Self-Conscious Storytelling and the Crisis of Masculinity in Early Ishiguro

<p><b>This thesis engages with Kazuo Ishiguro’s three novels, An Artist of the Floating World, The Remains of the Day, and The Unconsoled, as united by a common theme: the crisis of masculinity. These texts, written in succession from 1986 to 1995, are Ishiguro’s first uses of male character narrators. This thesis takes this fact as consequential for the meaning of the works, as well as for the idea of their interconnection.</b></p> <p>I link the obscured tragedies often identified in Ishiguro’s narrators to the conflicting obligations they feel between their sense of themselves as men and their suppressed emotional lives. This imbalance between the private and public life is presented as a key conflict in Ishiguro’s work, one accessed through identifying crises of masculinity. A crisis for Ishiguro is triggered by the realisation of the impossibility of balancing these two lives. Discussing how professional identity is tied to masculine identity, I analyse the way unreliability emerges from the overprioritising of work. I suggest that in this way identity performance is key to unreliable narration and that these narratives operate as a reorganisation of the narrators’ biographies along the logic of crisis.</p> <p>However, rather than suggesting that Ishiguro’s true interest is on masculine crises, this thesis makes the case that by looking at this series of novels as different explorations of crisis, something new is revealed about the more documented interests of Ishiguro’s experiment—memory, unreliability, history, and storytelling. Through this claim I seek to demonstrate how an overlooked aspect of Ishiguro’s early work offers a fresh approach to his overall project. I combine established narratological analysis of the novels with this alternative perspective on the early works to analyse the way the author expands the bounds of readerly awareness, as well as the capabilities of narrators. In doing so I draw a causal chain between masculine crises, self-conscious narration, and violations of realism.</p> <p>Each chapter explores the related ways Ishiguro carries his interest in crises of masculinity forward. The first, on An Artist of the Floating World, analyses the novel’s sense of being self-consciously organised from within, expanding on the connection between a crisis of masculinity and authorial dispositions. The following chapter on The Remains of the Day takes up narratological theories on the implied author, the narratee, mimesis, and unreliability to examine the extent to which narrators can be aware of their unreliable narration’s effects. The final chapter reads The Unconsoled as Ishiguro’s “masterwork” on the crisis of masculinity. The chapter explores the ways the text acts as a heightening of the prior crisis novels to get a better grasp of this unusual work.</p>

Self-Conscious Storytelling and the Crisis of Masculinity in Early Ishiguro

<p><b>This thesis engages with Kazuo Ishiguro’s three novels, An Artist of the Floating World, The Remains of the Day, and The Unconsoled, as united by a common theme: the crisis of masculinity. These texts, written in succession from 1986 to 1995, are Ishiguro’s first uses of male character narrators. This thesis takes this fact as consequential for the meaning of the works, as well as for the idea of their interconnection.</b></p> <p>I link the obscured tragedies often identified in Ishiguro’s narrators to the conflicting obligations they feel between their sense of themselves as men and their suppressed emotional lives. This imbalance between the private and public life is presented as a key conflict in Ishiguro’s work, one accessed through identifying crises of masculinity. A crisis for Ishiguro is triggered by the realisation of the impossibility of balancing these two lives. Discussing how professional identity is tied to masculine identity, I analyse the way unreliability emerges from the overprioritising of work. I suggest that in this way identity performance is key to unreliable narration and that these narratives operate as a reorganisation of the narrators’ biographies along the logic of crisis.</p> <p>However, rather than suggesting that Ishiguro’s true interest is on masculine crises, this thesis makes the case that by looking at this series of novels as different explorations of crisis, something new is revealed about the more documented interests of Ishiguro’s experiment—memory, unreliability, history, and storytelling. Through this claim I seek to demonstrate how an overlooked aspect of Ishiguro’s early work offers a fresh approach to his overall project. I combine established narratological analysis of the novels with this alternative perspective on the early works to analyse the way the author expands the bounds of readerly awareness, as well as the capabilities of narrators. In doing so I draw a causal chain between masculine crises, self-conscious narration, and violations of realism.</p> <p>Each chapter explores the related ways Ishiguro carries his interest in crises of masculinity forward. The first, on An Artist of the Floating World, analyses the novel’s sense of being self-consciously organised from within, expanding on the connection between a crisis of masculinity and authorial dispositions. The following chapter on The Remains of the Day takes up narratological theories on the implied author, the narratee, mimesis, and unreliability to examine the extent to which narrators can be aware of their unreliable narration’s effects. The final chapter reads The Unconsoled as Ishiguro’s “masterwork” on the crisis of masculinity. The chapter explores the ways the text acts as a heightening of the prior crisis novels to get a better grasp of this unusual work.</p>

Between Crisis and Opportunity: Eritrean Refugee Men in Israel Negotiating Masculinity

The complex intersection of migration and masculinity is a growing field of study. This research explores how married Eritrean refugee men in Israel negotiated masculinity-related challenges within the context of gender relations. A constructivist notion of masculinity informed an interpretive analysis of in-depths interviews with the Eritrean men. It depicted the men’s experiences of a loss of power within gender relations as a “crisis” of masculinity. We explore the intersecting contexts of migration, gender, and culture surrounding these masculinity experiences, as well as the impact of state power that is enacted upon the men via their legal status of “permanent temporariness” and in gendered encounters with state authorities. Finally, we describe and discuss three main strategies the men employed to negotiate masculinity in their relationships with women within these complex circumstances: ruling, migration as an opportunity, and temporary acceptance.

