Fatherhood and Masculinity Theme Analysis

In News of the World, Captain Kidd, a tough solitary Texas wanderer, embarks on an arduous journey to return Johanna, a former captive of the Kiowa tribe, to her family. As the novel progresses, Captain Kidd becomes increasingly affectionate and invested in Johanna’s emotional well-being, eventually viewing himself as a father figure to her. This role draws on the conventionally masculine skills he’s honed over decades, but he must also develop skills that his society (like many others) associates with mothers, from mundane housekeeping tasks to managing the emotions of a traumatized young girl. By requiring him to set aside his assumptions about masculinity and develop stereotypically feminine skills, fatherhood helps Captain Kidd become a more complex and more satisfied person. By the time he adopts Johanna at the novel’s end, his behavior has challenged conventional ideas of how men should act in order to achieve happiness.

At the beginning of the novel, Captain Kidd fulfills traditional ideals of American manhood, but he often feels unhappy and purposeless. Always on the move and owning few possessions, he’s a model of self-sufficiency and stoicism. He’s adept at physical tasks, respected by others as a source of wisdom, and able to regale younger men with tales of the three wars in which he’s fought. Yet he’s lonely and often frustrated. He dreams of reuniting with his daughters and grandchildren, who live in Georgia, but sees no way to bridge the emotional distance between them. Moreover, he says at the beginning of the novel that his itinerant life no longer brings the pleasure it once did: rather, “a slow dullness had seeped into him like coal gas.”

Captain Kidd doesn’t expect that returning Johanna to her family will alleviate that dullness or change his outlook. In fact, the task forces him to subvert his society’s gendered expectations for mothers and fathers. Captain Kidd’s society expects that fathers protect their children and provide for them economically; meanwhile, mores demand that mothers care for the household and attend to their children’s emotional and moral well-being. As Johanna’s sole guardian, Captain Kidd must take on both these roles. Seasoned by many years on the road and concerned for Johanna’s safety, Captain Kidd always keeps his gun handy; the attack they face early in their journey from Almay, who wants to force Johanna into prostitution, shows the necessity of this caution. By physically protecting Johanna from violence, Captain Kidd fulfills a stereotypically masculine model of parenthood, which he expresses (somewhat melodramatically) as “the duty of men who aspired to the condition of humanity to protect children and kill for them if necessary.” But he also learns to perform many duties that are more in line with emotional, nurturing stereotypes of female caretakers. Although he and Johanna don’t speak the same language, he finds nonverbal ways to communicate so she won’t be frightened or confused. Unlike most others in the novel, who dismiss Johanna as wild and unpredictable, Captain Kidd interprets her actions in the context of her life with the Kiowa and is able to anticipate her emotional reactions. And he takes charge of household tasks like keeping her fed, warm, and supplied with clean clothes. This sensitivity and attention to emotional and domestic labor is associated, in his era, with women more than men.

By the novel’s end, Captain Kidd’s new capabilities allow him to act decisively to regain his sense of purpose.  When Captain Kidd reluctantly leaves Johanna with her unfriendly relatives, Wilhelm and Anna, he has to hurry away before anyone can see him crying. He feels shame over his emotions, even though they’re a reaction to an important truth: that Johanna’s aunt and uncle will not take good care of her. This behavior reminiscent of his callous, studiously unsentimental attitude at the beginning of the novel, and causes both him and Johanna considerable anguish. However, just a few days later he returns to Wilhelm and Anna’s farm, where he’s outraged to see that “they had not even offered the girl a bath and a change of clothes” and is saddened to see Johanna rushing to feed his horse in order to “make herself welcome, wanted.” The Captain’s sharp eye for small but telling household details like Johanna’s dirty clothes, and his astute interpretation of her actions, demonstrate the capabilities he’s developed over the last months and allow him to take charge of the situation. Spiriting Johanna away from her relatives, he gives the young girl a much happier childhood and himself a sense of direction in his old age.

Over the course of the novel, Captain Kidd learns not just to protect Johanna in the way that his society expects of fathers, but also to care for her in the way it expects of mothers, embracing capabilities that are associated with both men and women. Through this transition, the novel argues that loosening gender norms doesn’t just provide new opportunities for women; rather, it can help men deepen their own emotional lives and form closer connections to others.