A Disordered Domesticity: Constructions of Masculinity in the Dramatic Works of John Gay

This thesis examines how John Gay portrays constructions of masculinity in domestic spaces—the households, estates, and royal courts—of three plays: Three Hours After Marriage,Polly, and Achilles. Gay illuminates how constructions of masculinity are ultimately linked to an emergent sex/gender system based upon shifting ideas of masculine authority and patriarchal right in the eighteenth century. Ultimately, Gay‟s drama reveals the concept of a “natural” sex to be little more than a cultural construction. He criticizes the often artificial nature of masculinity, and posits that a masculine gender identity becomes linked to power over the supposedly “natural,” feminine space of the domestic.