A Bridge with Three Pillars

The paper reflects on the externalisation of violence in media discourses about migra- tion in Germany. I discuss in how far news media build discursive bridges to masculist and far-right groups. To this end, I draw on some of the findings of my research proj- ect ‘Genderism’ in Media Debate. Thematic cycles from 2006 to 2016. Soldierly mascu- linity is seen as hegemonic in the far right. By means of an alleged crisis of masculinity and victimisation of men, this is linked to masculist concepts. The far right as well as masculists accuse women, especially feminists, of being to blame for the effeminacy of men. This crisis of masculinity is considered a problem, to which soldierly masculinity is offered as a solution. The findings of the mentioned genderism-project show that news media discuss the crisis of masculinity, as well as the blaming of feminists. Yet, they do not take up far-right concepts directly. Masculist views can be regarded as the central pillar of a discursive bridge between news media and far-right concepts of mas- culinity. I argue that the notion of a discursive bridge only works with masculist views as intermediary between news media and the far right. Thus, masculism is a crucial ideology to link far-right views regarding discourses in society.

Transformation of Masculinity in the Russian Cinema

The article discusses the issues of gender identity and the crisis of masculinity in the Soviet and post-Soviet cinema in comparison with Western films. Social instability becomes the basis for rethinking cultural identity and expanding the typology of masculinity. This imbalance is most clearly visible in the cinema, which is a beneficial environment for actualizing problematic socio-cultural issues and forming some gender stereotypes and normative behaviors that later enter everyday reality. Following the West, the Russian cinema also focuses on the substantive side of the concept of “masculinity”, which is based on the specifics of national identity, traditional goals and social foundations. It is significant that the hegemonic masculinity characteristic of the Western cinema was not basically common in the Soviet era, whose masculinity model was the image of a leader, a worker, and, in the post-war period, a front-line soldier. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the beginning of capitalist relations in Russia caused the overthrow of former cultural values and the crisis of Soviet identity. The suppression of the male characters’ “sensitivity” was replaced by a total emancipation and sexuality, which can be witnessed in the abundance of scenes of a sexual nature in the films of the 1990s. However, in the post-Soviet cinema, the focus on the values of Western culture, in which a crisis of masculinity was already evident, stimulated the interest in the Russian image of masculinity, which initially manifested itself in romanticizing the image of a “fair gangster,” and later — in the appeal to traditional Russian and Soviet heroes. Since the 2010s, the glorification of the Russian criminal past has declined, opening the space for the emergence of new types of Russian masculinity. The general context of these transformations is represented by the changes of masculinity from the Soviet traumatic, through the post-Soviet (crisis) to the contemporary one.

EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPT OF MASCULINITY IN THE ANDRIY GARASEVYCH WORKS

Purpose. The task of this article is to analyze the manifestations of masculinity in A. Harasevych’s poems of of the interwar period by identifying various manifestations of masculinity in the works of the poet, studying their connection with ideological guidelines of A. Harasevych, analysis of the change and evolution of masculine images at different periods of the artist's creative path.Methods. The research uses the following methods: descriptive, historical-biographical, comparative-historical (to compare different types of masculinity), archetypal and textual analysis (determination of the symbolic meaning of artistic images) and elements of masculine studies (study of masculinity as gender, compliance of its manifestations with gender stereotypes in society), stylistic, mythoanalysis, etc.Results. During the research it was revealed that the first period of A. Garasevich's work was marked by the expressive influence of state-building ideas, which were characteristic for the whole «Prague school». The subject of most works of this period is military-historical. Masculinity in them is manifested mainly in the form of hegemonic heroic masculinity, and its ideal carrier is the Warrior. At the second stage, religious motives played an important role in the poet's work. The poet is experiencing a worldview crisis, which is reflected in his works by the crisis of masculinity. Most often it is embodied in the images of a wanderer, a fugitive, whose features are fatigue, helplessness and illness. The last stage of the poet's poetic work is characterized by significant ideological influences of K. Hamsun and F. Nietzsche. There is a certain return to the heroic masculinity of the early works, but such masculinity is asserted not on the battlefield, but by victories over oneself, the element or a wild beast. This is the masculinity of a Nietzschean who hardens the superman in himself, feeling the joy of the process of overcoming. Thus, the concept of masculinity in the works of A. Harasevych has evolved from the romanticized heroic masculinity of the Warrior through the crisis of masculinity to the establishment of a new type of heroic masculinity in peacetime.Conclusions. Studies of gender issues in the works of the representative of the younger generation of the Prague SchoolA. Harasevych allow to form a more complete and holistic picture of this phenomenon and the Ukrainian national myth, an important aspect of which is gender.Key words: gender, gender stereotype, identity crisis, worldview, symbol, vision, archetype, statehood idea. Мета. Метою розвідки є аналіз виявів маскулінності в поетичній творчості А. Гарасевича та їхньої еволюції шляхом ідентифікації різних виявів маскулінності у творах поета; дослідження їхнього зв’язку зі світоглядними ідейними настановами А. Гарасевича; аналізу зміни й розвитку маскулінних образів на різних етапах творчого шляху митця.Методи. Під час дослідження використано такі методи: описовий, історико-біографічний, порівняльно-історичний (для порівняння різних типів маскулінності), архетипний і текстуальний аналіз (визначення символічного значення художніх образів) та елементи маскулінних студій (дослідження маскулінності як ґендеру, відповідності її проявів наявним у суспільстві ґендерним стереотипам), стилістичний, міфоаналіз тощо.Результати. У процесі дослідження виявлено, що перший період творчості А. Гарасевича позначений виразним впливом державницьких ідей, які були характерні для всієї «Празької школи». Тематика більшості творів цього періоду воєнно-історична. Маскулінність у них виявляється переважно у вигляді гегемонної героїчної маскулінності, а її ідеальним носієм є Воїн. На другому етапі важливу роль у творчості поета відіграють релігійні мотиви. Поет переживає світоглядну кризу, що відбивається у його творах кризою маскулінності. Найчастіше вона утілюється в образах мандрівника, утікача, рисами яких є втома, безсилля та хворість. Останній етап поетичної творчості поета характеризується значними світоглядними впливами К. Гамсуна та Ф. Ніцше. Відбувається певне повернення до героїчної маскулінності ранніх творів, але така маскулінність стверджується не на полі бою, а перемогами над собою, стихією чи диким звіром. Це маскулінність ніцшеанця, що гартує в собі надлюдину, відчуваючи радість від самого процесу долання. Отже, концепт маскулінності у творчості А. Гарасевича пройшов еволюцію від романтизованої героїчної маскулінності Воїна через кризу маскулінності до утвердження нового типу героїчної маскулінності мирного часу.Висновки. Дослідження ґендерної проблематики у творчості представника молодшої генерації «Празької школи» А. Гара-севича дозволяють сформувати більш повну й цілісну картину цього феномену та українського національного міфу, важливим аспектом якого є ґендерний.Ключові слова: ґендер, ґендерний стереотип, криза ідентичності, світогляд, символ, візія, архетип, ідея державності.

Vom Krieg zur Liebe. Nietzsches Philosophieren über Männlichkeiten im Lichte von Gegenwartsdebatten

Recent discussions have connected Nietzsche’s philosophy of masculinity to the return of authoritarian politics. Neoconservative debates about masculinity, and right-wing extremism, explicitly refer back to Nietzsche’s philosophy and often present democratization, a feminization of society, and political correctness as responsible for a weakening of masculinity. One example for this reception of Nietzsche’s writings is Jordan Peterson’s psychological diagnosis of a presumed crisis of masculinity. This article undertakes a comparison of Nietzsche’s philosophy of masculinities with Peterson’s neo-Jungian psychology of masculinity in the context of recent conceptualizations of patriarchy, misogyny, and gendered forms of ressentiment. This comparison will highlight that Nietzsche’s conception of masculinity is more complex, and has philosophically more to offer, than neoconservative ideas about masculinity that onesidedly foreground male strength. Finally it will be pointed out how a Jungian analysis discloses aspects of the Dionysian that are of relevance to contemporary gender studies of Nietzsche’s philosophy.

Albus Dumbledore and the Curse of Toxic Masculinity

In both the worlds of sociology and psychotherapy, a crisis of masculinity can be seen in a number of very concerning trends in violence, mental health, education, media, and in wider social domains. Having explored the traditional representations of ‘superhero’ masculinity through the discussion of superheroes and villains in the previous sections, this chapter analyzes how Albus Dumbledore represents the old superhero masculine archetype by contrasting it with Harry Potter’s, who provides a newer and more hopeful model of masculine behavior based on friendship, connection, teamwork, and love. This chapter delves into how characters can model alternative masculinities as an effective strategy to combat the pervasiveness of toxic masculinity, and its effects on children and adults alike.