‘Affrighted at the eager enjoyment’: Hawthorne, nymphomania, and medical manhood

Abstract

Gale M. Temple'Affrighted at the eager enjoyment': Hawthorne, nymphomania, and medical manhood By examining together nineteenth-century medical descriptions of alcoholism and nymphomania, this essay argues that alcohol addiction in the nineteenth century was often portrayed as a form of diseased manhood that rendered men unfit for their roles as civic participants and economic providers. The essay also argues that Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'Rappaccini's Daughter' can be read as powerful meditation on how the nineteenth-century scientific community's portrayal of addiction helped to concretize the hegemony of patriarchy and institutionalized medicine.