Masculinity is an odd concept, because in many ways it is representative of strength and power. However, it is also represented through pop culture, literature, media, etc. as being rather fragile. In feminist literature, we see this fragility come through at incredible rates. While simply looking at a couple of novels, it is possible to evaluate how the power dynamic of masculinity puts up its walls when facing the smallest threats to its power. Through analysis of Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, it is possible to see how the figureheads of masculinity panic as soon as they are posed with the smallest threat. The protagonists of both stories are categorized as “mad” or “abnormal” throughout the course of each respective plot. They are placed there under the pretenses that this classification is what is best for them because it allows them to get the help they need and deserve in order to get better. However, these declarations of madness are really born from the infringement of both characters upon the pre-established patterns of masculinity and the panic that ensues from the male voice as a result of this deviance from traditional norms. In Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, the church in Jeanette’s town is clearly overseen and ruled by the men of the town. While there is female leadership within the church, it is easily undermined at the slightest hint of a threat to masculine leadership. When the church becomes aware
Connell (1995) developed this concept to describe how masculinities are always relational and, thus, one’s identity is continually constructed in relation to “otherness.” Crucially, Connell sees masculinity as integrally connected with power and constantly negotiated.
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
Building on the notions of femininity and masculinity, the author outlines all the cliché qualities of men and women, supporting them with vivid imagery, while also being careful with his
More often than not, analyses of John Rollin Ridge’s Joaquín Murieta interpret the novel as a demonstration of male bravery, and regard the female characters as counterparts that exist to remind the violent men of their humanity. However, an analysis that only considers women for their roles as sentimental beings is one that fails to detect their true significance in the work. Instead, it is essential to recognize that the female characters of the novel diverge from traditional, confining expectations of womanhood, and embody traits of masculinity as a response to their social situations.
In a perfect world, men and women would live as equals, sharing power in all aspects of life. While this may be an appealing notion, it is nonexistent in society. Strong men are seen by women as abusive and dominating, while strong women are seen by men as castrating and emasculating. The text of Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, in many ways, conforms to the structure of conventional male myth and asks the reader to accept that myth as a heroic pattern. From a masculinist perspective, it offers a charismatic hero in Randle Patrick McMurphy, a figure of spiritual strength and sexual energy, whose laughter restores the patients of the mental institution to life and confounds the combine’s “machines,” or authoritarians.
In Michael Kimmel’s pieces “Masculinity as Homophobia: Fear, Shame, and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity” and “Who’s Afraid of Men Doing Feminism” he gives us a description of masculinity and explains what this concept of masculinity means for both men and women. He argues that men can, and should be feminist; that they should advocate for gender equality, because gender equality will benefit both men and women. In this paper I will use Kimmel’s analysis of masculinity, which he uses in his arguments for the necessity of profeminist men, along with some assertions made by Jean-Jacques Rousseau about the education of young boys and girls, to show the strengths and weaknesses of Kimmel’s argument. His assertions can seem strong when read alone, however by looking at his argument for profeminist men together with his and Rousseau’s assertions about masculinity one can see a fundamental flaw in his argument. In his analysis of masculinity he not only points out the significant problems with the way men, especially American men, are forced to subscribe to this barbaric concept of manliness, he also expresses concern for this ‘boys club’ atmosphere. However, in his argument for profeminist men, he takes what could be a strong argument and weakens it when he feeds into this desperate need for reassurance by telling men that feminism will benefit them too.
Patriarchy is a social system where men dominate and govern most of the world’s economical, educational, familial, health, political, and religious systems. This political social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior females, has been taking it toll on different demographics. To maintain dominance, men exude their sensitive, inferior “masculinity” through various forms of psychological control, manipulation, violence, and terrorism. The subservient role-playing woman has to orchestrate to patriarchal chime by being nurturing, obedient, passive, and weak
In the novel Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, by Jeanette Winterson, most of the important, decision-making, characters are female. Jeanette, the female protagonist, is greatly influenced by her mother, a strong, overbearing, eccentric woman, and by Elsie, a prominent member of the family parish who becomes Jeanette's only friend and closest confidant. Elsie and Jeanette's mother act as polar forces in Jeanette's life, with the mother encouraging suppression of "unholy" or "unnatural" feelings and thoughts, and Elsie encouraging expression of feelings and accepting oneself for who one really is.
