Abstract

The intersection of gender and disability is that masculinity and disability are in conflict with each other because disability is associated with being dependent and helpless whereas masculinity is associated with being powerful and autonomous, thus creating a lived and embodied dilemma for disabled men (Shuttleworth, Wedgwood and Wilson 2012). But in both the cases, the determiners are the rigid conventional structures, which habitually associate images with personalities. A disabled person is typically expected to be fragile whereas a masculine figure is always imagined to be a saviour, a figure who is above all odds. In Thomas Hardy’s novel The Return of the Native, the central character Clym Yeobright, a successful diamond merchant, returns to Egdon Heath from Paris. He is the representative image of the masculine figure, respected by the all and wins the love of Eustacia Vye, a beautiful and passionate young woman who dreams of escaping the heath and its insular ways. She is infatuated with Clym and sees him as a means to escape her mundane life. But Clym aspires to be a schoolteacher and stays back at Egdon Heath. He reads night and day to fulfill his aspirations of becoming a teacher and nearly blinds himself. With the onset of his blindness he is stripped off his ‘masculine’, loses his love, respect and becomes a mere figure of sympathy for all. Eustacia soon falls out of love for him and he himself becomes disenchanted with his plans and decides to take up the occupation of a furze-cutter, which is considered a lowly job in the community. The disabled masculine figure, who fails to fit himself in the preconceived structure of hegemonic masculinity begins to isolate himself, questions his capabilities and even accepts himself as doomed even before exploring opportunities and thus becomes the recipient of Hardy’s tragic treatment. This article intends to map and critically evaluate the conceptual development of the dilemma of disabled masculinity, which is caused by the tussle between the ethical understanding and the moral reasoning, as explained by Kohlberg in his Heinz theory. This article would also attempt to trace how several developments in the fields of disability studies and the critical study of men and masculinities have shaped sociological understandings of disabled masculinity which in turn sets the tragic course of the novel.