Fosco’s Fat: Transgressive Consumption and Bodily Control in Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White

Parsons, Joanne Ella ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-2884-6676 (2018) Fosco’s Fat: Transgressive Consumption and Bodily Control in Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White. In: The Victorian Male Body. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, pp. 215-233. ISBN 9781474428620

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Abstract / Summary

There has been much written on women, food, and bodily control in both the Victorian period and beyond, however with the rise of fat studies and scholarly research into masculinity academia has begun to recognise that there is also a discourse that is deeply embedded in men’s relationship to food and the body. This relatively new field of scholarship has produced many insightful and highly pertinent readings of the fat male body. In the Victorian period, in particular, one focus has been on that Dickensian favourite, Joe from the Pickwick Papers (Dickens 1837). Fat boy Joe is easily categorised partly due to the fact that sleep apnoea was latterly entitled Pickwickian syndrome by Burwell et al., which helped to align the reading of his corpulent form with a medicalised interpretation of his fat (Burwell et al. 1956). In addition to this type of reading, critics such as Sander L. Gilman have dwelt on Joe’s indolence and dubious voyeuristic sexuality (Gilman 2004: 159−60). Jos, the ‘fat gourmand’ from Thackeray’s Vanity Fair has also received critical attention because his indulgence in dubious foreign foodstuffs, such as curries, is written on his corpulent form (Thackeray [1848] 1968: 93). Scholars, such as Annette Cozzi, have attributed his fat as being due to both the dangers of empire and his unrestrained appetite (Cozzi 2010). Both Jos’ and fat boy Joe’s largesse can be said to be gained from over-indulgence and a lack of will but Focso’s fat is less easy to attribute to lack of self- control and regulation. Collins’ corpulent Count is instead a wearer of ‘fat drag’ which Huff considers to be both exploitative of, and ‘disrupt[ive] of dominant narratives of fatness (Huff 2010: 93; 104). I wish to now extend this argument further as I will consider how Fosco’s fat engages with discourses of power and gender, through both its performativity and his transgressive consumption of feminine treats.

Item Type:	Book Section
ISBN:	9781474428620
Subjects:	Literature
Department:	School of Communication
Related URLs:	https://repository.falmouth.ac.uk/2847/
Depositing User:	Jo Parsons
Date Deposited:	02 Mar 2026 11:50
Last Modified:	02 Mar 2026 11:50
URI:	https://repository.falmouth.ac.uk/id/eprint/6358

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