The young men in The Boys’ Republic live in a world that is continually falling apart. Their houses collapse into sinkholes, forest fires carve out chunks of their towns, plague spreads through their communes, the money runs out on the construction project where they work. This decay mirrors their own collapsing identities, as they are forced to question their mastery of nature, their nostalgia for their youth, their relationships with others, and the value of masculinity itself. Drawing on the work of writers like Dennis Cooper, Flannery O’Connor, and Benjamin Percy, The Boys’ Republic depicts men in the midst of both an economic and an emotional recession. Some, like Carson in Hotel or Zachary in Ignus Fatuus, are trapped in their decaying suburbs by youth, poverty, or habit. Others, like Jared in Corona Radiata or Nick in The Boy’s Republic, have fled or been ejected from them. Either way, they are haunted by them, and by the selfish, insecure, destructive behavior that they learned there. The Boys’ Republic is about boys confronting their own selfishness, and each other’s, in a world that can no longer accommodate it but offers no easy replacement
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd-3379 |
| Date | 01 January 2012 |
| Creators | Mueller, Jonas |
| Publisher | University of Central Florida |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Electronic Theses and Dissertations |
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