Identity Construction And Masculinity

Sherwood Anderson, as a major American writer, achieved his fame with the publication of Winesburg, Ohio in1919. Since then, most of the critical writings on the author have been concentrated upon the writing techniques and themes in Winesburg, Ohio, centering on the grotesque. It is generally acknowledged that the dramatic transformation of the United States from an agrarian country into an industrialized one led to the birth of the grotesque, which embodied the crisis of individual identity in that period. Experts have examined greatly the issue of individual identity, especially that of women. Undoubtedly, the academic work has significantly enhanced the value of Sherwood Anderson study. However, a multi-faceted and multi-layered study of the American novelist necessarily calls for an extension from women figures to men images in his fiction. At the turn of the20th century, social transformation went with Frontier closure, Streamline production and consumption culture, etc., which resulted in masculinity crisis and the anxiety over the feminization of American culture. Then, how men images in Sherwood Anderson’s fiction respond to such crisis and anxiety?Benefiting from feminism and gender studies, masculinity studies arose in the second half of the20th century. It visions on the relations between male identity and class, gender and race. This approach provides literature study with a new perspective, and, to some extent, it establishes a theoretic framework for the dissertation. This dissertation also uses Heroic Artisan as a core concept, a term put forward by Michael S. Kimmel in Manhood in America:A Cultural History. The dissertation examines the relationship between father and son and the fatherhood in Sherwood Anderson’s novels, explores the evolution and significance of the fatherhood, and argues that the reconstruction of fatherhood is a method to establish Sherwood Anderson’s identity as a storyteller and novelist. Metaphorically, the relation between father and son symbolizes that between the author and his works, nation and the individual, and the reconstruction of fatherhood implies the author’s thinking of the authorship and the nationality. This speculation is also a positive reaction to the American masculinity crisis and the feminization of American culture. The reaction begins with the description of the relationship between father and son and the reconstruction of fatherhood, which extends into the relationship between the authorship and his works, and finally to the nationality and its image.Chapter One examines the relations between father and son/daughter in Windy McPherson’s Son, A Story Teller’s Story, Kit Brandon, Sherwood Anderson’s Memoir and other novels by Sherwood Anderson. This chapter points out the author endeavors to reconstruct a deficient father into an adventurer-craftsman-storyteller, and argues that this reconstruction means the writer’s psychological reconciliation with his father, and indicates the imagination and projection of his own identity in the fiction, in other words, a storyteller. This chapter also employs the Name-of-the-Father, a term by Lacan, to analyze the significance of the reconstruction of fatherhood. The reconstruction of fatherhood as a storyteller characteristic of Heroic Artisan, not only releases the anxiety about the deficiency of manhood caused by the defeated paternal image, but also embodies Heroic Artisan manhood. It challenges the Self-Made Man in the history of American manhood, which was still dominant at the turn of the20th century.Chapter Two concentrates upon Many Marriages and Kit Brandon, and scrutinizes Sherwood Anderson’s various adjustments and experiments in his novels. The former makes a feature of "lyric novel", the latter double-narration and fragmentized narration. Both of them indicate the author’s attempts to pursue variations in the fiction, and to reconstruct his identity as novelist. Consequently, he hopes to respond to the query upon his competence of novel writing from the critics. The reconstruction of authorship positively reacts against the standardization of writing in the literary world at that time, which would deprive the writers of manhood. Therefore, the reconstruction of authorship as Heroic Artisan is not only a kind of self-fashioning but also a method to portray and manifest Sherwood Anderson’s literary manhood.Chapter Three discusses in detail the image of Sponge Martin and the description of African Americans in Dark Laugher, which respectively symbolize Heroic Artisan and primitivism. Both of them contribute greatly to rebuilding American manhood that went feminized because of dramatic social transformation. The restlessness and anxiety came up in the shift of the United States of America from an agricultural country to an industrialized society. The former puts itself upon the basis of Thomas Jefferson’s ideal of agrarian republic while the latter mass production and consumption. Social transformation led to American manhood crisis and the feminization of American culture, which also brought about the anxiety in nationality. Primitivism and Heroic Artisan are of great importance to respond to American manhood crisis and the feminization of American culture, and to reshape and restore manhood in American nationality.Sherwood Anderson’s fiction focuses upon the reconstruction of fatherhood from a deficient fatherhood to a respectable Heroic Artisan. Individually, the transformation of fatherhood provides Sherwood Anderson with an identity as a storyteller and novelist. In this process, writing shoulders the responsibility of Name-of-the-Father for him. The reconstruction of fatherhood implies his effort to re-establish his authorship as a novelist, and to rebut the critics’rebukes of his novel-writing competence. Furthermore, this authorship will exhibit his literature manhood as Heroic Artisan to fight against the standardization of writing in his time. Nationally, the reconstruction of fatherhood implies Sherwood Anderson’s meditation and reflection upon American nationhood in the period of social transformation. Heroic Artisan will relieve American manhood crisis, and eliminate the anxiety of the feminization of American culture. Heroic artisan, along with primitivism, is of great help to deal with American manhood crisis and the feminization of American culture, and to reconstruct masculinity in American nationality.