The period following World War I can be characterized in literature by the trauma and changes that promoted crises of masculinity. These crises, however, are not discussed between the men that suffer similar feelings of insecurity and anxiety; not approached as a tension in need of resolution. Exploring the narrative voices of Nick, Jake, Darl and Anse in The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, and As I Lay Dying, this thesis addresses the ways in which this unspoken phenomenon is essential to the modernist male narrative. I propose that, despite the widespread nature of this phenomenon, it is the voice of the individual – the preoccupations of his consciousness – that is the most appropriate point through which to examine these crises of masculinity.

The three novels discussed in this essay avoid the abstraction of ideology without resorting to oversimplification. William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Eudora Welty's Delta Wedding, and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man are, among other things, the presentation of character in context. In chapters two, three, and four, I consider consecutively the character structures of the protagonists of the three novels in terms of the interaction between the individuals and the communally prescribed character structures of the traditional South which form their context. With Addie Bundren, Faulkner exemplifies the southerner's preference for stable, primary-colored individuality over the more mobile, versatile, inclusive "individuation" to which he objects because, from his traditional viewpoint, it leaves the individual isolated and alienated with no way of relating his world to the necessarily divergent worlds around him and no way of coping adequately with unforseen human events. Inheriting negation in place of tradition, Addie's death and burial leave the family in a bestially primitive state, existing without benefit of the accumulated experience of history. The traditional society, however, is not the only one that utilizes the experience of past generations. A perspective of the values and limitations of a family living according to southern traditions as it faces changes in conflict with its "individuated" members provides a literary view of the workings of a traditional milieu from the inside in Delta Wedding. Welty intimates that real life--the spontaneous action and reaction of an "individuated" being to present phenomena--is more powerful than the restraining and, because dated, erroneous traditions surrounding it. The protagonist of Ellison's Invisible Man moves from a culturally prescribed "preconsciousness" to the furthest extremes of "individuation". The acceptable ways of being black in the South offer so little possibility for the black man that his entire environment can be seen as a maze of traps placed by the culture between the individual and what twentieth-century democratic thought has come to define as basic human freedom. Falling first into the hands of racists, then paternalists, and finally--the most subtle trap of all--the complex and contradictory concepts of the nature of the black man as conceived by southern black men themselves, the Invisible Man exposes as he experiences the primary facets of southern racism. Breaking through these traditions, the Invisible Man does not attempt to become a white man with a black skin, but locates those elements of his black culture that are viable within the larger perspective of his liberated consciousness. Finally, Ellison posits the need for an "individuated" personality as prerequisite to the naming of the reality that forms its context. And, as Faulkner has shown with Addie Bundren, individuated being has insufficient scope for meeting existential exigencies if it is formed without the positive tensions of a broader than individual view--what Ellison calls "myth". As Welty shows, the southern myth is insufficiently inclusive to allow for universal survival through diversified compatibility. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

This thesis is an intersectional reading of William Faulkner’s novels The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930) and Sanctuary (1931). This paper employs theories of masculinity and queer theory to examine the masculinities in the novels and their connection to blackness. It proceeds from Judith Butler’s book Bodies that Matter. The thesis focuses on the mixture of race, class, gender and sexuality in the novels. I claim that race sometimes is a mask for gender, class and sexuality in these texts. I argue that certain white characters are depicted as Afro-Americans because of their unmanly behavior and/or queer sexuality or low class. For masculinity theory I have used Jørgen Lorentzen and Claes Ekenstam’s concept of manly and unmanly, described in the anthology Män i Norden Manlighet och modernitet 1840-1940. I have also used Craig Thompson Friend’s Southern Masculinity: Perspectives on manhood in the South since Reconstruction and WJ Cash’s The Mind of the South. For the queer theory, I have used Judith Butler’s theories described in Gendertrouble and Bodies that Matter. / Den här uppsatsen är en intersektionell läsning av William Faulkners romaner The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930) och Sanctuary (1931). Den här uppsatsen använder sig av maskulinitetsteori och queerteori för att undersöka maskuliniteterna i romanerna och deras förbindelse till svarthet. Den utgår från Judith Butlers bok Bodies that Matter. Uppsatsen fokuserar på blandningen av ras, klass, genus och sexualitet i texterna. Jag påstår att ras ibland agerar som en mask för genus, klass och sexualitet i de här texterna. Jag menar att vissa vita romanfigurer skildras som afroamerikaner på grund av sitt omanliga beteende och/eller queera sexualitet eller låga klass. Till maskulinitetsteorin har jag använt mig av Jørgen Lorentzen och Claes Ekenstams begrepp manlig och omanlig, beskrivna i antologin Män i Norden Manlighet och modernitet 1840-1940. Jag har även använt Craig Thomson Friends Southern Masculinity: Perspectives on manhood in the South since Reconstruction och WJ Cashs The Mind of the South. Till queer teorin har jag använt Judith Butlers teorier beskrivna i Gendertrouble och Bodies that Matter.

Ce mémoire en création littéraire est divisé en deux parties distinctes. La première se compose de deux récits racontant un épisode de la vie d'une mère et de sa fille, Carole et Hélène. L'un des récits est narré par la mère ; l'autre par la fille. Centrés sur ces deux femmes, les récits mettent en lumière quelques bribes de leur passé ainsi que l'influence de celui-ci sur les événements présents. La seconde partie présente une réflexion critique sur le conflit narratif, c'est-à-dire sur les contradictions qui surgissent entre deux ou plusieurs récits portant sur la même histoire. Nous examinerons le fonctionnement de ce type de conflit ainsi que ses conséquences sur le lecteur et sa relation au texte en prenant exemple sur quatre romans : Tandis que j'agonise de William Faulkner, Les Fous de basson d'Anne Hébert, L'enfant de sable de Tahar Ben Jelloun et Océan mer d'Alessandro Baricco.