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《慾望街車》中的焦慮男人氣慨 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學英國語文學系碩士論文. 指導教授:姜翠芬先生 Advisor:Dr. Jiang Tsui-fen. 《慾望街車》中的焦慮男人氣慨. 政 治 大. The Manhood with Anxiety in A Streetcar Named Desire. 立. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. 研究生:徐承遠 Name: Hsu Cheng-Yuan 中華民國 109 年 6 月 June 2020. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(2) The Manhood with Anxiety in A Streetcar Named Desire. A Master Thesis Presented to Department of English National Chengchi University. 政 治 大. In Partial Fulfilment. 立. of the Requirements for the Degree of. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. Master of Arts. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. by Hsu Cheng-Yuan June 2020. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(3) To the One, I Love Deeply but Cannot Love Deeply. 立. 政 治 大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. iii DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(4) Acknowledgement In the master’s program, we would get involved with feminist reading, but there seemed to be a lack of deep reading into men’s studies with regard to literature. Therefore, after knowing Michael Kimmel and reading his works, I decided to argue about the manhood with anxiety. I believe A Streetcar Named Desire to be very typical to lead readers to see men’s situation with family and society. With this thesis, I hope to ask them to reconsider “men” and “manhood;” men should be not only regarded as more powerful figures than women, but also seen as a people that are anxious about struggling with their manhood.. 政 治 大. First of all, I am indebted to my supervisor, Prof. Jiang Tsui-fen, who is the kindest. 立. professor I ever met. Without her encouragement and professional assistance, I could not. ‧ 國. 學. finish a thesis about “men.” On the other hand, I also thank my committee members, Hsu. ‧. Li-hsin and Yang Ya-chu. Their rich comments help me think about how to make my thesis. sit. y. Nat. more graceful and clearer in explaining manhood as my main discussion.. io. er. Then I also thank the teachers who have given me strength; they are especially Eva. al. Chen Yin-I, Tom Sellari, and Iris Ralph. The first two ones are from NCCU. I thank Prof.. n. iv n C Chen for giving me a chance to be her assistant I can have some working experience. h e nsogthat chi U Also, I am grateful that she has helped buy books for me to read and academically use. I must not forget to thank Tom, who is always enthusiastic about accepting my requests concerning my writing samples. As my teacher from TKU, Prof. Ralph’s assistance in commenting my thesis also makes me confident and thus appreciative of her. Having been an assistant in the department of English, I exclusively express my gratitude to two teaching assistants, Betty Teng and Jennifer Chaung. Because of their kindness and guide, I have learned much to be an assistant, and enjoyed the time in the office. I hope everything there can become better and happier than ever.. iv DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(5) Regarding my classmates, I also thank Cathy Huang, Annie Hsu, Yung-ling Peng, Joanna Chen, Sandra Chao, Tank Tsai, and so on. We usually have many good talks that inspire and console me. Our discussion on courses and gossip will be kept as my precious souvenir. I will never forget to mention friends off campus; I particularly point out Jiang Shao-wun and Benjamin Honey, and Paul McAllister. Mr Jiang is one of my best friends, who listens to my complaints and gives me suggestions on some issues. Moreover, he provides me with many kinds of snack to cheer me up (Actually, he aims to make me fat.) I also appreciate the help from Ben, who has helped to proofread my thesis. In addition, he. 政 治 大. has granted me some useful opinions on my writing. He is the kindest British person I have. 立. ever met. Paul is such a nice and decent Irish man to help proofread my thesis as well by. ‧ 國. 學. sacrificing his free time while working in Japan. Concerning my family, I am grateful for. ‧. my parents’ support in me to finish the thesis.. Last but not least, I want to thank my beloved, the Nameless Guest. The sudden. sit. y. Nat. io. er. appearance of you must be a big surprise and benefit to my life. I always adore you for the maturity and wisdom that only belongs to you. Your maturity comes out to comfort and. al. n. iv n C warm my soul; the wisdom of yourshis inevitably a key e n g c h i Uto making me understand that not all the old people are as arrogant as I considered. I enjoy your interest in literature and the discussions with me on it. I cherish your willingness to show different points of view on movies while you display an amiable smile. It is a pity that we rarely meet for inconvenience between us; thus, I must be precious of the times we sincerely talk and exchange viewpoints. This thesis is inspired by you to a degree. Through the way you sometimes stay silent about and avoid your stories, I assume your struggle over the identity fraught with an unspoken feeling. Hopefully, you like this thesis, and pride yourself on owning me as a friend with great potential.. v DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(6) 國立政治大學英國語文學系碩士班 碩士論文提要 論文名稱:《慾望街車》中的焦慮男人氣慨. 指導教授:姜翠芬教授. 研究生:徐承遠. 論文提要內容: 田納西.威廉斯的《慾望街車》於 1947 年首映,這部戲的成功使他成為美. 政 治 大. 國重要的劇作家之一。該劇引起觀眾和讀者廣泛關注的原因之一是性別議題,它描. 