Having too much fat or not enough fat was equally troubling, the health of the individual male body being perceived as indicative of the nation's well-being. These idealized physical traits, in turn, signified such internal characteristics of Victorian manliness as moral courage, honesty, straightforwardness, and self-discipline. In terms of the midcentury emphasis on muscularity, a fit man was one who was robust, hearty, and energetic. Conversely, a fit body signified moral and mental salubrity. To Victorians, a body that appeared out of sorts raised concerns about the mental and moral health of the individual. In the physical composition of these three 'heroes,' Thackeray enters the mid-century discussion of mens sana in corpore sano, meaning a sound mind in a sound body. From the overdressed, corpulent body of Jos Sedley and the handsome, athletic figure of George Osborne to the overly lean, ungainly physique of William Dobbin, Thackeray reveals the multiple, often conflicting ideals associated with what it meant to be a middle-class Victorian man and how that was negotiated at mid-century. This shift is reflected on the bodies of the novel's heroes, providing insight into the highly contested construction of masculinity in the early decades of the Victorian era. The novel demonstrates a shift in social and moral values, as Regency-era profligacy gave way to the more austere qualities for which the Victorian period is famous. Published between 18, but set twenty to forty years earlier, Thackeray's Vanity Fair: a Novel without a Hero offers a vivid portrait of early Victorian discourse on masculinity and acceptable standards of male embodiment.

The male body-its size, shape, and composition-has largely been ignored in the recent burst of studies on Victorian masculinity. But in his lack of principle,-if such should be the case,-what at best would he be, but a good-mannered man? He has spirit, wit, courage,-and grace to set them off but in his deficiency of high principle is he a Gentleman in the strict and correct sense of the term? Is he one, whom you would respect or admire, beyond that passing approbation, which might, under similar circumstances, be given to the most worthless and contemptible of men? Assuredly not.-The English Gentleman It would receive him as one and probably laugh the doubter of this fact to scorn. The world would exclaim at once, that he was a Gentleman. Suppose now, gentle reader, you met a man in society rich, titled, handsome, and accomplished: his relatives and connexions move in good company and draw and impart luster from him.

Vanity fair novel without a hero