| Budget Amount *help |
¥2,600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,600,000)
Fiscal Year 1999: ¥1,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,200,000)
Fiscal Year 1998: ¥1,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000)
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| Research Abstract |
First, I examine how the "discontent of masculine identity, " which had already been budding in Mark Twain's The Adventure of Tom Sawyer and Adventure of Huckleberry Finn, was transmitted to the representations of masculinity in L.Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz : the Scarecrow, the Woodsman, the Lion, and the Wizard.
Second, in the textual analysis of John Knowles's A Separate Peace, I deal with the masculine identity crisis. Placing the novel in a socio-cultural context, I demonstrate how America's hegemony on the international political stage, or the political discourse of "the End of Innocence, " deeply influenced this adolescent novel.
Third, in a close-reading of Walter Dean Myers's Scorpions, I focus on the black adolescent protagonist who has too often been excluded as the "Other" from the hero image in the traditional American narrative. Through the eyes of a marginalized black youth, "the End of Innocence" of the white "American Adam" signifies the deconstruction of the traditional American narrative. Accordingly, the alternative and unique narrative of masculine identity formation for the black youth is narrated in his own voice.
In this study, I demonstrate that the discontent or the crisis in masculine identity formation is closely connected to the transformation of the national narratives dominated by white males. As a result of the revised main plot of the narrative under the influence of strong Others' voices, the masculinity of the traditional American hero is compelled to change. In other words, in accordance with the acceptance of Others' voices into mainstream American society, or otherness into America's national identity, the "manhood" of the American Empire is transformed, and thus the manhood of the American Adam also undergoes transformation.
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