The Multiple Reconstruction out of Crisis: Masculinities in Bellow’s Novellas

Nan XI

Abstract


Saul Bellow’s novels mainly focus on social lives of contemporary urban American men. Taking his four novellas covering the second half of the 20th century as an example, this paper aims to reveal in change of social structure and cultural contexts how masculinity is in crisis extrinsically or intrinsically, and how social factors such as work and marriage assist in fashioning it. Through positive dialogues with social changes and cultural turn, Bellow deconstructs the masculinity as well as establishes a new democratic gender order and harmonious gender relations to reconstruct multiple masculinities.


Keywords


Saul Bellow; Masculinities; Reconstruction; Novella

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/%25x

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