Fictions Of Masculinity

In a sensitive and provocative study of six great works of British literature, David Rosen traces the evolution of masculinity, inviting readers to contemplate the shifting joys and sorrows men have experienced throughout the last millennium, and the changing but constant tensions between their lives and ideals. Focusing on Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Hamlet, Paradise Lost, Hard Times, and Sons and Lovers, Rosen shows how the actions of heroes fail to resolve tensions between masculine ideals and male experiences.

Covers wide range of popular British and American fiction and film including Westerns, spy fiction, science fiction and crime narratives.

Tracing the influence of masculinity on fictional form and theme through an era of dizzying social change, this timely new book conducts a close analysis of English novels selected for contrasting definitions of the male gender, from the allegedly Angry Young Men to the contemporary confessions of Nick Hornby. The literary period since 1950 is interpreted as one of intense political and stylistic negotiation by male authors with the gendered subject-positions both of fictional characters and those who read about them.

The great bulk of work on gender in fiction and literature has reflected feminist concerns and focused on women authors. This book attempts to extend the contemporary preoccupation with representations of gender into the terrain of masculinity and male writing. Drawing on work in both the social sciences and humanities, it explores the narrative representation of masculinity in selected twentieth-century fictions ranging from classic texts by Lawrence and Conrad to novels by John Fowles, Graham Swift, David Leavitt and others.

This study examines masculinity and individualism in four American novels of the 1920s and 1930s usually regarded as belonging to the genre of hard-boiled fiction. The novels under study are Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett, The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? by Horace McCoy, and To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway. In this first full-length study of gender in hard-boiled fiction the genre is discussed as a representation of the ideologies of masculinity and individualism. Hard-boiled fiction is located in its historical and cultural context and it is argued that the genre, with its explicit emphasis on masculinity and masculine virtues, attempts to reaffirm a masculine order. The study argues that this emphasis is a counter-reaction to more general changes in the gender relations of the period. Indeed, hard-boiled fiction is argued to be an attempt to reconstruct a masculine identity based on anti-modern values generally accepted in the cultural context of the genre.

We are just beginning to understand masculinity as a fiction or a localizable, historical, and therefore unstable construct. This book points the way to a much-needed interrogation of the many modes of masculinity, as represented in literature. Both women and men who are engaged in critical thinking about genders and sexualities will find these essays always thoughtful and often provocative. —Thas E. Morgan, Associate Professor of English, Arizona State University Peter Murphy has assembled an innovative, challenging, and important set of contributions to a growing field of inquiry into constructions of masculinities in literature, inspired principally by feminist and gay studies. Illuminatingly crossing lines of genders, sexualities, cultures, and methodologies, Fictions of Masculinity greatly advances our understanding of representations of men, masculinities, misandry, and misogyny in a wide range of literary works and genres, and helps us to imagine (and thereby ultimately bring about) alternative constructions. —Harry Brod, Editor, The Making of Masculinities: The New Men's Studies, A Mensch Among Men: Explorations in Jewish Masculinity, and Theorizing Masculinities. Women writing about women dominates contemporary work on sexuality. Men have been far more willing to discuss female sexuality than male sexuality, while the most radical and insightful analyses of male sexuality have come from women. When men consider the issue of female sexuality they often speak from assumptions of security about their own unexamined sexuality. This book maintains that men have to interrogate their own sexuality if there is to be a revision of phallocentric discourse; and, that this revision of masculinity must be done in dialogue with women. The essays included in this collection examine the deep structure of masculine codes. They ask the question Who are the men in modern literature? Examining the force of the dominant values of Western masculinity, they synthesize insights from feminism, psychoanalysis, post-structuralism, and new historicism. These perspectives help explain how male sexuality has been structured by fictional representations. By examining the images of masculinity in modern literature, the essays explore traditional and non-traditional roles of men in society and in personal relationships. They look at how men are represented in literature, the fiction of manhood. They attempt to unravel the assumptions behind these representations by looking at the implications of this imagination. And they speculate on possibilities for creating a new imaginary of masculinity by identifying what literature has to say about that change. With analyses of a range of genres (novels, poetry, plays and autobiography), Western and Third World literatures, and theoretical perspectives, Fictions of Masculinity provides a significant contribution to this rapidly growing field of study. Contributors are: David Bergman (Towson State University), Miriam Cooke (Duke University), Martin Danahy (Emory University), Richard Dellamora (Trent University, Ontario), Leonard Duroche (University of Minnesota), Jim Elledge (Illinois State University), Alfred Habegger (University of Kansas), Suzanne Kehde (California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo), David Leverenz (University of Florida), Christopher Metress (Wake Forest University), Peter F. Murphy (SUNY, Empire State College), Rafael Prez-Torres (University of Pennsylvania), David Radavich (Eastern Illinois University), and Peter Schwenger (St. Vincent University, Nova Scotia).

Masculinity in Contemporary New York Fiction is an interdisciplinary study that presents masculinity as a key thematic concern in contemporary New York fiction. This study argues that New York authors do not simply depict masculinity as a social and historical construction but seek to challenge the archetypal ideals of masculinity by writing counter-hegemonic narratives. Gendering canonical New York writers, namely Paul Auster, Bret Easton Ellis, and Don DeLillo, illustrates how explorations of masculinity are tied into the principal themes that have defined the American novel from its very beginning. The themes that feature in this study include the role of the novel in American society; the individual and (urban) society; the journey from innocence to awareness (of masculinity); the archetypal image of the absent and/or patriarchal father; the impact of homosocial relations on the everyday performance of masculinity; male sexuality; and the male individual and globalization. What connects these contemporary New York writers is their employment of the one of the great figures in the history of literature: the flâneur. These authors take the flâneur from the shadows of the Manhattan streets and elevate this figure to the role of self-reflexive agent of male subjectivity through which they write counter-hegemonic narratives of masculinity. This book is an essential reference for those with an interest in gender studies and contemporary American fiction.

This book focuses on representations of aging masculinities in contemporary U.S. fiction, including shifting perceptions of physical and sexual prowess, depression, and loss, but also greater wisdom and confidence, legacy, as well as new affective patterns. The collection also incorporates factors such as race, sexuality and religion. The volume includes studies, amongst others, on Philip Roth, Paul Auster, Toni Morrison, Ernest Gaines, and Edmund White. Ultimately, this study proves that men’s aging experiences as described in contemporary U.S. literature and culture are as complex and varied as those of their female counterparts.