ABSTRACT
Ford Madox Ford’s novels are primarily about people’s lives—their intrigues, their messy affairs, their frailties and their desires, so it is inevitable that his work is concerned with gender, with relationships between men and women, and with questions of the differences between them. This chapter provides a survey of the existing gender-inflected criticism, drawing out some major themes that emerge within it, such as empire, place and space, or health. It continues SaraHaslam approach of destabilising what may seem at first glance a simple issue through suggestions of further avenues for research. Further research is also needed on the relationship between gender and sexuality: in the question of lesbianism in A Rash Act and Henry for Hugh. For both men and women in Ford’s novels, the health of the physical body plays a significant role in the representation of the gendered character. Masculinity and femininity are challenging, contradictory and all, fascinating in Ford’s work.
