Masculinity Monologue

I found an African-American female sitting in the student center on the phone right by the glass window by the pool area. She has on blue jeans and a black shirt, black and white van shoes on. She keeps smiling while she twirls her hair, it looks like she is talking to her boyfriend. She got up and walked out the door by the game area. I walked to the gym that’s right for the student center desk, I notice a Caucasian male and female playing volleyball each other, I sat down on the bleachers with my basketball and watched how they talked to each other to see if they were dating, friends maybe even brother or sisters. The male spiked the ball and the girl giggled and blushed real hard; right then I had the assumption that the two were neither dating or brothers or sister they were just in the talking stage.

The definition of masculinity; Is the fact of being a man or having qualities considered typical of a man.

In today’s society, alcohol has become one of the main necessities for people to create relaxation, confidence, and the ability to be social. In the short story “A Bartender Tells What Man Did to Booze, and Booze to Man”, an anonymous bartender gives an up close and personal account of his observations about the effects alcohol has on men. He emphasizes the change in their character after a few drinks. Koren Zailckas from Smashed shares a memoir of her life describing her relationship with alcohol abuse and the problems that it caused for her. Although certain types of alcohol are used to support good health, it is the excessive consumption and misuse that leaves people dependent resulting in significant social, physical, and mental

In the book ‘Dry’, Augusten Burroughs gives us an insightful look into the life of someone who has been struggling with alcohol abuse. Augusten is just an average man in his twenties, he lives in Manhattan, New York, works in advertising, and has plenty of money. But there is one thing that makes him anything but. When an average man may be having one or two drinks, Augusten had eleven. His whole life revolved around alcohol. He would stay out going to bars all night, and never go home. At work you could smell the alcohol in his pores and his breath. With his job on the line, Augusten was asked to go to rehab.

The man sat in the booth across from me studied me with old eyes. His wrinkles which formed when he used to smile so much are no longer quite as prominent. The man’s irises were currently an icy blue, resembling the seasonal weather among the small town. This I only knew because I’ve seen him once before. His eyes were almost like a crisp auburn- resembling what was known to him as “the falling of the children”

From the outset of the extract, Sarah’s thoughts about alcohol were in a constant flux, with conflicting views about alcohol present throughout. Initially, alcohol is perceived as a facilitator for sociability and excitement whereby risky behaviours are valued. Sarah’s comparison of sobriety to a deflated balloon suggests a lack of enjoyment within a life deprived of alcohol, and as a result, Sarah relied upon the substance to experience satisfaction. As highlighted by the previous theme, alcohol had a considerable impact on Sarah’s sense of self. Compared to that of helium to a balloon (a substance that causes a balloon to rise), alcohol is perceived as a substance that uplifts Sarah’s self-worth and enables her to escape from reality. Sobriety, in contrast, is compared to a deflated balloon in that it grounds Sarah, bringing her back to reality where she lacks self-esteem. However, there is an underlying tone of resentment towards alcohol. For example, Sarah’s choice of the word ‘cheap’ to describe sex produces a negative association to a passionate act that should be intimate and affectionate. Rather, Sarah views the behaviour as worthy of no respect and of little value. It is therefore evident that Sarah experienced an internal battle with alcohol, where on the one hand she had attributed positive qualities to it such as enjoyment and confidence, but at the same time acknowledged that it influenced her to behave in ways she scrutinised as being undignified and

The narrator of Ten Nights in a Barroom believes that the abnormality of drinking alcohol has a negative effect on the lives of men. However, he suspiciously promotes the anti-temperance movement by staying in the barroom while others drink. If the narrator’s contradicting attitude is overlooked, he may be easily seen as a harsh, judging man that interferes with the lives of others who he does not know; the novel might also be read only as a simple temperance tract. Ten Nights in a Barroom is not about judging other people; rather, the novel represents one’s longing for social fellowship and freedom that the men in the bar find by drinking alcohol.

To read Babio without recognizing the gender politics at work in the play would disregard much of how the play itself creates meaning. So much of the play’s plot and character dynamics are related to the way gender functions in this play. One major theme of Babio is the idea of masculinity and how masculinity is defined. Through the portrayal of Babio as an effeminate character, Babio is able to define masculinity through absences in Babio’s Character. Consequently, Babio makes the additional point that lovesickness is not an intrinsic aspect of medieval masculinity, despite the fact that love sickness is often attributed to men.

