Pub Date : 2020-02-07DOI: 10.1163/9789004299009_009
S. Horlacher
Jude the Obscure is not only Thomas Hardy’s last but probably also his bleakest novel. Even the epigram on the frontispiece – “The letter killeth [but the spirit giveth life]” – can be read as having negative forebodings; it can, however, also be interpreted as a commentary on the “nature” of language and on the absolute necessity of understanding its founding mechanisms such as absence, difference and deferral if one is to lead a happy and meaningful life and if one endeavors to claim the freedom and the responsibility to construct one’s gender identity. This essay thus centers on the extent to which Hardy’s protagonist Jude Fawley, a man who desperately clings to the illusion of a transcendental signified, is able to understand and put into practice Hardy’s epigram when constructing his masculinity. Therefore, the focus of inquiry will be the hitherto largely neglected discursive construction of an ill-fated male gender identity in a discursive universe where “nobody did come, because nobody does” and where taking words literally has lethal consequences.
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Pub Date : 1900-01-01DOI: 10.1163/9789004299009_012
Bettina Schötz
Based on Butler’s concept of gender performativity and Connell’s theory of the social construction of masculinity, this essay argues that Kureishi’s “postethnic” short stories explore contemporary conceptualizations of masculinity: Love in a Blue Time (1997) depicts the disruption of masculine gender practices in the postfeminist era; Midnight All Day (1999) portrays the concomitant transformations of masculinity; The Body and Seven Stories (2002) emphasizes the performativity of masculine identity; and New Stories (2010) transcends traditional, patriarchal and hegemonic notions of masculinity, imagining alternative forms of masculine gender practice, such as the bisexual man or the “feminist house-husband”. Since (gender) identity is as much a narrative artifice as literature, Kureishi’s stories offer a specific savoir litteraire about the formation of masculine identity. Not only do they contribute to a better understanding of contemporary masculinities, but they also conceive of new forms of masculine identity.
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