Masculinity in Peter Weir's Gallipoli

Within comptemporary society, there are many ways to define gender. Gender includes all the characteristics that differentiate masculinity and femininity. The existence of masculinity create problems for every men because they are constantly pressured to behave in a certain way in order to look masculine. In the story “The Maltese Falcon” by Dashiell Hammett, masculinity is negatively depicted as problematic toward men. In this story, the author displays the negativity of masculinity through the conduct, manliness and reputation of the main character.

The concept of femininity and masculinity is mentioned many times throughout the essay to highlight it

"At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy. He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage." (Ch.9, Pg. 61) Jim Conklin, Wilson, and the tattered man are not only alike in some ways, but also have differences. The purpose of this essay is to tell you the similarities between the tall soldier, the loud soldier, and the tattered man, how they are like or unlike Henry Fleming, and what roles these major characters seem to play in the novel.

‘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.

Characters constructed in historical novels often exhibit attributes that are not commonly etched in those characters found in contemporary novels. DM very skillfully underscores these differences in the parallel novel Boys of Blood and Bone through the creation of Henry and the WW1 soldiers. It has been suggested that Henry Lyon, depicted as a protagonist, represents the values, attitudes and beliefs of the ANZAC soldier that emerged as part of Australian culture during World War 1. Following a deconstruction of the narrative, it is accurate to claim that DM uses Lyon to epitomise some of the values, attitudes and beliefs of ANZAC soldiers. However, some aspects do not reflect the qualities of ANZAC diggers.

The ideologies of the Australian bush man and bush women during the 19th to 20th century, although, different, demonstrates many similarities when it comes to gender roles and stereotypes. This is demonstrated through the written works of both Henry Lawson and Ray Lawler, who demonstrate the realities of living in the 1890’s and 1950’s in Australia. The similarities and differences will be demonstrated by examining and comparing both male and female stereotypes of the typical bush man, while looking at women’s loyalty to their men, male masculinity and female femininity, and the roles that men and women play in Lawson and Lawler’s written works during this time.

These characters suggest the complex situation of fiction frequently being more relevant in many lives as it is more in tune with our desires. Even though these men are in a vicious war they are more prone to their imagination than they are to their reality. Thus capturing the audience’s attention by emphasising to readers that through fictional thinking we are able to dream and imagine; we can think of the impossible, not just the mundane situations in our lives, such as the daily chores at

In “The Things They Carried”, Tim O’Brien uses male gender roles and masculinity as additional devices in telling a fictionalized war story. Throughout “The Things They Carried”, each of the characters is putting up a facade that highlights their hyper masculine traits based on male gender roles and social norms. Therefore, masculinity influences all of the soldiers in one way or another. Some traits even become synonymous with particular characters. Each one being a different representation of what gender roles they are to follow or not, even in a setting of war. By using male gender roles and masculinity in telling this fictionalized war story, their actions and ways of speaking are“performative actions” that either enforce their masculinity or takes away it.

A target of satire in the novel is the idea that war is a glorious place where you can earn respect and attention. Throughout the novel, Henry thinks repeatedly about how his actions and those of the other soldiers will appear as news headlines “of a decisive victory” (Crane 623). Henry finds out that war is not a place where you can gain recognition and honor, but rather a place of blood, death, and horror. A theme of the novel is that when confronted with a deadly threat, one will save his own life instead of someone else’s. This theme is most strongly shown with the thoughts and actions of Henry Fleming.

Men are supposed to act strong and emotionless, a historical expectation in American society. Post- World War II fear and alienation haunted American men (Perchuk 1995:35). Pollock’s method to alleviate fear through his paintings is the response to the historical happenings during World War II. The war mentality decreased masculinity as the men were able express “weak” emotions.

Throughout the novel, it shows the patriotism that was built up around the First World War. A lot of young men signed up for the draft because of war propaganda glorifying the war. It depicts the war and does not cover up what occurred during battle. Instead, it gives gruesome details in what a day in the life of a soldier was like. The anti-war aspect is shown through senseless acts of violent and innocent mean killed over protecting their country. In the novel Paul kills a French soldier where he finds notes and pictures of his family. Thinking that his family will never see him again eats him up inside even though the soldier is seen as his enemy. The war becomes a long battle that what started as a huge patriotic event turned into a cause that seemed not right and useless. The only thing that gets the soldiers through the hardships they face is each other. Even when the men feel hopeless, they can turn to one another for comfort. Forming bonds with the other soldiers gives them a sense of family and normalcy in a war

Thesis: The constructs of masculinity found in most Disney movies create an environment of images that shape and define what young boys view as masculinity. By

When going into the appalling and atrocious battle, Charley had courage, courage that he would come out being the gentleman all the girls wanted. However, Henry was having second thoughts and had enough guts to fill up a bottle cap. When going into war, Charley felt confident and lucrative, like he was a Godly figure. Henry often thought about what would happen if he didn’t survive and all the terrible fears of battle. After this, Henry fled from the battlefield, cowardly. And finally, the last difference, at the end of the war we were able to experience Charley's outcome, but not able to feel or see how Henry's experience was. These differences explain that the boys both reacted uniquely toward the war and how each young man was raised differently which affected them in the harsh

War forces young soldiers to grow up quickly. In Stephen Crane’s Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Courage, Henry Fleming is no exception. He is faced with the hard reality of war and this forces him to readjust his romantic beliefs about war. Through the novel, the reader can trace the growth and development of Henry through these four stages: (1) romanticizing war and the heroic role each soldier plays, (2) facing the realities of war, (3) lying to himself to maintain his self-importance, and (4) realistic awareness of his abilities and place in life. Through Henry’s experiences in his path to self-discovery, he is strongly affected by events that help shape his ideology of war, death,

The 2005 film, Jarhead focuses on the life of the protagonist Marine, Anthony Swafford. The viewer watches as Swofford endures the vicious training to be a US Marine, which eventually leads to his deployment in Kuwait in to fight the 1990 Gulf War. Undoubtedly, many aspects of the film link back to Gender, however for the purpose of this critical review, I will be focusing on the way in masculinity in Jarhead serves to highlight key ideas about hierarchy and freedom. Although broadly defined, I have interpreted ‘masculinity’ as men being expected to behave with particular characteristics, such as being strong, heroic, protective, and rational. This review will argue that through the focus on Gender, particularly masculinity, Jarhead provides a critique of the military’s dependence on masculinity as a means of shaping the ‘worth’ of men, an aspect which often leads to emotional and mentally isolation and entrapment, as well as raising questions about the masculinity of the state. Moreover, Jarhead criticises how the repression of aggressive masculinity, as fuelled and promoted military training, can have consequences, as the men do not have an outlet for this aggressive masculinity, for example, combat.