立. 繪了男女之間的性別不平等,也因為這樣,男主角史丹利受到批評家和觀眾大量的. ‧ 國. 學. 譴責。透過這部戲,威廉斯似乎在父權中強調了男人的力量和霸權力。 然而,許多批評家很少關注劇中男性角色的男人氣慨。鮮少學者對當時劇中環. ‧. 境的分析,來探討這些男性角色承受的男人包袱。換句話說,劇中的男性被忽略. sit. y. Nat. 了。. io. er. 在劇中,可以看出社會定義的男人氣慨受到高度重視,從四個男性角色:史丹 利,米奇,艾倫和史蒂夫,可以看出男人對男人氣慨有相當大責任。藉由《慾望街. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. 車》對男性角色努力證明自己男人氣慨的描述,本論文主張他們對男人氣慨充滿焦 慮。. engchi. 關鍵詞: 田納西.威廉斯、《慾望街車》、男人氣慨、焦慮. vi DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(7) Abstract Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire premiered in 1947; its success elevated him to the top rank of America’s playwrights. One reason the play aroused much attention among audiences and readers was because of its representation of gender issue. The play depicts gender inequality between men and women. It is inevitable that the male protagonist, Stanley, rarely steers clear of the denunciations by the critics and audiences. Through this play, Williams seems to accentuate men’s power and dominance in a patriarchal system.. 政 治 大 an important gender issue in this play. What is more, there is no analytical exploration of 立 However, many of the critics pay less attention to manhood of the male characters as. ‧ 國. 學. the environment where all of these male characters’ demonstration of manhood is expected and requested. In other words, male characters’ manhood seems to be ignored.. ‧. In the play, the concept of manhood as defined by society is highly regarded, entailing. Nat. sit. y. serious responsibility for the four male characters, Stanley, Mitch, Allan, and Steve, to live. n. al. er. io. up to the ideals. All of them struggle with their manhood in a society and historical period. i Un. v. when it is difficult to provide income, protect their family, and embrace homosexuality.. Ch. engchi. With an emphasis on Williams’ depiction of male characters, this thesis argues that A Streetcar Named Desire reveals men’s anxiety about their manhood because they are supposed to authenticate their manhood with strenuous efforts.. Keywords: Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire, Manhood, Anxiety. vii DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(8) Table of Contents. Acknowledgement .............................................................................................................. iv Chinese Abstract ................................................................................................................. vi English Abstract .................................................................................................................vii Chapter One ......................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter Two....................................................................................................................... 14 Chapter Three..................................................................................................................... 44. 政 治 大 Works Cited ....................................................................................................................... 68 立 Chapter Four ...................................................................................................................... 64. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. viii DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(9) Chapter One Introduction Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire premiered in 1947; its success elevated him to the top rank of America’s playwrights. One reason the play aroused much attention among audiences and readers was because of its representation of gender issue. “What is striking is not simply how often . . . A Streetcar Named Desire has been recycled . . . but also how deeply these re-citings of Williams’s text are caught up in issues of gender . . .” (Geis). The play depicts gender inequality between men and women. Two. 政 治 大 patriarchy. Therefore, it is inevitable that the male protagonist, Stanley, rarely steers clear 立. female characters in the play, Blanche and Stella, are usually pitied by critics as victims of. ‧ 國. 學. of the denunciations by the critics and audiences. In this play, Williams seems to accentuate male power and dominance in a patriarchal system.. ‧. By reading A Streetcar Named Desire featuring the images of male power and. Nat. sit. y. dominance, readers can clearly deduce that contemporary American men probably care. n. al. er. io. about their manhood. Most of the male characters of the play attempt to support their sense. i Un. v. of manhood by deliberately stressing their masculinity, in order not to be seen as weak by. Ch. engchi. their female counterparts. The concept of manhood as defined by society is highly regarded, entailing serious responsibility for American men to live up to the ideals; they are expected to establish and support their families as part of their masculine performance. In A Streetcar Named Desire, those male characters struggle with their manhood in a society and historical period when it is difficult to provide income, protect their family, and embrace homosexuality. This thesis contends that the unfairness of women’s treatment is not the only focus in the play, and that the play offers a distinct portrayal of the men’s troubled feelings and even anxiety over their manhood, which they endeavour to cope with.. 1 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(10) Beyond their biologically distinctive features, not all the men can be as masculine as society expects. On the one hand, manhood, according to Oxford English Dictionary Online, means “the state or condition of being a man rather than a woman,” and “the adult state of man, as opposed to childhood” (“manhood, n”). Manhood is a presentation in public as evidence of gender contrary to its female counterpart. On the other hand, masculinity has a different definition: “The state or fact of being masculine; the assemblage of qualities regarded as characteristic of men; maleness, manliness” (“masculinity, n”). Strength and boldness are usually associated with masculinity. Manhood and masculinity should not be regarded as the same thing. According to Douglas Schrock and Michael Schwalbe’s. 