page_title: Nautical fiction
section_title: Masculinity and heroism
hierarchical_section_title: Nautical fiction / Common themes / Masculinity and heroism
context_page_description: Nautical fiction, frequently also naval fiction, sea fiction, naval adventure fiction or maritime fiction, is a genre of literature with a setting on or near the sea, that focuses on the human relationship to the sea and sea voyages and highlights nautical culture in these environments. The settings of nautical fiction vary greatly, including merchant ships, liners, naval ships, fishing vessels, life boats, etc., along with sea ports and fishing villages. When describing nautical fiction, scholars most frequently refer to novels, novellas, and short stories, sometimes under the name of sea novels or sea stories. These works are sometimes adapted for the theatre, film and television.
  The development of nautical fiction follows with the development of the English language novel and while the tradition is mainly British and North American, there are also significant works from literatures in Japan, France, Scandinavia, and other Western traditions.
context_section_description: Those nautical novels dealing with life on naval and merchant ships set in the past are often written by men and deal with a purely male world with the rare exception, and a core themes found in these novels is male heroism. This creates a generic expectation among readers and publishers. Critic Jerome de Groot identifies naval historical fiction, like Forester's and O'Brian's, as epitomizing the kinds of fiction marketed to men, and nautical fiction being one of the subgenre's most frequently marketed towards men. As John Peck notes, the genre of nautical fiction frequently relies on a more "traditional models of masculinity", where masculinity is a part of a more conservative social order.
  However, as the genre has developed, models of masculinity and the nature of male heroism in sea novels vary greatly, despite being based on similar historical precedents like Thomas Cochrane (nicknamed the "Sea Wolf"), whose heroic exploits have been adapted by Marryat, Forestor, and O'Brian, among others. Susan Bassnet maps a change in the major popular nautical works. On the one hand Marryat's heroes focus on gentlemanly characteristics modeled on idealized ideas of actual captains such as Thomas Cochrane and Horatio Nelson. On the other hand, Forester's Hornblower is a model hero, presenting bravery, but inadequate at life ashore and beyond the navy and with limited emotional complexity. More recently O'Brian has explored complex ideas about masculinities through his characters Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin's friendship, along with the tension between naval life and shore life, and these men's complex passions and character flaws. Bassnett argues, these models of manliness frequently reflect the historical contexts in which authors write. Marryat's model is a direct political response to the reforms of the Navy and the Napoleonic Wars, while Forrestor is writing about post-World War II Britain, and O'Brian is exploring the social and scholarly complexities of the later part of the 20th century. Like O'Brian's novels, other 20th century authors treat masculinity as a complex plurality, full of questions about the idea of maleness. For example, William Golding's To the Ends of the Earth trilogy, explores the complexities of what constitutes a stable and acceptable male role as the civilian main character is thrust into the militaristic world of the navy, and is forced to work out afresh his own ideas of manhood.
  Though much of the tradition focuses on a militaristic storytelling, some of the prototypes of the genre focus on a commercial naval heritage but continue to highlight the role of masculinity and heroism with that tradition. For example, Iglesias describes Coopers novels and the subsequent novels in the American tradition growing out of "a distinctive attitude borne of commercial enterprise, confronting and ultimately superseding its Atlantic rival." Only one of his novels, The Two Admirals, describes order of battle. Yet, the investigation of masculinity is central to the novels; Critic Steven Hathorn describes "Cooper deliberately invests his nautical world with a masculine character, to such a degree that the appearance of women aboard ships presents an array of problems […] the novels explore how some of the biggest challenges to manhood come from within—from the very nature of masculinity itself." James Fenimore Cooper's The Pilot questions the role of nautical symbols of heroes of the revolutionary period, such as John Paul Jones, and their unsavory naval practices while privateering.
caption: A portrait of Lord Cochrane in 1807 by Peter Edward Stroehling. Cochrane is frequently a historical model for the kinds of heroism depicted in fiction set during the Napoleonic wars and Age of Sail.
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