To understand either work’s take on hegemonic masculinity, it is important to identify masculinity as a gendered hegemony. In her definition of gender, Judith Halberstam notes that gender is socially systematized, performed, and reproduced in cultures, institutions, and individual identities (Burgett, Bruce, and Hendler, 116). In a like manner, in her article on gendered violence, Mimi Schippers notes R.W. Connell’s research on masculinity to expand this definition, implying that masculinity is central to gender relations. In short, Connell defined masculinity as “simultaneously a place in gender relations, the practices through which men and women engage… in gender, and the effects of these practices on bodily experience, personality, and culture” (Schippers, 86). Here, masculinity is classified as a social position, the set and practice
…offers up particular notions of agency in which white working class and middle class men are allowed to see themselves as oppressed and lacking because their masculinity has been compromised by and subordinated to those social and economic spheres and needs that constitute the realm of the feminine.
Jean Rhys' complex text, Wide Sargasso Sea, came about as an attempt to re-invent an identity for Rochester's mad wife, Bertha Mason, in Jane Eyre, as Rhys felt that Bronte had totally misrepresented Creole women and the West Indies: 'why should she think Creole women are lunatics and all that? What a shame to make Rochester's wife, Bertha, the awful madwoman, and I immediately thought I'd write a story as it might really have been.' (Jean Rhys: the West Indian Novels, p144). It is clear that Rhys wanted to reclaim a voice and a subjectivity for Bertha, the silenced Creole, and to subvert the assumptions made by the Victorian text. She does so with startling results.
The definition of masculinity shows young males that in order to be respected, power must be applied upon others and intimidation is the only method of gaining this respect. Through the use of this power and intimidation, females are often oppressed and kept under the control of men. Woman has need of the male in order to gain human dignity, to eat, to enjoy life, to procreate; it is through the service of sex that she gets these benefits; because she is confined to that function, she is wholly an instrumentality of exploitation (De Beauvoir, 360). Males use power over women to reassure their manliness and to portray their masculinity. This violence is not only present in households. It is also present in masculinity versus nature in a capitalist society, where the environment must be altered and destroyed for economic gains. It appears that violence against nature-that is, the impossible and disastrous drive to dominate and conquer the natural world-is integrally connected with domination among humans (Kaufman, 7). Another example of showing this power is through rape and sexual abuse. Through rape, men display their dominance in the most violent and gruesome ways. As Kaufman notes, in the testimonies of rapists on hears over and over again expressions of inferiority, powerlessness, anger (15). By committing this crime, males display their physical strength upon the victim and this is what masculinity is defined as, a display of power and
For many years, men have always held and desired power, especially when pitted against the fairer sex. The struggle for men to assert power is prevalent in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, as the mentally-ill patients, led by Randle McMurphy, strive to remove Nurse Ratched’s subordination. Furthermore, Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises explores the role reversal of power in the sexes, through the adventures of expatriates in post-WWI Europe. Despite being written decades apart, Kesey and Hemingway both explore the concept of sexual empowerment and degradation in both sexes. This is seen through the dominating role women partake in both novels, the notion of male insecurity, and the symbolic representation of the main
A patriarchal society is a world in which men are the sole decision makers and hold positions of power. As a result, women are introduced to a world made by men, and a history refined by a man 's actions. In Jean Rhys 's Wide Sargasso Sea, conceptions of gender are purposefully problematized. Women characters such as Antoinette and Christophine are pitilessly exposed to constraints of an imperial world.Wide Sargasso Sea presents a modern form of feminism which takes into account the intricacy of male-female interactions to find that efforts to surpass gender norms are despairing.
In Jean Rhys' novel Wide Sargasso Sea, whether Antoinette Cosway really goes mad in the end is debatable. Nevertheless, it is clear that her life is tragic. The tragedy comes from her numerous pursuits for love and a sense of belonging, and her failure at each and every one of these attempts.