Anxious Masculinity In The Drama Of Arthur Miller And Beyond

This study examines the anxious male breadwinner as he is incarnated in Arthur Miller's most celebrated plays and as he resurfaces in different guises throughout American drama, from the 1950s to the present. It offers a compelling analysis of gender dynamics – staunchly homosocial, vaguely or overtly misogynistic, anxiously homophobic – and the legacy of this figure in the works of other American dramatists. Throughout, the book argues that the gendered anxieties exhibited by the anxious male breadwinner are the very ones invoked with such success by Donald Trump. Gleitman examines this figure in the plays of Tennessee Williams, later 20th century writers Lorraine Hansberry, David Mamet, August Wilson, and Sam Shepard (who reposition him in more racially and economically marginalized settings), and in the more recent work of Tony Kushner, Paula Vogel, and Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori, who shift their focus to the next generation, which seeks to escape his clutches and forge new, often gleefully queer identities. The final chapter concerns contemporary Black dramatists Suzan-Lori Parks, Jackie Sibblies Drury, and Jeremy O. Harris, whose plays move us from anxious masculinity to anxious whiteness and speak directly to the current moment.

To recent studies of Renaissance subjectivity, Anxious Masculinity in Early Modern England contributes the argument that masculinity is unavoidably anxious and volatile in cultures that distribute power and authority according to patriarchal prerogatives. Drawing from current arguments in feminism, cultural studies, historicism, psychoanalysis and gay studies, Mark Breitenberg explores the dialectic of desire and anxiety in masculine subjectivity in the work of a wide range of writers, including Shakespeare, Bacon, Burton and the women writers of the 'querelles des femmes' debate, especially Jane Anger. Breitenberg discusses jealousy and cuckoldry anxiety, hetero and homoerotic desire, humoural psychology, anatomical difference, cross-dressing and the idea of honour and reputation. He traces masculine anxiety both as a sign of ideological contradiction and, paradoxically, as a productive force in the perpetuation of western patriarchal systems.

The men in plays such as Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman or Sam Shephard's True West are often presented as universal; little attention is given to the gender dynamics involved in the characters. This work looks at how contemporary playwrights, including Miller, Shepard, Eugene O'Neill, David Mamet, and August Wilson, stage masculinity in their works. It becomes apparent that male playwrights return often to the issues of troubled manhood, usually masked in other issues such as war, business or family. The plays indicate both the attractiveness of the model of traditional masculinity and the illusive nature of this image, which all too often fractures and fails the characters who pursue it. O'Neill's play The Hairy Ape and the character Yank receive much attention.

Explores representations of men and masculinity in American fiction published after the Second World WarOffers readings of a wide selection of postwar American novels from 1945 to the mid-1950s, including canonical works, from the unique perspective of their representation of male identityProvides rich comparative insights through analysis of fiction by writers of diverse race, class and sexualityDemonstrates how gender theory generates insights into the constitution of American masculinity in fictionFocusing on a complex and contentious period that was formative in shaping American society and culture in the twentieth century, this book sheds new light on the ways in which fiction engaged with contemporary notions of masculinity. It draws on gender theory and analysis of writers from diverse backgrounds of race, class and sexuality to provide rich comparative insights into the constitution of American masculinity in fiction. The extensive range of novels considered includes fresh analyses of key authors such as James Baldwin, Truman Capote, Patricia Highsmith, Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, Ann Petry, J. D. Salinger and Gore Vidal.

Arthur Miller's play;Death of a Salesman;helped usher in a new focus for the American drama.