The Man Who Rescues Cats and Dogs: Re-Inventing Masculinity in Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey

Abstract

As modern readers question the patriarchal dominance of heroes such as Rochester in Jane Eyre (1847) and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (1847), a fresh look at Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey (1847) suggests that it may offer very different lessons about masculinity. A series of men and boys in the book interact with animals and lower-class people in ways that control, exploit, dismiss, and even destroy them. Read through the lens of animal studies, we see Agnes and others oppressed by privileged white men of the middle and upper classes who exploit and dominate animals, women, and working-class people. Edward Weston, though, appeals to Agnes—and the reader—precisely because he resists cruelty and destruction and instead values the affective attachments that Agnes and Nancy Brown have with their pets. Ultimately, through his humane relationship to animals and less-privileged people, Weston offers a more caring and compassionate model of masculinity.