Crisis Of Masculinity In London Fields

Martin Amis is a distinguished novelist in contemporary British literature as well as one of the most controversial novelists.In his novel London Fields,he narrates an appalling murder event: three male suspects fight against each other to be the murderer who rapes and kills the prostitute Nicola Six.Since most of women in this novel are beaten or sexually abused by men,lots of scholars suspect that Amis is a“misogynist”,while Amis used to claim that he is always an unswerving feminist.In recent years,some scholars have started to analyze this novel from the perspective of feminism,considering Nicola Six as a pioneering feminist,so as to testify that Amis is not a misogynist.In fact,there is far less description of female characters than that of male characters in this novel,so it is reasonable to believe that to a great extent Aims is showing his feminist attitude through criticizing men.In the novel,the three male protagonists seem to have occupied the dominant position,while in reality they are cheated and manipulated by Nicola from beginning to end.Since the current research on male characters of this novel is still scarce,this thesis aims to adopt Connell’s theory of masculinity to analyze the three male protagonists.Besides,this thesis is going to disclose the masculine crisis confronted by these three male characters under the dual pressure of the decline of patriarchy and the awakening of feminism.The masculinity that the three male characters Guy,Keith,and Samson possess should be subordination,marginalization and complicity respectively,while they all spare no effort to establish hegemonic masculinity.However,their attempts fail.This thesis hopes to have a glimpse of the pain of men under the restriction of patriarchy.Amis’ s unique perspective on the power relations between men and women may also provide a reference for future gender study.