Masculinity,Femininity And Androgyny

In postmodern British literature,Martin Amis(1949-)ranks among the most controversial novelists,bearing the notorious name of “the bad boy of English letters.” He depicts a gallery of lustful men and women in his novels,which are fraught with the appalling dramatization of sex,violence and death.The feminists have thenceforth harshly criticized Amis and accused him of writing “pornographic sex,” dismissing him as a “sexist” and “misogynist.” Amis,however,disregards all this criticism and accusation that have heaped on him.He claims that he is a “feminist.” As a matter of fact,the dispute between “misogyny” and “feminism” overlooks Amis' s concern for the gender issue in Western consumer society.Amis' s controversial status in British literature is inextricably bound up with his exploration of the gender themes.It is an issue of academic interest,therefore,to study the way in which Amis explores the gender themes with the appalling dramatization of sex,violence and death.Masculinity,femininity and androgyny,which constitute the essential parts of gender study,figure prominently as thematic concerns in Amis' s postmodern novels.Analyzing Amis' s novels from the perspective of gender will shed new light on the sex,violence and death that pervades Amis' s literary world,thus contributing to a comprehensive understanding of the artistic features in Amis' s novels.By combining close reading with cultural study,the dissertation employs the gender theory to analyze the characters and the ubiquitous sex,violence and death in Amis' s five novels,namely Money: A Suicide Note(1984),London Fields(1989),Night Train(1997),The Pregnant Widow(2010)and Lionel Asbo: State of England(2012).By way of this,the dissertation tries to explore Amis' s writing of masculinity,femininity and androgyny in order to understand how he deconstructs the gender stereotype and the essentialist gender view of the patriarchal society,and how he displays his gender ideal of androgyny.The dissertation attempts to make a complete and comprehensive interpretation of the gender themes in Amis' s postmodern novels,together with their complex relationship with the Western consumer society and the patriarchal ideology.The dissertation consists of three parts: the introduction,the body and the conclusion.The introduction argues the viability and feasibility of analyzing Amis' s five novels from the point of view of gender and proposes the idea that the pervasive sex,violence and death are important means for Amis to present the gender themes.Chapter 1 explores Amis' s writing of hegemonic masculinity by analyzing the ubiquitous sex in Money and the omnipresent violence in London Fields.It should be noted that sex and violence are not separated but woven together in the two novels.Amis reproduces,reinforces and eventually subverts hegemonic masculinity by dramatizing Self's sex consumption and Keith's gender violence.Sex consumption shows a “successful” and “masculine” Self,highlighting his hegemonic masculinity made up of fabulous wealth,great power and high status.But Self's turning from a “prince” to a “pauper,” from a man to a woman satirizes his hegemonic masculinity,revealing the diversity and plurality of gender.Keith is a violent man from the working class.Gender violence plays an important part in constructing his hegemonic masculinity.Yet,due to the two-way damage of violence to the abuser and the abused,Keith's hegemonic masculinity based on gender violence is doomed to fall down.Amis' s depiction of the erotic man Self and the violent man Keith produces a strong sense of irony.With irony,Amis mocks and criticizes the hegemonic masculinity and the commodification of desire,loss of genuine human feelings and the total depravity of human nature in Western consumer society.Chapter 2 studies Amis' s subversive rewriting of subordinate femininity by analyzing the pervasive death in Night Train and London Fields.Death is an important strategy for women to rebel against the patriarchal society.Making use of parody,Amis rewrites the angel and the femme fatale and subverts the stereotyped concept of femininity dictated by patriarchy through dramatizing Jennifer's suicide and Nicola's murder.In the two novels,Jennifer is believed to be “a happy angel,” and Nicola “a femme fatale.” Jennifer's suicide delivers erotic thrills and Nicola's murder is schemed by herself.Their deaths “murder” the angel and the femme fatale respectively and deconstruct the subordinate femininity in the patriarchal society and in the detective novel as well.In other words,Amis depicts the “positive character” in a negative way and the “negative character” in a positive way.By way of this,Amis deconstructs the structure of binary opposition imposed on women by the patriarchal society with a cultural stance that seems to cater for the patriarchal ideology.In the course of rewriting femininity,Amis adds such feminine qualities as feminine care and feminine redemption into it,emphasizing women's moral superiority,life awareness and redemption consciousness.Chapter 3 makes an exploration of Amis' s writing of androgyny by analyzing three types of new characters,namely,the feminine man in Lionel Asbo,the masculine woman in Night Train and the “super girls” who act more like boys than boys do in The Pregnant Widow.In Lionel Asbos,the feminine man Desmond has both a happy family and a brilliant career.He builds a cooperative family based upon mutual trust and respect between man and woman,replacing the traditional family built on male domination.In the cooperative family,the gentle,kind and caring father takes the place of the violent father.He respects women,accepts such feminine qualities as feeling and goodness and actively explores his potential femininity.This produces a gentle and strong man.He displays a strong will of “patricide,” which is in essence a denial and refusal of the oppressive masculinity in the patriarchal society.The feminine man embodies Amis' s ideal of androgyny,in which man cultivates his own feminine qualities and explores his femininity.In Night Train,the masculine woman Mike has such masculine characteristics as masculine appearance,masculine language and masculine mentality,which are the results of her cultivation of masculinity.Mike is highly bright and able in the “masculine” field of detection,which displays women's capability and their social value.But her cultivation of masculine qualities veils women's unique feminine charm and feminine value,trapping her into a web of gender embarrassment.The “super girls” in The Pregnant Widow live in the 1960's when sexual revolution takes place.Different from Mike who intently denies her feminine beauty,the “super girls” show their feminine beauty and charm on purpose,which manifests their sexual confidence and feminine confidence.The fact that they act more like boys than boys do reveals their masculine qualities,but makes them fall into gender predicament at the same time.The masculine woman and the “super girls” embody Amis' s ideal of androgyny,in which woman cultivates masculine qualities and explores masculinity.To conclude,Amis criticizes and deconstructs hegemonic masculinity and subordinate femininity on the one hand while expressing his gender ideal of androgyny on the other hand.By way of this,he subverts the essentialist view of gender and the hierarchical gender order in the patriarchal society.Amis reveals that masculinity or femininity is neither a substance nor a closed structure,but a gender stance and a fluid,open process where masculine qualities and feminine qualities can merge together with numerous ways.This process exists in the form of androgyny that is a natural life style.In androgyny,masculinity and femininity exist in peace without hierarchy.It is of no value hierarchy as to whether masculinity has the upper hand or femininity takes hold.However,in Amis' s exploration of the gender themes,the appalling dramatization of sex,violence and death and his writing strategies such as irony and parody,disclose that he is to some degrees in complicity with the Western consumer society and the patriarchal ideology.