政 治 大. interpretation, the reason men are mostly perceived as “masculine” is because of the. 立. conventional association in society:. ‧ 國. 學. Because of the conventional association between maleness and manhood, a male. ‧. body is a symbolic asset . . . However, it is neither necessary (females can mask their secondary sex characteristics, appear to be male, and attempt to put on a manhood. sit. y. Nat. io. er. act . . . ) nor sufficient (males can fail to muster the other signifiers necessary to establish themselves as creditable men worthy of full manhood status). (279). al. n. iv n C Despite the biological distinctions (such between two genders with the h easnsexg organs) chi U. specific features, it does not confirm that a man should or can prove himself “masculine;” each gender has the possibility of showing masculinity in many kinds of situations. Therefore, it is not necessary to equate men with masculinity. That said, it is clear to comprehend that when a male reaches his adult state, he naturally can possess his manhood, but this man with manhood might not have the characteristics of masculinity. Nevertheless, being a “man” also includes social expectations of manhood and its attendant responsibilities; “gender no longer refers to a biological binarism, but is conceived of as a multi-dimensional political, social, and cultural construct” (Reichardt. 2 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(11) 566). Manhood is seriously connected to the responsibilities that men are asked to take on as their burden, so men cannot avoid being asked to do what society expects them to do based on gender and roles. According to Masculinities, “the use of ‘role’ as a technical concept in the social sciences, [and] a serious way of explaining social behaviour generally,” has been rationalized concerning men and women; “a general set of expectations which are attached to one’s sex” is inevitably connected to “[m]asculinity and femininity [which] are quite easily interpreted as internalized sex roles, the products of social learning or ‘socialization’” (Connell 22). Moreover, with respect to men’s studies, another influential sociologist,. 政 治 大. Michael Messner lambasts the language of sex role because it “smuggles in normalizing. 立. tendencies in such a way that any difference from the male sex role appears as deviance. ‧ 國. 學. from a false universalized (middle-class, white, heterosexual) norm” (258). On account of. ‧. the stereotypical idea of manhood that only belongs to men, people cannot help but link manhood to “masculinity” and to the duties and attitudes a man must have.. sit. y. Nat. io. er. Correspondingly, society rarely approves of men who act differently from what many other normally perceived men do. As a result of the social expectations regarding manhood, men. al. n. iv n C may feel anxious about how to strengthen with their manhood. h e norgcope chi U. To Tennessee Williams, manhood was a difficult burden for him as he suffered much in grappling with it. Williams must have been viewed as a victim of sex role social conceptions, because his special personal traits contravened the conventional ideal of manhood. The biography of Tennessee Williams by Ronald Hayman tells us that he was born to a harsh father, Cornelius Coffin Williams. Hayman’s interview with the playwright states, “[w]anting his son to be as similar to himself as possible, Cornelius tried to exert influence on him without taking account of either his personality or his potential” (24). Being eager for his son to “be a man,” Cornelius requested his son to support his manhood. 3 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(12) as he used to do for himself by giving him many responsibilities, such as his shoe sales job and his participation in a fraternity with strict rules. Although Tom (Tennessee Williams’ original name) reluctantly worked hard to fulfil his father’s expectations, his efforts did not satisfy Cornelius, who “called him ‘Miss Nancy’” to admonish him for not being ‘sufficiently’ masculine (Hayman xii). Williams enjoyed the sexual aspect of his love affairs with men, but his resistance to his homosexuality, because of the pressure of contemporary society, led him to confess to Hayman that he “truly believes that the homosexualist is wrong and the heterosexualist is right” (Hayman xix). His sexual inclination towards men even resulted in physical assaults by homophobic teenage boys in. 政 治 大. 1979. With the sad experiences of being denied and questioned, Williams would have felt. 立. very anxious about discovering how to prove his manhood and become a socially favoured. ‧ 國. 