THE LINE BETWEEN DISGUSHING the sober from the drunk is blurred. giggles pierce her ears, instead of the HEAVY music, but she lets herself drown out the mere voices with hennessy. and what a friend hennesy had been to her. hennesy, was one of her truest companions through all her MAJOR milestones of her life. but tonight she wanted something different, to befriend someone new — jack, jack daniels. who other than a new friend to keep her company in this toxic wasteland intertwine of intoxicated strung out souls. except there’s a tiny problem that alludes to her in the back of her mind. she’s broke. using the term broke with such light ease would be an EXAGGERATION on her part. she had money, but not enough to satisfy her current craving. her

A couple of weeks ago I was introduced to a character at a gas station whom I only thought lived between the pages of a graphic novel. However, before this diatribe about masculinity takes a turn for the depressed and uninspired, there is an important detail I left out of my first story. Before I reveal it to you, let's go back to what he was doing before he arrived awkwardly lost at the gas station.

“In my waking world, I was not worthwhile. I hadn’t been for years. Booze will do that to a man. But booze is not the root of the problem. Just a condition. When you lose something, something that was your whole world, two choices present themselves. Dig through the ash and burnt timber, through bits of ruined clothing and blackened shards of dinner plates and waterlogged photo albums that was the sum of your life, and find something inside you that makes you want to go on. Or allow that black pit that is born in the bottom of your belly to smoulder, and spend your days trying to dampen it with rye.” (13

Especially noted with the certain perks that come with living in the exclusive American Dream, the use of alcoholic beverages regards one to be high in social standing and well off in the world, owning exquisite taste in products only the best of the best should be deserving of. “All that bubbly all that wine Oh man look at the times didn’t they notice?” John Legend indicated those with the wine are intoxicated not only from the alcohol but also the natural surrounding. Neglectful of the struggles faced down on lower levers, unphased by the strife cause below, they forget to humanely feel compassion, even for a minute second. Such actions cause the conscious mind to reach a state bordering a comatose where being filled with the pleasures of the American Dream blinds their conscious which shall awake only to protect the comatose environment such so that the body can comprehend for themselves that like-bodied people understand this experience because they alone deserve it. Connecting the Hughes’ poem, the young white man has it all, taken from the tainted hands of workers to keep himself clean. There isn’t a trace of blemish to be found so it is an entrapment yet again for all to understand that his American Dream benefits off their work, and benefits the less he cares about humane treatment

My study looks at how all my texts are connected by portrayals of masculinity and conformity. All of these texts have main characters who struggle with the demands of masculinity and the pressures to conform to society’s view of masculinity. The texts that I am using are Foreskins Lament by Greg McGee, The Godfather by Francis Ford Coppola, Kite Runner by and The Tomcat by James K Baxter. This interests me because I am a young man beginning my adult life and I feel a lot of pressure to conform to what society thinks is a good man.

When I was six, my mother told me that I should never put hearts on an item that I’m giving to another boy, that it was “not right.” So, I learned to never show emotion to boys, because that was not “typical” for another boy. To this day I cannot help but look back and analyze the situation. What made it not typical? What was so bad about showing light-hearted affection? I wrestled with these ideas, and they acted as a wall between me and my identity, and I was unknowingly making the wall higher by denying who I was and shutting out those who were brave enough to be themselves.

T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land explores modernism, specifically focusing on the troubling of binaries and the breakdown of the traditional. The boundaries between life and death, wet and dry, male and female, and more are called into question in Eliot’s conception of modernity and the waste land. The blurring of gender boundaries—significantly through Tiresias and the hooded figure scene in “What the Thunder Said”— in the poem lends itself to Eliot’s suggestion that traditional masculinity breaks down and decays in the waste land. Traditional masculinity is further challenged through Eliot’s criticism of hyper-masculinity and heterosexual relations in the modern era through allusions to the myth of Philomela and the “young man carbuncular” scene in “The Fire Sermon.” Along with this, Eliot stages scenes charged with homoeroticism to further challenge ideas of traditional masculinity. Homoerotic scenes such as the “hyacinth girl” scene in “The Burial of the Dead” and the Mr. Eugenides scene in “The Fire Sermon” suggest an intensity and enticement towards male-male relations, while also offering a different depiction of masculinity than is laid out in the heterosexual romance scenes. Through scenes depicting queer desire and homosexual behavior, Eliot suggests that masculinity in the modern era does not need to be marked by aggression and