Representing the Male

John Perrott Jenkins

Description

The book subjects male characters in six south Wales novels written between 1936 and 2014 to detailed, gendered reading. It argues that the novels critique the form of masculine hegemony propagated by structural patriarchy serving the material demands of industrial capitalism. Each depicts characters confined to a limited repertoire of culturally endorsed behaviourial norms – such as displays of power, decisiveness and self-control – which prohibit the expression and cultivation of the subjective self. Within the social organisation of industrial capitalism, the working-class characters are, in practice, reduced to dispensable functionaries at work while, in theory, they are accorded the status of patriarchally-sanctioned principals at home. Ideologically subservient and ‘feminised’ in one context, they are ideologically dominant and ‘masculinised’ in another. As they negotiate, resist or strive to reconcile the irreconcilable demands of such gendered practices, recurring patterns of exclusion, inadequacy and mental instability are made evident in their representation.

Introduction
1. Dominant, Residual, Emergent: Forms and Formations of Male
Identity in Gwyn Jones’s Times Like These (1936)
2. Genre and the Tribulations of Masculinity in Lewis Jones’s
Cwmardy (1937)
3. Investigating Genre and Gender in Menna Gallie’s Strike for a Kingdom (1959)
4. Genre and the Embodied Male in Ron Berry’s So Long, Hector Bebb
(1970)
5. Patriarchy, Power and Politics: Masculinities in Roger Granelli’s
Dark Edge (1997) and Kit Habianic’s Until Our Blood is Dry (2014)
Conclusion
Bibliography

Sujets

• Histoire
• Great Britain
• History
• Wales
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: University of Wales Press
• Date de parution: 15 juin 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781786837790
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

GENDER STUDIEs IN WALEs

R E P R E S E N T I N G T H E M A L E

Gender Studies in Wales Astudiaethau Rhywedd yng Nghymru

Series Editors Dawn Mannay, Cardiff University Rhiannon Marks, Cardiff University Diana Wallace, University of South Wales Stephanie Ward, Cardiff University Sian Rhiannon Williams, Cardiff Metropolitan University

Series Advisory Board Jane Aaron, University of South Wales Deirdre Beddoe, Emeritus Professor Paul Chaney, Cardiff University Mihangel Morgan, Aberystwyth University Paul O’Leary, Aberystwyth University Teresa Rees, Cardiff University

The aim of this series is to îll a current gap in knowledge. As a number of historians, sociologists and literary critics have for some time been pointing out, there is a dearth of published research on the characteris- tics and effects of gender difference in Wales, both as it affected lives in the past and as it continues to shape present-day experience. Socially constructed concepts of masculine and feminine difference inuence every aspect of individuals’ lives; experiences in employment, in education, in culture and politics, as well as in personal relationships, are all shaped by them. Ethnic identities are also gendered; a country’s history affects its concepts of gender difference so that what is seen as appropriately ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ varies within different cultures. What is needed in the Welsh context is more detailed research on the ways in which gender difference has operated and continues to operate within Welsh societies. Accordingly, this interdisciplinary and bilingual series of volumes on Gender Studies in Wales, authored by academics who are leaders in their particular îelds of study, is designed to explore the diverse aspects of male and female identities in Wales, past and present. The series is bilingual, in the sense that some of its intended volumes will be in Welsh and some in English.

R E P R E S E N T I N G T H E M A L E

Masculinity, Genre and Social Context in Six South Wales Novels

John Perrott Jenkins

UNIVERSITY OF WALES PRESS CARDIFF 2021

© John Perrott Jenkins, 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, University of Wales Registry, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3NS.

www.uwp.co.uk

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN e-ISBN

9781786837783 9781786837790

The right of John Perrott Jenkins to be identiîed as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

The publisher acknowledges the înancial support of the Books Council of Wales.

The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Cover image: J. H. Jenkins at Windsor Colliery, Abertridwr, 1949. © Popperfoto/Getty Images.

For Steph and in memory of my mother and father

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Acknowledgements

Introduction

1

2

3

4

5

Contents

Dominant, Residual, Emergent: Forms and Formations of MaleIdentityinGwynJones’sTimes Like These(1936)

Genre and the Tribulations of Masculinity in Lewis Jones’s Cwmardy(1937)

Investigating Genre and Gender in Menna Gallie’sStrike for a Kingdom(1959)

Reading Hector Bebb: Masculinity and Mythic Paradigms inSo Long, Hector Bebb(1970)

Patriarchy, Power and Politics: Masculinities inDark Edge(1997) andUntil Our Blood is Dry(2014)

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

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Acknowledgements

I am indebted to Professor Diana Wallace for suggesting that I write this book; to Dr Rob Gossedge who guided it through as a doctoral thesis, on which it is based; to Dr Marina Williamson for being a critical but constructive reader and adviser from the start of this project; to Professor Angela V. John for generously providing background infor- mation on Menna Gallie; to Dr Aidan Byrne who so kindly offered me access to his research at an early stage of my own into anglophone Welsh writing, and for friendship thereafter; to Professors Katie Gramich and Jane Aaron for their help and support; and to Lesley Berry for her gift of a copy of an unpublished essay by her father. I should like to thank Lawrence and Wishart for permission to quote from Lewis Jones’sCwmardyHonno from Menna Gallie’s (1937); Strike for a KingdomRon Berry’s (1959); Parthian from So Long, Hector Bebb(1970) and Kit Habianic’sUntil Our Blood is Dry(2014); and Seren from Roger Granelli’sDark Edge(1997). All efforts have been made, without success, to locate the copyright holders of Gwyn Jones’sTimes Like These, and I encourage them to contact me. I am enormously grateful to the staff at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, for their patience, efîciency and kindness during my work there on the archives of Gwyn Jones and Menna Gallie, and to the staff at both the University of Swansea Library and the Miners’ Library for their help in gaining quick access to the Ron Berry archive and invaluable material on Lewis Jones respectively. Further thanks are due to Sian Rhiannon Williams, and to Llion Wigley, Bethan Phillips, Siân Chapman, Dafydd Jones and Bronwen Swain at the University of Wales Press, whose guidance, help, patience and advice have been truly invaluable. I am also grateful to UWP for permission to include chapters onSo Long, Hector BebbandStrike for a Kingdomthat have appeared in shorter forms inFight and Flight: Essays on Ron Berry, ed. Georgia Burdett and Sarah Morse (Cardiff: