Pumping Iron for Justice: Conan, Masculinity and Ethical Muscles

Conan the Barbarian carries with him a certain level of cultural baggage. I think it is in part due to his birth in pulp-fiction that the muscle man is often shunned in academia and compared to grand narratives such as Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy to suggest the work’s inferiority (Weiss 2013: 79.) Stephen King wrote of Howard’s beloved sword and sorcery that it appealed to: ‘The fellow who is afraid of being rousted by those young punks who hang around his bus stop can go home at night and imagine himself wielding a sword, his potbelly miraculously gone.’ (King 2010: 204) I would argue however that King fails to notice to inherent nuance this sub-genre of fantasy proposes. If Conan is not an everyman hero, the idol of an emasculated or unmasculine man, what does Conan tell us about manhood and masculinity?

Conan’s affix tells us all we need to know about his classification by society. In The Tower of the Elephant, a ‘fat gross rogue from distant Koth’, a large foreign civilisation, is astonished by Conan: ‘he involuntarily drew back; for the man [Conan] was not one of any civilized race he knew] (Howard 2016: 58-59) The Kothian pulls back primarily because it is Conan’s body which is uncivilised. His supernaturally-masculine form - his ‘massive chest’ and ‘the hard, rangy lines of his powerful frame (Howard 2016: 59) - make him more animal than man. Conan’s body becomes ‘at odds with the environment in which it finds itself. It’s that body, that big, muscled form, that doesn’t match the civilized setting. Conan’s physicality ties him to the natural world even as it establishes a distance from the artificial world.’ (Elliott 2013: 62) Howard uses the imagery of nature to show the toxicity of civilised masculinity: Conan is ‘as much out of place in that den as a gray wolf among mangy rats of the gutter.’ (Howard 2016: 58) The civilised man as a mangy rat is unsurprisingly a critique of the potentially corruptive effects of society on masculinity. Moreover, it is this form of masculinity which can be labelled as ‘artificial.’ Conan is the product of nature, whereas the Kothian and the other men of the city are constructs of civilisation.

Conan’s wildness is explicitly designed to pit an uncorrupted natural man versus the corruptible product of civilisation. The city guards, arbiters of the law, have been paid off ‘with stained coins’ (Howard 2016: 57) so that the men in the district of thieves (the Maul) can do as they wish. In a society where justice – both literal and symbolic - sustains toxic masculinity it is no surprise that Conan, a paradigm of masculinity in its nature setting, is a heroic figure. For the emasculated or unmasculine man, the physical prowess of Conan becomes a vehicle for the implementation of justice and progress. Though the pseudo-science of physiognomy is long disregarded, there is still a cultural hangover which Elizabeth C. Evans labels as ‘physiognomic consciousness’ or the culturally mediated assumptions we make regarding physical appearance.[1] I would argue that the virtue of Conan’s body as discussed above is a form of this physiognomic consciousness. Muscle becomes symbolic of justice. He ‘looks the part’ as a heroic figure.

We can tell then that Conan is linked intrinsically to physiognomy; the virtue of muscle versus the sin of fat is made clear frequently. For example, we learn that the Kothian is a professional kidnapper who has come to Arenjun (the City of Thieves) to teach Zamorians how to ‘woman steal.’ Similarly, the Red Priest Nadonidus from Rogues in the House who is ‘the real ruler of the city’ is described as: ‘fat and full-fed, he was at once a fence for stolen articles and a spy on the police’ (Howard 2016: 130) I would argue that, as Daniel Weiss does, Howard wishes to show: ‘that other attributes -justice, fairness, honor – will be coded through the body at a visual level.’ (Weiss 2013: 81) When Conan confronts the pirates of the Red Brotherhood in Shadows in the Moonlight, Conan baits the pirate leader by sneering: “Send your dogs at me, big-belly...you were always a coward.’ (Howard 2016: 154) But just in case we were to have missed this description of his rotundness, Howard describes the pirate leader as a ‘naked giant’ with a ‘capacious belly.’ Conan himself takes part in the dialogue of physiognomy by making the link between fat and moral depravity clear to the reader. In the modern era, one might erroneously label Conan as a proponent of fat-shaming. However, I would argue that this physiognomic use of fat makes sense in the culture of the 1930s.

Muscle and fat were often indicators of class-based masculinity during the 1930s. For example: many artists, hired to paint murals under the Civil Works Administration in 1933, ‘celebrated the muscular potency of the working-class male body, which was contrasted (implicitly at least) with the flaccid, enervated, and emasculated bodies of both middle- and upper-class males.’ (Armengol 2014: 61) Conan’s place in the Hyborian “class” (station is more appropriate) system is made clear. The son of a blacksmith, Conan is born in the middle of a battle where both his mother and father die. By the age of 40, he makes himself the King of Aquilonia. To say he is a self-made man is an understatement. Yet, Conan doesn’t create anything. Unlike the working class of the 1930s, Conan makes his wealth via thievery and war. Conan doesn’t create empires, he takes them.

Conan is to some extent an anti-hero in that he provides a net-good despite his questionable behaviour. I would argue that the idea of a physically dominant working-class figure who fights injustices emanating from the physically inferior middle or upper-classes is a powerful one. Conan represents the growing sentiment in the 1930s that it was time to give up: ‘faith in the market-place as a proof of [their] manhood.’ (Armengol 2014: 60.) That is to say: money does not make the man. The evil characters of the Conan saga seem mostly to be monied men, and it is their lack of other masculine qualities which condemns them. Conan’s working-class masculinity, when pitted against the toxically masculine middle and upper-classes, shows that it is in fact these muscularly ethical men who should represent “man” (both gendered and of humankind).  The question then becomes, what makes a man masculine?  

In an era where classical ideas of masculinity: being the breadwinner, supporting the family and so on were being deconstructed by the devastating effects of a severe depression (unemployment was at 25% in the months around Conan’s first appearance) many men turned to their physical attributes to display masculinity. Harvey Green, author of Fit for America argued in an interview (Black 2009) that: ‘When the Depression struck, a characteristic response in America was to blame ourselves, Atlas interpreted the desire to transform ourselves as a way of self-improvement.’ In 1927, Charles Atlas opened his first gymnasium, and bodybuilding became one of the most successful businesses in America– especially during the Great Depression which would begin in 1930 (Kimmel 1996: 152-153). The idea of improvement via muscle is one which rings true with Howard. During his childhood, Howard told his father after a bout of poor health: ‘‘When I was in school, I had to take a lot because I was alone and no one to take my part, so I intend to build my body until when anyone crosses me up, I can with my bare hands tear him to pieces, double him up, and break his back with my hands alone.’ (Jones 2016: 590) I would argue that for Howard muscle becomes a source of agency.

Muscle represents the result of effort: heroism and masculinity, like muscle, are the products of hard work. Muscle allows Conan not only to survive in a world of villainous characters, but to thrive and push for justice. Conan represents a self-transformation from oppressed to dominator. Moreover, Conan is the transformative figure which society craved during the “Atlas” era of fitness. Conan holds an unshakeable ethical framework which ultimately is brutal yet just, while inhabiting a contemporarily ideal body. Howard leaves little room for guesswork as to what Conan represents: “the perfect man”.

Clearly, the body is an important aspect of Howard’s concept of masculinity. The idea of the body being the hallmark for masculinity certainly has some historical credibility. This fact sheds light on Howard’s depiction of masculinity in Conan the Barbarian, first published in 1932. It may also come as no surprise that Howard was an avid body builder and was supposedly a man of ‘formidable strength’ who boxed for some time in the heavyweight division (Finn 2006: 157) While this dulls the blade of Stephen King’s theory, it also explains some of the stories in Conan’s saga. As Winter Elliot points out: ‘in many ways, Conan’s physicality is more interesting than the sword he carries.’ (Elliot 2013: 65) In A Witch Shall Be Born, Conan catches a vulture with his teeth while nailed to a cross, a feat which is followed by the removal of the spikes which held him there (the removal of course completed by Conan himself), and a 10 mile walk in the desert without water. ‘If he’s fit to live in the desert’ as one of the men who “rescued” him says ‘he’ll live that long without a drink.’ (Howard 2016: 247) Conan’s raw constitution is his strength, and ultimately it is this powerful bodily version of masculinity which defines him. Conan's physical prowess beyond the sword is what marks him out from other men, and in the context of a body building culture, Conan is an ideal hero. He is powerful without the help of the man-made, he is self-sufficient and natural.

