Masculine Identity Crisis In American Fiction Male Characters Struggle For Masculine Identity In The Great Gatsby By F Scott Fitzgerald

Author : Ibrahim Al Shaaban
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
Page : 16 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2023-01-11
Category : Literary Collections
ISBN : 9783346791788

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Masculine Identity Crisis in American Fiction. Male Characters' Struggle for Masculine Identity in "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald by Ibrahim Al Shaaban Pdf

Essay from the year 2022 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,4, University of Leipzig, language: English, abstract: This essay will examine the crisis of masculine identity in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby". It closely examines the male characters’ struggle in search of masculine identity. Furthermore, it will explore the portrayal of the male characters in relation to patriarchy and the demands of the society of being a man. After masculinity was discovered, as a field of study, by sociologists, cultural anthropologists, and psychologists, literary scholars and critics also started to explore the diverse concepts of masculinity crisis in literature since "literature can reveal aspects of masculinity that might not come out or be visible in daily life or in other types of cultural artifacts" as Reeser states. The masculinity crisis finds its expression in literary works and cultural discourses of the early decades of the twentieth century. In American fiction, the masculine identity crisis appears in many different facets and manifestations. But in the literary works in the 1920s, especially in the works dealing with wealth and social transition, the crisis of masculine identity is almost unanimously portrayed in young men who want to become rich and create a new identity or what is so called so-called the Self-Made Man. The young men who reject the new social values and embrace masculinity; men who try to live up to the ideals of traditional American masculinity.

Author : Rubén Cenamor,Stefan Brandt
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 207 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2019-01-25
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781498567558

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Ecomasculinities by Rubén Cenamor,Stefan Brandt Pdf

While there exist numerous studies on ecocriticism and ecofeminism, much less has been written about ecomasculinities. This volume contributes to filling this gap by examining models of fictional ecomasculinity in and through contemporary U.S. literature and cinema. Our study examines ecomasculinities as practices of masculinity which are deeply conservationist and can embrace non-masculine traits. In this line of thought, a main goal of the volume is to interrogate the potential of ecomasculinities to elicit in men a desire to become engage in other practices of masculinity that are counter-hegemonic and have as main goal to achieve equality on different strata of society. Bridging the gap between the Social Sciences and the Humanities, the book interrogates intersections between ecomasculinities and masculinities beyond capitalism, ecomasculinities and aging, and ecomasculinities and queerness, among others.

Author : Baldwin Clive Baldwin
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
Page : 309 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2020-03-02
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781474423892

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Anxious Men by Baldwin Clive Baldwin Pdf

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.

Author : Carla J. McDonough
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 196 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 1997-01-01
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0786402687

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Staging Masculinity by Carla J. McDonough Pdf

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.

Author : Jopi Nyman
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 390 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2022-02-28
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9789004490000

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Men Alone by Jopi Nyman Pdf

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.

Author : James Leslie Woodress
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 654 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 1965
Category : American literature
ISBN : UOM:39015062119451

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American Literary Scholarship by James Leslie Woodress Pdf

Author : Matthew Joseph Bruccoli,Scottie Fitzgerald Smith,Joan Paterson Kerr
Publisher : Univ of South Carolina Press
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1570035296

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The Romantic Egoists by Matthew Joseph Bruccoli,Scottie Fitzgerald Smith,Joan Paterson Kerr Pdf

This pictorial autobiography of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald documents two lives that have become legendary. The book draws almost entirely from the scrapbooks and photograph albums that the Fitzgeralds scrupulously kept as their personal record and provides a wealth of illustrative material not previously available. Minnesota; a photograph of the country club in Montgomery, Alabama, where the two met; reviews of This Side of Paradise; poems to the couple from Ring Lardner; snapshots of their trips abroad; Fitzgerald's careful accounting of his earnings; a photograph of the house on Long Island where The Great Gatsby was conceived; postcards with Fitzgerald's drawings for his daughter. These rare photographs and memorabilia combine into a narrative augmented by selections from Scott's and Zelda's own writings, conveying the spirit of particuular moments in their lives.

Author : Brenton J. Malin
Publisher : Peter Lang
Page : 220 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : Art
ISBN : 0820468061

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American Masculinity Under Clinton by Brenton J. Malin Pdf

Whereas many of the men of Reagan's '80s seemed stereotypically hypermasculine, a host of '90s images suggest a new phase of more sensitive manhood. In the Clinton era, both academic and popular writers suggested that a «crisis of masculinity» had taken root - one that had men questioning traditional male ideas and seeking new identities. This book explores the conflicted ways in which this seemingly new climate of masculinity was negotiated. From Bill Clinton to The Promise Keepers and Titanic to Friends, a host of '90s heroes put this rhetoric of crisis to work to win elections, audience members, and ratings.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 326 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2015-05-26
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9789004299009

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Configuring Masculinity in Theory and Literary Practice by Anonim Pdf

Configuring Masculinity in Theory and Literary Practice combines a critical survey of the most important concepts in Masculinity Studies with a historical overview of how masculinity has been constructed within British Literature and a special focus on developments in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Author : Annette Federico
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 1991
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : UOM:39015022050614

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Masculine Identity in Hardy and Gissing by Annette Federico Pdf

This work discusses how both Hardy and Gissing dramatize the tensions in Victorian masculinity by describing men who are emotionally and psychologically entrapped by the roles they impose upon themselves.

