ABSTRACT
Both middle-class physical education manuals and popular physical culture magazines illuminate the ways white male bodies, in their very size and shape, do important cultural work. But these texts, specifically dedicated to the care of the body, were not the only ones to concern themselves with questions about what the white male body could signify. Literature from this period, especially realist literature, shows a great deal of concern about male bodies as well. Indeed, whether realism’s narrative strategies naturalize the status quo, becoming a vehicle for the dissemination of hegemonic ideology, or whether the practice of mimesis inevitably complicates and critiques the society it is trying to represent, realisms preoccupation with voyeurism makes it a very “revealing” form of fiction. Arguably, what turn-of-the-century realism reveals more than previous forms of fiction writing is the body. This chapter will take full advantage of realisms invitation “to look.” 1 It will, moreover, focus on two novels from a writer in this tradition who was perceived by many to be one of the most revealing of them all, Theodore Dreiser.
