Masculinity in Deliverance by James Dickey Essay

City of God is a movie that takes place in Rio De Janerio beginning in the 1960s. It is a story of a young Brazilian boy named Rocket who observes and experiences the shift in power and how that power is gained and maintained in the world of drugs. It can be said that unsavory choices are made in order for L’il Ze to get to the top, however it could be argued that he is just playing by the rules of the street. This is how macro-subcultural theories apply to the movie City of God, leaders take and maintain power through force as they have been taught and continue to teach others to do.

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

Compare and contrast the representation of masculinity in two films or TV series of your choice.

Matthew Jones declares that black masculinity is defined in three overarching categories: perception, expectation, and representation (Jones). The stories, Fences, by August Wilson and A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest Gains, the main characters are forced to live with many hardships. Yet only a few of them can declare value of their lives, and redeem themselves, despite these hardships. The stories both of the main characters are unhappy angry men the only difference is that one of the characters progressed while the other stays the same. This paper will compare and contrast them both.

None of the boys said they have, but the protagonist thought to himself that their friend was dead and lying in the river. He was terrified of this, and he did not have the courage to tell them about the dead body. Young people do not show fear when they think that they can handle a situation. This can be caused by the fact that when they are together they think that they can do a lot with no harm coming their way. This is made worse when they take alcohol and other substances that distort their thinking and reasoning and increase their confidence. The narrator perceives that they were dangerous characters meaning that they were to be feared and they were not afraid of anything. The thought of him having killed a person and the possibility of facing the law scares him. The little epiphany he has in the story is when he feels something soft and he is not sure what it is. This makes him more scared and his fear is heightened when he realizes that it is another dead body. At that time, he realizes the consequences if his actions. This story shows how a person can grow and become mature overnight after realizing the consequences of his actions. The next morning gives the three young men another chance to

Bobby, a young troubled man, Was raised by his father, a professional con artist after the death of his mother. From a very young age Bobby was exposed to the criminal acts of his father and was taught to lead the same path. When he turns seventeen years old, Bobby meets and falls in love with a girl called Gwen. She gives him a sense of identity and belonging he missed his entire life. During the same time he learns

‘A Separate Peace’ by John Knowles centers on a group of boys who focus on demonstrating their masculinity and playing sport. Gene Forrester, a typical teenage boy of his time, and Phineas, an adventurous assured individual also known as Finny, are two friends that demonstrate two different ideas about what it means to be masculine in their period of time. This causes a tension between Phineas and Gene and it leads to their relationship to deteriorate. ‘A Separate Peace’ demonstrates divergent ideas about masculinity through several incidents and events throughout the story.

In one scene of the memoir, Allison describes her uncles and their need to be depicted as masculine and to act “hard” to the world around them. She also remembers her cousins as young boys and how quickly they seemed to turn into men. The time came for them to act as the world expected them to. This action shows how gender may oppress some males when they feel the pressures of the world to act a certain way. Otherwise, they are at risk for being seen as different and abnormal. Men who do not portray masculinity well are often seen as feminine and weak. When Allison describes her uncles she states, “If you didn’t look close, you might miss the sharp glint of pain in their eyes, the restless angry way they gave themselves up to fate,” (Allison, 28). These men already had their futures planned for them though the society and gender norms. Acting against these norms was seen as unusual, radical, and

Culture teaches that men must dispense of ridiculous emotions and remain firm, following expected duties. O’Brien develops this theme of the transition from youth to manhood in his short story, “The Things They Carried.” Through the protagonist Jimmy Cross, metaphors of weight, and futile ideas of freedom, O’Brien reveals how society expects young men in transition to adulthood to let go of impractical idealism and dwell instead on the cruel reality of the world.

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

This love shown by the husband demonstrates how far masculinity has come in just a short period since the frontier days. A husband’s responsibility to be loving and kind was something more commonly associated with a woman’s role until now. The Husbands I’m right demeanor shows how men can be stubborn since men were the “Experts” of the day. In the husband’s case, he was an expert physician. Since he knows that he has been schooled in the knowledge of what to do in cases such as his wife’s, thus, he will not even consider her opinion. So, this means that while men were viewed as experts in this period they were stubborn none the less. This is because of the notion that men were more knowledgeable. And not admitting when you’re wrong is something that men commonly do as well for a matter of pride. (Make sound sophisticated)

inside. You could be a builder by day, and a drag queen on stage by

Being a male in today’s society is not about living and enjoyment, it has become more of a task. Social pressures and media have made it difficult for males to live a life in which they are not being pressured to act or perform a certain way. In order to reassure themselves of their masculinity, violence has become the main method in assuring themselves and those around them that they are powerful. Not only is this violence being perpetrated against others, but self-inflicted violence also exists. The violence being used is not only physical but it is emotional abuse as well. Masculinity has forced many males to perform in ways that are detrimental to their own health as well as their loved ones. Furthermore, it has also put males in the

Death is inevitable in every person’s life, but death in these character’s lives is easily predicted to be early, and this represents the sadness and sorrows in the innocence of war. There are many ways to die, and war is the saddest way for that to occur, but at the same time,

First, hegemonic masculinity is the ultimate description of a male and anyone who does not fit this description is seen as inferior and unworthy (Kimmel, 2012). In America, the hegemonic men are described as being white, middle class, married, straight, church going men that provide for their families (Kimmel, 2012). The problem with hegemonic masculinity is that it is largely unobtainable and is more of an idea that is held up because many may never achieve it (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005). People that don’t feel like they fit the standard definition of hegemonic masculinity still feel like they have to subscribe to it in order to avoid being degraded or