Author : Stefan Horlacher,Kevin Floyd
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 220 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2016-04-08
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781317077107

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Post-World War II Masculinities in British and American Literature and Culture by Stefan Horlacher,Kevin Floyd Pdf

Analyzing literary texts, plays, films and photographs within a transatlantic framework, this volume explores the inseparable and mutually influential relationship between different forms of national identity in Great Britain and the United States and the construction of masculinity in each country. The contributors take up issues related to how certain kinds of nationally specific masculine identifications are produced, how these change over time, and how literature and other forms of cultural representation eventually question and deconstruct their own myths of masculinity. Focusing on the period from the end of World War II to the 1980s, the essays each take up a topic with particular cultural and historical resonance, whether it is hypermasculinity in early cold war films; the articulation of male anxieties in plays by Arthur Miller, David Mamet and Sam Shepard; the evolution of photographic depictions of masculinity from the 1960s to the 1980s; or the representations of masculinity in the fiction of American and British writers such as Patricia Highsmith, Richard Yates, John Braine, Martin Amis, Evan S. Connell, James Dickey, John Berger, Philip Roth, Frank Chin, and Maxine Hong Kingston. The editors and contributors make a case for the importance of understanding the larger context for the emergence of more pluralistic, culturally differentiated and ultimately transnational masculinities, arguing that it is possible to conceptualize and emphasize difference and commonality simultaneously.

Author : Herbert Sussman
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 201 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2012-03-14
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780313391606

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Masculine Identities by Herbert Sussman Pdf

This book provides an intriguing look at the long history of the changing definitions of what it means to "be a man," identifying both the continuity and disparity in these ideals and explaining the contemporary crisis of masculinity. In the classical Athens of Plato and Pericles, erotic relations between adolescents and adult men—what we now revile as pedophilia—was the marker of manliness; a clear example of how concepts of masculinity shift. Even within modern western society, there are conflicting ideals for men; they are expected to be both aggressive and unemotional in business, and sensitive and caring as a father and lover. Masculine Identities: The History and Meanings of Manliness provides a comprehensive consideration of what "being a man" has meant over time. A fascinating read for men and women alike, it examines masculine identities that emerged in the past and continue into the present, such as the warrior, the democratic man, the craftsman, the self-made man of business, as well as ethnic forms of manliness. The work concludes by examining the contemporary issues of male sexuality, same-sex identity, and the conflicts within men in the modern world.

Author : Jonathan Mitchell
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2011-11-03
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781441156556

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Revisions of the American Adam by Jonathan Mitchell Pdf

The figure of the American Adam is a prevalent myth in US cultural history. Defined by R.W.B. Lewis in 1955 as "the hero of new adventure . . .an individual standing alone, self-reliant and self-propelling, ready to confront whatever awaited him with the aid of his own unique and inherent resources", the figure is discernable in the American renaissance writers and in the imagery of the frontiersman, cowboy, gangster as well as in the heroes of US action movies. Focusing on the American Adam as a paradigm of masculine identity formation, this monograph examines how this fantasy of an imaginary ideal identity has held an ideological sway over US identity in the main. Taking in a range of cultural texts, Jonathan Mitchell's study explores the complexities and contradictions of Adam's 'real' condition of existence to show how the paradigm influences both masculinity and subsequently hegemonic US identity as represented throughout twentieth-century US culture.

Author : Panos Gerakis
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 212 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2024-04-02
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9781036402402

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Anti-Heroes in the Works of Easton Ellis, Coe, Martel and Tsiolkas by Panos Gerakis Pdf

In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, globalization has significantly influenced gendered experiences worldwide. While scholarly attention has predominantly focused on women’s lives and marked gender identities since the seventies, there remains a conspicuous gap in the exploration of the phenomenically “unmarked” gender and particularly men’s identities and the unique challenges they face. Drawing upon a diverse array of texts and ideas from cultural theory, this book delves into crucial issues surrounding masculinity; the shame, struggle, precariousness, and predicaments inherent in navigating the expectations of being “a man” in today’s era of neoliberalism and globalization. Through the lens of the main characters in novels by Bret Easton Ellis, Jonathan Coe, Yann Martel and Christos Tsiolkas, all from the anglophone sphere, the narrative illuminates these often overlooked facets of masculinity crisis. The book seeks to contribute to a deeper understanding of masculinities today, shedding light upon the vulnerable nature of the masculine experience.

Author : Holger Kiesow
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
Page : 94 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2007-01-20
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9783638585378

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The Representation of Masculinity in Contemporary British Fiction by Holger Kiesow Pdf

Examination Thesis from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Göttingen (Englisches Seminar), language: English, abstract: From 1950 to 1999, the fiction genre of Ladlit presented British readers with a romantic, comic, popular male literature, which was regarded as a chance to examine male identity in contemporary Britain. But by the beginning of the 21st century one was seeking for a new story of masculine identity. In the meantime, the has been a focus on masculinity in language and gender studies, whereas the exclusive attention had formerly been upon femininity. The tradition of man being constituted in terms of universal, normative values has led to the phenomenon of 'invisible masculinity'. However, there has always been a discourse available to men which allows them to represent themselves as people or mankind. The text examines how the representation of masculinities has changed in society in the recent fifty years. Using different theories of gender studies, masculinities and the effects of socio-economical changes, the following novels will be discussed: Amis's Lucky Jim (1954), Sillitoe's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958), Hollinghurst's The Swimming-Pool Library (1988) and Hornby's About a Boy (1998).