’s middle classes shaped the transformation of the emerging nation- state into an economic and industrial power and acquired greater authority in civil society. 1 Already by the middle of the century, members of the bourgeoisie began proclaiming themselves and their class the victors of history and the shapers of the future. Middle- class writers created a narrative of ascent that erased the political failure of 1848, established common values in place of confessional, cultural, and economic differences, and celebrated bourgeois ingenuity and entrepreneurship. At the root of this vision was a hegemonic conceptualization of bourgeois masculinity. 2 Gustav Freytag’s Soll und Haben (1855) and Wilhelm Riehl’s Deutsche Arbeit (1861), for instance, celebrated the manly virtues of productivity, strength, and self- discipline and elevated the bourgeois work ethic to a quasi- religious virtue. The resulting achievements of bourgeois men not only legitimated the bourgeoisie’s social, cultural, economic, and moral supremacy over the idle aristocracy and the undisciplined working classes, but also justifi ed the “patriarchal dividend” that ensured male preeminence in the family and society. 3 By the 1880s, however, this narrative of achievement, unity, and patriarchal hegemony was under threat. The consequences of industrialization, urbanization, and modernization, including the growing stratifi cation among the bourgeoisie, the increasing assertiveness of women, and an emerging consumer and leisure culture, joined other factors in demythologizing the ideals of bourgeois society and culture. Theodor Fontane’s novels Frau Jenny Treibel (1892) and Mathilde Mohring (1891 / 1895 / 1896) refl ect these changing circumstances and constitute critical assessments of the foundational components of bourgeois self- identity, from the moral legitimacy of bourgeois social and cultural hegemony to the predominant role of patriarchy. Fontane worked on