ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Tom Brown’s interactions with animals during his early childhood and his time in public school in Thomas Hughes’s novel, Tom Brown’s School Days (1857). Hughes’s novel depicts Tom Brown as needing to distance himself from the animal as a part of his education about English masculinity. At the beginning of the novel, Tom has an affinity with animals; however, at Rugby, Tom must reorient his position in the human/animal hierarchy so as to learn “proper” human-animal power dynamics. Indeed, other boys, such as Martin, are deemed unfit for public school life because of their kinship with animals, suggesting that this connection must be unlearned to reach proper manhood. Ultimately Tom Brown’s education into gentlemanly English masculinity coincides with and prompts recognition of his place in the human/animal hierarchy. Thus, Hughes’s novel reflects the link between Englishness, masculinity, and the assertion of human superiority.
