The Ideal Black Masculinity Construction In The Third Life Of Grange Copeland

The development of the western feminist movement renders the traditional malegender role that rooted in patriarchal culture the target of public criticism. Malescholars begin to reflect on the plight of male identity under patriarchy, and exploreeffective ways to deal with male identity crisis. Thus masculinity studies emerge at theright moment. With the development and prosperity of African-American literature inrecent years, black masculinity study in black literature shows an upward trend. In thenovel The Third Life of Grange Copeland, the black man Grange Copeland hasmanaged to construct a new type of black masculinity in his “third life”, whichprovides a paradigm for the long depressed and emasculated black masculinity and isvery revealing for the construction of black masculinity.Alice Walker is one of the most influential contemporary black woman writers inAmerica. The Third Life of Grange Copeland published in1970is Walker’s first novel.With Grange Copeland’s degeneration and transformation as the main line, the novelrecounts the three-generation family tragedy of the Copelands from the beginning ofthe twentieth century to the middle of1960s. In the first half of the novel, the two malecharacters Grange Copeland and Brownfield Copeland’s masculinities are castratedand their male identity has nothing to rely on due to the detrimental racism system andpatriarchal culture. Caught in trauma and male identity crisis, they hate themselves andavoid their responsibilities for family. What is worse, they turn to violence against theirwomen to release pressure and construct their masculinity, which gives rise to repeatedfamily tragedy. In his “third life”, Grange Copeland succeeds in constructing hismasculinity that is based on black culture through his efforts. Though at last, to savehis granddaughter Ruth, he is killed by white police, he is praised as the “soulsurvivor” by Walker.This thesis interprets the novel from the perspective of masculinity theory,analyzing varied predicaments imposed on black men in their masculinity constructionand exploring how black men build their black cultural identity and masculinity in thesocial context dominated by racism and white culture. Through the comparisonbetween Grange’s transformation, growth and Brownfield’s total degradation in thelater half of the novel, the thesis draws the conclusion that black community andculture is the root of black people, based on which black men retrieve their confidence and self-affirmation. Those who cut themselves off from black community and blackculture which are indispensible for black men to reconstruct their male identity willinevitably get lost. At the same time the masculinity construction Brownfield adopts isa threat to the harmonious coexistence between black women and men as well as thedevelopment of the black nation.This thesis consists of four chapters: in Chapter One, after a brief introduction toAlice Walker and her literary works, the thesis makes an outline of the criticalresponses to The Third Life of Grange Copeland. Chapter Two deals with thetheoretical perspective—masculinity and black masculinity. The third chapter, thecore of this paper, makes an elaboration of how Grange Copeland succeeds inconstructing a new type of black manhood by means of breaking the traditionalpatriarchal cultural paradigm, retrieving fatherhood and identifying with the blackculture. Chapter Four is the conclusion part, which presents the essentiality of theblack manhood construction.