Masculinity In Ian Mcewan's The Child In Time

Crisis becomes an inescapable entity in masculinity of men. Crucial events all through the centuries such as feminism, the world wars, economical problems, etc led men toward crisis, so a man in postmodern era is in danger and must do a lot in order to protect his masculinity. Ian McEwan’s works are mostly devoted to men who try to find their places in postmodern world. This paper intends to utilize one of his novels The Child in Time and applies masculine crisis on the male protagonist of the novel.He has lost his daughter two years ago in the supermarket which is the turning point of his life and threatens his power and authority as a father. Another factor which pushes him more into crisis is womb envy. He needs to be father once more, so

As credible bearers of those attributes, however, genders can also be rendered thoroughly and radically incredible” (193). As a matter of fact, masculinity as a gender identity is not a biological entity, but a constructed one, so it is not fixed. Kimmel and Aronson in Men and Masculinities discuss that, “Although we experience gender to be an internal facet of identity, the concept of masculinity is produced within the institutions of society and through our daily interactions.” (503) Therefore, masculine gender can go under crisis and this crisis heightened toward the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of twenty first

“This has meant that generally the analysis of men and masculinities has been subordinate to the overarching themes of female oppression and female liberation” (Horrocks, 9).So looking for masculine gender may seem odd at first because it seems that masculinity has an obvious meaning and men are the ones who are in power. Todd W. Reeser in his Masculinities in Theory states, “Masculinity seems like an obvious thing, something we can and do take for granted. We know what it is when we see it: it is commonsensical, produced by testosterone or by nature” (1).It has been decades that women and feminists are the ones who talked about gender damaged and inequalities all over the centuries as a weaker gender and look for gender equality.“Gender equality means that males and females have equal opportunities to realize their full human potential and can contribute to and benefit from economic, social, cultural and political development”(Jasmani,61). But recently having masculine gender can be harmful as well for men because both genders are active in society, politics, etc and men are not the only ruler; it is not really a promotion to have a masculine identity anymore. As a matter of fact, gender