學. man. Instead, it drew him into the nightmare of failing to be a typical man; that may be why. ‧. he created A Streetcar Named Desire to describe how anxious men in 1940s America might have felt when they eagerly attempted to receive the public’s approval of their manhood.. sit. y. Nat. io. er. Since its premiere at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in 1947, A Streetcar Named Desire has been repeatedly analysed and reviewed. At first, the play’s controversial content. al. n. iv n C annoyed some conservative critics; in h their opinion, “Williams’s use of symbolism and engchi U. flowery rhetoric” in the play was perceived as loose and vulgar (Bak 3); they further joked that this play should have been named “The Glands Menagerie” or “The Struggle for the Bathroom,” to conform to its content with sexual and violent scenes (qtd. in Bak 3). In spite of fierce criticisms, this play received positive reviews from most of the critics. They were convinced that this play helped Tennessee Williams to earn the title of “a genuinely poetic playwright whose knowledge of people is honest and thorough” (qtd. in Bak 3). Generally speaking, thanks to the most compliments over 70 years, this play has inspired critics to. 4 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(13) research from the perspectives of naturalism, psychoanalysis, feminism, and male character studies. Among all the approaches, naturalism is the first popular method to analyse the play. Many naturalist scholars are certain that Williams’s naturalist style presents readers with a realistic vision of the south of America, where the confrontation between culture and power was hardly resolved (Bak 5). Thus, naturalism in the play is vivid in the aspects of naturalistic struggle in society. As Irwin Shaw argues, “The play is written with a triumphantly heightened naturalism . . . It finally has the surprising effect of seeming infinitely more real, more like life itself . . .” (Shaw). The play depicts how lower-class. 政 治 大. Americans strived to make a living, and how Stanley bullies Blanche in part because of the. 立. cultural differences between the south and north of America.. ‧ 國. 學. In contrast, by pointing to the naturalist determinism in the play, Joseph Wood Krutch. ‧. asserts that the play is “a sort of semi-surrealist version of the Strindbergian submission to destructive obsessions” (124). However, the play’s naturalism draws more naturalist critics’. sit. y. Nat. io. er. attention to Chekhovian naturalism because Williams is presumed to depict the nature of the past in A Streetcar Named Desire as Chekhov does in The Cherry Orchard. Kenneth. al. n. iv n C identical naturalism h e n g inc hStreetcar, i U not. Bernard confirms “an. in Strindbergian but in. Chekhovian terms” (qtd. in Bak 5). To argue about their naturalist similarity, C.W.E. Bigsby compares these two plays: “Like Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, which [Williams] similarly admired, [A Streetcar Named Desire] focuses on a culture on the turn, an old world, elegant but reflexive . . .” (45). From Bernard’s argument and Bigsby’s analysis, both plays express the rise and fall of aristocracy as well, and describe the characters’ nostalgia for the past by showing their strong feelings. Although naturalism is argued by many scholars due to the play’s vivid depiction of the rise and fall in contemporary America, many other critics eagerly prefer to use. 5 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(14) psychoanalysis to approach this play because the characters’ intense behaviour is perceived as “abnormal.” By observing their excessive and deviant behaviour, they proclaim that Williams seems to pay attention to how a person could deal with the chaotic content in his or her mind (Sharp 171). Among the characters, Blanche is the most typical focus of psychological analysis as she cannot help but struggle with her inner thoughts when driven by madness and mental suffering. Most of the critics view her behaviour from a Freudian perspective. According to Philip Weissman, Blanche hardly has a calm life due to her failed love relationship with her gay husband, Allan, the main cause that makes her unable to keep a good and intimate relationship with other men (277).. 政 治 大. Adopting the Freudian theory of repression as well, Nina C. Leibman discusses. 立. Blanche’s madness in A Streetcar Named Desire. “Blanche’s actual journey from a. ‧ 國. 學. streetcar named ‘Desire’ . . . is a metaphor for her fate, for her desire leads directly to her. ‧. mental death” (Leibman 33). In Leibman’s view, the reason for Blanche’s hysteria is attributed to the repression of her searching desire. In addition, it is Blanche’s mental. y. Nat. er. io. sit. trauma from her husband’s death that leaves her under his shadow. With the extension of Freudian theory, U. H. Ruhina Jesmin explains that this psychic anguish is too difficult and. al. n. iv n C tough for Blanche to resist and resolvehdue to the defence e n g c h i Umechanism in human beings,. forcing Blanche to form a fantasy against trauma by distorting, transforming, or falsifying reality (404). With the rise of awareness of women’s rights, the play absolutely catches feminists’ attention because of its depiction of gender inequality under patriarchy, reaffirming Williams’ sympathy toward