Construction Of Male Identity In Singer's The Magician Of Lubulin And Shosha

Isaac Bashevis Singer is the second Jewish American writer after Saul Bellow to win the Nobel Prize in literature,he has once been praised as "the best contemporary storyteller".The Magiczian of Lubulin is his best known novel which depicts a dissolute magician Yasha's romantic experience and his thoughts about life.Shosha is one of Singer's favorite works,and it is the only novel of him that uses the first narrative perspective.It tells the protagonist Aaron's mental development during his life in his early years.Although these two novels are created in different periods of the author,they all depict the Jewish youth of the new era,their dilemma and anxiety in the modern times when the society was experiencing lots of social changes.Both of them are frustrated in their careers and are in a spiritual confusion.They indulge themselves in the complex relationship between men and women but still unhappy.Karen Homey is a famous American psychologist,psychiatrist and a Doctor of Medicine.Her theory of psychology broke through the long-term dominated Freud's"biological determinism" in psychoanalysis history,she took the social culture into the consideration of analyzing human's psychology,and then developed and perfected the theory of psychoanalysis.According to Homey's theory,the neurotic personalities could be classified into three types:the compliant,the aggressive,and the detached personality,and she points out that the root cause of the neurotic personality is the anxiety.These three different types of personalities will establish three different defense mechanisms to fight against anxiety.This thesis begins with Homey's neurotic personality theory,analyzing the compliant type heroes' characteristics in these two novels and discussing their gender identity construction strategies in light of the inherent behavior patterns of the compliant type person.The compliant type person are weak,compromising and not good at refusing others' request by nature,they show their infinite care for the weak.The female characters in the novels are usually weaker and more disadvantaged than the male in the society.Being with these women enhanced the male's confidence,they regard the women as the safe harbor in the society.Although the heroes' anxiety may have been alleviated in the ambiguous relationships with the women,it did not eradicate the source of their anxiety.It just temporarily paralyzed the needs of their own and made them unwilling to face up to themselves.They choose to indulge in the men and women affairs is just out of an instinctual reaction of neurotic personality which would not bring them the real growth.The heroes who want to achieve growth must "de-neurosis" themselves,should not follow others and the society blindly but release themselves and face up the their needs then affirm their own worth.This thesis,taking the heroes' gender identity construction strategies as a case study,in light of Horney's personality theory,mainly focuses on the compliant type person's characteristics to analyze the manifestations and their failures and then explore the deep-seated psychological motivations of them.