The ideas of Mexican Machismo have been crystallized in the image of the Macho, a virile man who represents the ideals of masculinity in a determined time and space. This work aims to examine how four Mexican Novels (Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo, Elena Garro’s Los Recuerdos del Porvenir, Yuri Herrera’s Trabajos del Reino, and Fernanda Melchor’s Temporada de huracanes) present their unique macho ideals, and how the male characters fail to fulfill them. Through a textual examination of the four novels, this work asks: how is a macho image formed in each pair of novels? And most importantly how do male characters react when they are unable to uphold the masculine values? Chapter one examines Juan Rulfo’s and Elena Garro’s novels, focusing on the downfall of the machos due to the loss of a loved woman, and the strategies the men use to control their towns. Chapter two analyzes Yuri Herrera’s and Fernanda Melchor’s novels, explaining how masculinity is tied to a social performance, and how the machos lose the approval of their group. Chapter three deals with the reaffirmation of power through isolation of female characters and the concept of emasculation as a social and psychological phenomenon. Emasculation, this work strives to prove, is a key element in the four novels, uniting the texts through the social disgrace of a man who does not perform as expected.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:masters_theses_2-1848 |
| Date | 02 July 2019 |
| Creators | Marmolejo Soto, Adriana |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Masters Theses |
| Rights | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
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