women’s suppression by men “in terms of certain popular parameters of feminist reading” (Panda 50). In the view of feminism, like most women in twentieth-century America, Blanche is victimized in patriarchal society, with Stanley playing the role of a typical patriarchal man to manipulate her: “The audience watches the. 6 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(15) sentencing of Blanche to the asylum that is to be her ‘home’ while sharing her perception that she has been victimized by Stanley’s––and implicitly patriarchy’s––historical discourse” (Vlasopolos 333). In addition to the criticism of Stanley as a typical patriarchal victimizer, Mark Royden Winchell favours the play with a tile of “a feminist fable.” He postulates that Williams creates this play as an illustration of what social roles women should play under the control of patriarchy: “Stanley’s rape of Blanche might be a paradigm for how men deal with women in a patriarchal society. (Stanley and Mitch would both seem to be purveyors of the double standard, while Stella is nothing more than a sex object and childbearer)”. 政 治 大. (Winchell). From the feminist analyses above, we can see how helpless and low women. 立. were perceived in 1940s America, because the play presents the fact that “women would. ‧ 國. 學. lose their self when faced with traditional customs and strict standards set by men” (Fang. ‧. 104).. Feminist analyses on this play showcase women’s lower position and their inequality. sit. y. Nat. io. er. in society. Moreover, in regard to the criticisms on male characters to prove contemporary male hegemony, Stanley intrigues the critics who mainly attack him for his cruel behaviour. al. n. iv n C and fierce manner. As most of them argue, all the male characters, Stanley never holds h e namong gchi U back his masculine power to dominate his friends and relatives, especially the female ones.. Bert Cardullo indicates that a great deal of criticism insists on recognizing “Stanley Kowalski as the destroyer of Blanche Dubois” with “brute ugliness” (79). At the beginning of Susan Koprince’s article, she sympathizes with Stella and Blanche stuck in “a cycle of domestic violence,” blaming Stanley as “a batterer—a man whose aggressive masculinity and desire for control are perfectly consistent with the profile of an abuser” (49). To Cardullo and Koprince, Williams creates Stanley’s image to highlight men’s usual abuse of women as a typical batterer in society.. 7 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(16) Mel Gussow considers Stanley to be a difficult character for any actor to present because Stanley’s performance is so belligerent and inhumane that many of them fail to appropriately perform it: “Stanley must have an animal ferocity. Always, . . . there must be menace, a threat of violence to anyone––or anything––within striking distance.” Judging by all the portrayals of Stanley by actors so far, Gussow concludes that only Marlon Brando could properly and successfully depict Stanley’s spirit. Due to Williams’s creation of male characters whose images hardly give the critics any good impression, it is absolutely hard to notice any positive comments on male characters, especially Stanley, who is critically considered to be responsible for his cruelty towards women.. 政 治 大. Many scholars have approached A Streetcar Named Desire from the perspectives of. 立. naturalism, psychoanalysis, feminism and male characters, thus diversifying and enriching. ‧ 國. 學. the artistic value of this play. However, most of them pay much attention to the difficult. ‧. situations Blanche finds herself in, and the eccentric behaviour she displays. Even though Stanley has been analysed and discussed as a male character, there is a lack of the study. sit. y. Nat. io. er. concerning the other male characters: Mitch, Allan and Steve. Furthermore, there is no exploration of the environment where all of these male characters’ demonstration of. al. n. iv n C manhood is expected and requested. With on Williams’ depiction of male h eann emphasis gchi U characters, this thesis argues that A Streetcar Named Desire reveals men’s anxiety about their manhood because they are supposed to authenticate their manhood with strenuous efforts. Before the thesis investigates the male characters’ anxiety over their manhood, it is crucial to understand the evolution of how manhood is perceived in America. Hence, Michael Kimmel’s social and historical studies in American manhood are employed to explicate the male characters’ manhood with anxiety in A Streetcar Named Desire. To analyse why American men need to adopt different attitudes and behaviour to enhance their. 8 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(17) manhood, as a prominent scholar in men’s studies, Kimmel in his Manhood in America divides American manhood into three types. In the eighteenth century, there were two types of manhood: the Genteel Patriarch and the Heroic Artisan, both derived from Europe. The Genteel Patriarch bestowed men “with exquisite taste and manners and refined sensibilities,” while the Heroic Artisan would be very “formal in his manners with women, stalwart and loyal to his male comrades” (Kimmel, Manhood in America 13). Afterwards, in the nineteenth century, came the Self-Made Man, “a model of manhood that derives identity from a man’s activities in the public sphere” based on his “wealth and status,” and “geographic and social mobility” (Kimmel, Manhood in America. 