Postcolonial Masculinity in Dubliners
Taeun MIn
This essay examines how Irish men in Dubliners are feminized by the British, how they try to assert their masculinity, and how such efforts are frustrated. The English cherished a long-standing tradition of feminizing Ireland. The colonizer justifies their conquest and domination by reasoning that the masculine English should be the patriarch of the feminine Irish. And the Irish males, oppressed and marginalized by the conqueror, suffer the "feminizing" effect of colonialism. Not surprisingly, masculinity is a continual dilemma in Joyce's Dubliners. It is interesting, however, to find that some Irish males imitate the ideology of their conqueror and act like him in their own house, becoming a cruel patriarch/master. And this implies that gender is a matter of positionality or masquerade. Also, the public house, a male refuge, is a site for the recuperation of many Irish males' masculinity. They drink in order to escape, however temporarily, their colonial subjectification and modernization. But the relationship between Irish nationalism and the temperance movement is more complicated than it seems. Of course, a rivalry between the public house and the home, another space for masculine renewal, is inevitable in Dublin. Nevertheless, all Irish males' desire to prove their masculinity are frustrated, except in the case of one man: Michael Furey in "The Dead," who courageously gives his life for his love/Ireland and makes Gabriel Conroy, patriarch and "West Briton," feel the insecurity about his masculinity.
Postcolonial Masculinity in Dubliners
Taeun MIn
This essay examines how Irish men in Dubliners are feminized by the British, how they try to assert their masculinity, and how such efforts are frustrated. The English cherished a long-standing tradition of feminizing Ireland. The colonizer justifies their conquest and domination by reasoning that the masculine English should be the patriarch of the feminine Irish. And the Irish males, oppressed and marginalized by the conqueror, suffer the "feminizing" effect of colonialism. Not surprisingly, masculinity is a continual dilemma in Joyce's Dubliners. It is interesting, however, to find that some Irish males imitate the ideology of their conqueror and act like him in their own house, becoming a cruel patriarch/master. And this implies that gender is a matter of positionality or masquerade. Also, the public house, a male refuge, is a site for the recuperation of many Irish males' masculinity. They drink in order to escape, however temporarily, their colonial subjectification and modernization. But the relationship between Irish nationalism and the temperance movement is more complicated than it seems. Of course, a rivalry between the public house and the home, another space for masculine renewal, is inevitable in Dublin. Nevertheless, all Irish males' desire to prove their masculinity are frustrated, except in the case of one man: Michael Furey in "The Dead," who courageously gives his life for his love/Ireland and makes Gabriel Conroy, patriarch and "West Briton," feel the insecurity about his masculinity.