James Hogg, the Three Perils, and the Pragmatics of Bourgeois Marriage

Abstract

First paragraph: Giving voice to controversial figures such as prostitutes, as well as questioning culturally constructed stereotypes of gender, James Hogg challenged the emerging discourse of empire in early-nineteenth-century Britain. This article will hence investigate Hogg's treatment of the trope of marriage - as developed in the national tale for articulating imperial hierarchies in familial terms - in his long narratives The Three Perils of Man (1822) and The Three Perils of Woman (1823). It will argue that by opposing the domestic Madonna and the public prostitute through a strategic use of voices, Hogg negotiated and rearticulated this dynamic in order to expose both the ideology behind bourgeois marriage and the contradictions at the heart of empire formation.