政 治 大. 13). Originating in America as a new type of manhood, the Self-Made Manhood was. 立. considered the spirit of the Sons of Liberty, which represented America, as opposed to the. ‧ 國. 學. control of Father England, which mainly consisted of the European Genteel Patriarch and. ‧. the Heroic Artisan. Along with the rise of the capitalist system in mid nineteenth-century America, the Self-Made style of manhood became so prominent that most American men. y. Nat. er. io. sit. respected it, for it could confirm a man’s “success in the market, individual achievement, mobility, wealth” (Kimmel, Manhood in America 17). Therefore, the Self-Made style of. al. n. iv n C manhood became thoroughly established for American men to achieve. h e nas ga model chi U. Unfortunately, with the increasing difficulties of twentieth-century America, men felt more threatened by the tough environment and thus more anxious about how to maintain their manhood. The twentieth century can be deemed as a harsh test of manhood for American men, since the femininizing clutches of women arose and “men’s work was an increasingly unreliable proving ground” in the era influenced by economic instability (Kimmel, Manhood in America 128). Because of “women’s economic as well as sexual power” at the turn of the twentieth century (Kitch), men started to fear women who were gradually capable of controlling “principal institutions, such as family, religion, and. 9 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(18) education” (Kimmel, Manhood in America 105). They started to be afraid that women’s rising power tended to endanger the core of their manhood. What is even worse, the Great Depression and World War II in America exerted a massive and widespread disadvantage to men’s ability to prove their manhood. A severe economic crisis and the following war’s toll gradually deprived American society of its economic stability and created a chaotic society in which American men felt less confident about their ability to be financially secure and competent. With the rise of women’s right, the Great Depression’s repercussion, and the results of World War II, the concept of the ideal Self-Made manhood became a nearly unobtainable goal and a rigid burden on American men.. 政 治 大. In order to explore Stanley’s, Mitch’s, Allan’s and Steve’s manhood undermined by. 立. anxiety, this thesis approaches A Streetcar Named Desire from the social, historical and. ‧ 國. 學. psychological studies. When it comes to the cases of Stanley, Mitch and Steve, the concepts. ‧. of family and marriage of the society from the early to the mid-twentieth century in America played an important and influential role. Furthermore, the great historical events,. sit. y. Nat. io. er. such as the Great Depression and World War II, will be accentuated in the thesis, for their negative influences resulted in much pressure on these three male breadwinners, and thus. al. n. iv n C caused them to worry about supporting their Next, the thesis also draws attention h e families. ngchi U. to homosociality, the same-sex union where men not only enjoy activities with same-sex friends, but also try hard to get along with them for the sake of their career or social position. In addition to social and historical approaches to homosexuality, psychological studies will be used to explore Allan’s anxiety as a gay man, who is mostly regarded as “abnormal” in mid twentieth-century America. Family, to mid twentieth-century American men, is a source of comfort and warmth, and a place for them to define their manhood with its support; however, given conventional and social expectations of men, family entails duties and a burden that most American men. 10 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(19) need to take care of. As Michael Kimmel contends, mid-twentieth century American family was seen as an arena that asked men to seek “to anchor their identities as men,” and they, for their identities also as husbands or fathers, were “indispensable . . . to the provision for the family” (149). Furthermore, Roy E. Dickerson also wrote that a twentieth-century American man, though needing a masculine figure to exhibit virility, should maintain “the capacity for a strong love of wife and child,” because it “makes him fit to be a good husband and father” in the family structure (22). As a result, in mid-twentieth-century America, family is not only closely related to the empowerment, but also to the anxiety of manhood. Marriage is a medium for a man to strengthen his manhood. While leading a man into. 政 治 大. a serious legally-binding relationship with the woman he loves, marriage is necessarily. 立. executed by him to perform as “a complete man.” In Manhood and Marriage, Bernarr. ‧ 國. 