MRS. SEACOLE PRESCRIBES HYBRIDITY: CONSTITUTIONAL AND MATERNAL RHETORIC IN WONDERFUL ADVENTURES OF MRS. SEACOLE IN MANY LANDS Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • In an 1857Saturday Reviewarticleof the novelTwo Years Ago, T. C. Sanders characterizes Charles Kingsley's ideal man: he fears God and can walk a thousand miles in a thousand hours [he] breathes God's free air on God's rich earth, and at the same time can hit a woodcock, doctor a horse, and twist a poker around his fingers (qtd. in Haley 108). Tom Thurnall, the fearless, constitutionally robust, well-traveled doctor and hero ofTwo Years Ago, fits these requirements. His physical strength also manifests itself as a charmed immunity to illness: during a cholera epidemic in Aberalva (a fictional Cornish town), [Tom] thought nothing about death and danger at all ... Sleep he got when he could, and food as often as he could; into the sea he leapt, morning and night, and came out fresher each time (Kingsley,Years288). Charles Kingsley's own self-proclaimed medical and religious philosophies give clear insight intoTwo Years Ago'sintended effects. A sanitary reformer in the mould of Edwin Chadwick and Florence Nightingale, Kingsley felt that disease arose from crowding, filth, and poisonous vapors. Kingsley's contemporaries named his perspective muscular Christianity, recognizing that Kingsley strong arms his readers by inspiring in them fear and uncertainty about their own health practices and then shows them the way, with examples like Tom, to an active, devout lifestyle.

published proceedings

  • Victorian Literature and Culture

author list (cited authors)

  • Howell, J.

citation count

  • 1

complete list of authors

  • Howell, Jessica

publication date

  • March 2010