Based on this understanding of masculinity, one can only argue that Conan deserves his victories. On top of Conan’s financial and political conquests, the Conan sagas deal quite intimately with his sexual conquests. It would be fair to say that Conan is hardly egalitarian in its depiction of women. Women are often reduced primarily to their sexuality and body: Bêlit, a female protagonist and pirate, is dressed only in an unpractical ‘broad silken girdle’ (Howard 2016: 165) and after knowing Conan for the best part of five minutes exclaims: ‘take me and crush me with your fierce love (Howard 2016: 166). However, attempts to display Conan’s five-foot sword as a phallic display of insecure masculinity often miss the mark. What most commentators fail to notice is that like the women who are often left naked, so is Conan. In fact, the level of clothing a character wears often coincides with their link to the corrupt society of Hyboria. Conan, after killing the Kothian rogue, ‘walked through the night naked except for a loin cloth and his high strapped sandals.’ (Howard 2016: 61) It is in making him vulnerable that we see his masculinity, a man who does not require societies permission to succeed. This is reflected in both his sexuality, and sexual attractiveness.

Sexuality is nuanced in this world, and in many ways, Conan lives outside of the cultural practises of Hyborian masculinity. For example, we know that unlike most men in Hyboria, the eponymous hero is anything but rapacious: in The Vale of Lost Women we learn Conan ‘never forced a woman against her consent. Customs differ in various countries, but if a man is strong enough, he can enforce a few of his native customs anywhere.’ (Howard 2016: 559) While women are certainly objectified in the world, Conan is not the one objectifying them. Indeed, his “otherness” is an objectification held in common with women in the saga. In this scenario, these people are objectified and made other by a society which fears change and the upcoming agency of the progressive, physically impressive people of a lower station or class.

Conan’s masculinity works best in the fantastic due to its hyperbolic representation of muscle. Yet, ultimately, it is this hyperbole which highlights the points raised in the saga. Muscle represents not only positive change but becomes a physiognomic representation of an ethical man. He does not need to create, instead he exists to change and positively transform society. Conan becomes the fantastic version of the American man in the 1930s, a hero for the oppressed because he represents a viable transformation. You don’t need money to be a man and if one puts enough effort into transforming themselves, they can change the world. This is what Conan teaches us about masculinity.

Bibliography

Armengol, Josep M. “Gendering the Great Depression: Rethinking the Male Body in 1930s American Culture and Literature.” Journal of Gender Studies, vol. 23, no. 1, Feb. 2013, pp. 59–68

Elliot, Winter. “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Women: Gender Dynamics in the Hyborian World” Conan Meets the Academy: Multidisciplinary Essays on the Enduring Barbarian, edited by Jonas Prida. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2013. pp. 60-78

Evans, Elizabeth C., Physiognomics in the Ancient World, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 59, pt. 5 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1969), 6

Finn, Mark. Blood and Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard. Monkeybrain, 2006.

Howard, Robert E. The Complete Chronicles of Conan: Centenary Edition. Edited by Stephen Jones, Gateway, 2016.

Jonathan Black. “Charles Atlas: Muscle Man.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 1 Aug. 2009, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/charles-atlas-muscle-man-34626921/

Jones, Stephen. “Afterword: Robert E. Howard and Conan” The Complete Chronicles of Conan: Centenary Edition, edited by Stephen Jones, Gateway, 2016. pp. 590-609

Kimmel, Michael S. Manhood in America: a Cultural History. Oxford University Press, 2012.

King, Stephen. Danse Macabre. Gallery, 2010.

Prida, Jonas, editor. Conan Meets the Academy: Multidisciplinary Essays on the Enduring Barbarian. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2013.

Weiss, Daniel. “Robert E. Howard’s Barbarian and the Western: A Study of Conan Through the West and the Western Hero” Conan Meets the Academy: Multidisciplinary Essays on the Enduring Barbarian, edited by Jonas Prida. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2013. pp. 79-99

---

[1] See: Evans, Elizabeth C., Physiognomics in the Ancient World, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 59, pt. 5 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1969), 6