學. Macfadden analyses the contemporary mindset for marriage in regard to men’s manhood.. ‧. In the chapter, “Am I a Complete Man?”, Macfadden puts forward that American people would mostly think “the marital relationship . . . with a woman” is a proof of “a complete. y. Nat. er. io. sit. man” and that his “sexual strength might increase as a result of marriage” (12). To male Americans of the mid-twentieth century, marriage was a stage of life for them to be. n. al. i n affirmed as potent and standard inCAmerican society. U hengchi. v. The Great Depression and World War II both left American men in the crisis of confidence in their manhood due to the insecurity caused by these two events. During the Great Depression in the late 1920s America, the economic situation worsened, and “resulted in drastic declines in output, severe unemployment, and acute deflation” (Romer 1). Later, World War II followed and “subjected the [American] families to severe strain,” forcing them to “face a severe shortage of housing” (Mintz 9). Under the circumstances of the economic depression and the massive war that brought about increasing prices of. 11 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(20) livelihood (Mintz 10), managing family finances became much more challenging, especially for the main male breadwinner whose burden would cause great anxiety. To twentieth-century American working men, legal heterosexual bonding (marriage) was not the only essential factor for them to enhance their manhood; if they wanted to be more prominent and noticed in workplace, homosociality was needed to promote themselves. These binding relationships were consolidated when co-workers socialized with each other. Kimmel stresses the men’s union as “a homosocial retreat” in the twentieth century. This bond functioned not only for entertainment but also for fulfilling a business purpose. As Kimmel argues, twentieth-century American male workers strived “to. 政 治 大. [masculinize] the workplace through [the men’s] bonding” (Manhood in America 131).. 立. According to Kimmel, “Homosocial retreats were harnessed to serve the corporation rather. ‧ 國. 學. than provide solace away from corporate life” (Manhood in America 131). It is easy to. ‧. understand that workers were expected to be united by society, so that they could make progress in business. However, it is also clear that this social expectation exerted a kind of. sit. y. Nat. io. er. pressure that made men anxious.. In mid twentieth-century America, men started to worry that their manhood might be. al. n. iv n C undermined by homosexuality, which would with their being real men. Based on h e ninterfere gchi U. the contemporary psychological research on sexuality conducted during the period from the 1940s to the 1960s, “a feminine identification” and “confusion and evasiveness with respect to the identification of the gender” were phenomena only happening to homosexual people (Hammack 226). Those phenomena are called “gender inversion”: The narrative of gender inversion promulgated in this early psychological research was not merely a question of individual differences on a particular trait (i.e., masculinity-femininity). Rather, it was part of a narrative of sickness and abnormality that . . . argue[s] that same-sex desire was indicative of a particular. 12 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(21) “type” of person, and that such desire may be beyond conscious control. (Hammack 225) Not only was homosexual men’s character thought to be feminized and to contradict masculinity, but they could not be considered to possess normal manhood, for their affection toward men was perceived as psychologically aberrant. With the approaches mentioned above, the thesis will argue that male characters, such as Stanley, Mitch, Allan and Steve, are very anxious about their manhood in A Streetcar Named Desire. To Stanley, his family has turned into a place where he feels anxious because his intruding sister-in-law, Blanche, and his wife are both threatening and. 政 治 大. questioning his manhood. To maintain his manhood, Mitch is always worried about how to. 立. get married to become a family man, and how to cope with and get along with his male co-. ‧ 國. 學. workers in homosociality. As for Allan, as the pervasive homophobia leaves him with. ‧. anxiety over his “abnormal” manhood, he forces himself to marry. Steve’s anxiety over his manhood definitely proves that the family’s demands and hardship on the husband as a. sit. y. Nat. io. er. breadwinner make him feel traumatised during the struggle to maintain his manhood. All these men in the play share a common feature; they are highly anxious about their manhood,. n. al. C h to validate it. U n i with the fact that they take great pains engchi. v. The main structure of this thesis is built up through four chapters, including the introduction as Chapter One, and the conclusion as Chapter Four. Chapter Two analyses Stanley’s anxiety to get over his wife and his rude sister-in-law who challenge his manhood, along with Steve’s anxiety about his manhood that comes from the pressure of family finance. Chapter Three analyses Mitch’s anxiety for his manhood, which is closely related to homosociality and marriage, and Allan’s anxiety over how to improve his manhood as a homosexual.. 13 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(22) Chapter Two Stanley’s Manhood with Anxiety from Family It is an inescapable fact that the meaning of American manhood is firmly tied to family; therefore, married American men must feel bound to protect their families from outsiders’ threats, to take care of their wives, and to be hard-working breadwinners to finance their families (Griswold 1001). In A Streetcar Named Desire, in the self-perceived anxiety of manhood, family plays an important influential role. Stanley needs to be more responsible for his family due to his position as a husband. Acknowledging that his. 政 治 大 undertake certain actions to show responsibility for manhood. This chapter will advocate 立. manhood has been threatened and questioned in the family, Stanley becomes so anxious to. ‧ 國. 學. that Stanley has such manhood-related anxiety regarding family, because of Blanche’s reckless intrusion with assaults and Stella’s disapproval of the way he treats their family.. ‧. Mainly arguing about Stanely’s anxiety over manhood, the chapter will discuss Steve’s. Nat. sit. y. manhood in relation to his family, which questions his ability to financially contribute.. n. al. er. io. As stated in the previous chapter, among the male characters in the play, Stanley, has. i Un. v. been studied the most. Not only is he a major character who appears most frequently, but. Ch. engchi. his arbitration and dominance towards other characters render him a controversial character castigated by most critics. As a consequence, Stanley is scarcely far from infamy, as long as his flaws remain to be pointedly stressed and scrutinized. Through his investigation into Stanley’s situation, Robert Brustein describes Stanley as “a highly complex and ambiguous character,” because Stanley “can be taken either as hero or as villain” (9). If Stanley is presumed “[a]s a social or cultural figure, Stanley is a villain, in mindless opposition to civilization and culture” (Brustein 9). With the notion of being uncivilized and careless of out-of-state culture, Stanley performs like a typical villain, capriciously behaving in an irrationally violent way. Nonetheless, Brustein explores a 14 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(23) different perspective of Stanley by suggesting that he can be expected to be a hero in the play: “Rather than expressing dissatisfaction with the grubby conditions in which he lives, [Stanley] exults in them, and he does not indicate any desire to better himself” (10). To Brustein, Stanley could have a heroic character to some degree; however, society leaves him feeling disadvantaged and pressured. Because of Stanley’s demonstrated complexity and ambiguity, his heroic traits are hardly evident and thus easily ignored. In fact, Stanley could be regarded as a hero; he is too apprehensively concerned about his family, selfperceived as his duty in relation to his manhood. Stanley’s anxiety is mostly caused by his family, the responsibility of manhood that. 政 治 大. twentieth-century American men have to be attentive to. As a twentieth-century American. 立. man should know how to grow up and to prove himself mature, “[n]ormally, . . . he begins. ‧ 國. 學. to feel a new interest in his home and to make things for it or to do something to make it a. ‧. pleasant place for everyone” (Dickerson 23). Stanley’s interest in his family is clear to see; the play describes how Stanley, having been a veteran of World War II, is a worker, a. sit. y. Nat. io. er. husband, and an expectant father, devoting himself to making a living for his family. Despite showing the fierce and vigorous masculinity of his manhood to arbitrarily control. n. al. his family, Stanley voices his. iv n C deep for his family h econcern ngchi U. through his effort in the. workplace and by demonstrating his love to Stella. For his due diligence in his family position, Stanley is portrayed as a typical figure of the Self-Made Manhood, “[t]o be manly . . . as a provider, a producer, and a protector of a family” (Kimmel, The History of Men 38). However, Stanley grows anxious about his manhood as soon as his family has turned into a place with his intruding sister-in-law and his wife threatening and questioning his manhood. This section will argue about Stanley’s anxiety with two approaches. While Stanley’s anxiety can be examined through the presence of Blanche, his worry over his. 15 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(24) manhood can also be seen through his interaction with Stella. Blanche must be the first one to cause Stanley to feel anxious over his manhood; he maintains it with fierce actions against Blanche. Furthermore, with her sorrow and her sympathy for Blanche, Stella also complains about the way Stanley maintains his manhood for both their family and her as his wife. Stanley doubtlessly assumes her as the second person that aggravates his anxiety about his manhood. Because of Blanche’s loss of property, rudeness to him as a host, and her criticisms of his identity and masculinity, Stanley worries that his manhood will suffer from Blanche’s abuse. Though Stanley’s behaviour is verbally and physically insulting to Blanche, his main. 政 治 大. concern is defying Blanche’s offensive assaults on his manhood. To Stanley, the sudden. 立. appearance of Blanche, the intruder or the guest, has a potentially negative influence on the. ‧ 國. 學. family’s finances after he has heard the news about her loss of property. Seeing Blanche. ‧. using his radio and bathroom without respecting him as a host, Stanley also has a hunch that her casual and loose attitude means to challenge his manhood in the family. With social. y. Nat. er. io. sit. prejudice, Blanche laughs at Stanley’s Polish identity, implying his Polish identity is not authentic enough to assist him in maintaining his manhood; even worse, Blanche degrades. al. n. iv n C his masculinity by comparing him to an less than human. With the fact that hanimal, e n g i.e. chi U. Blanche’s assaults have endangered Stanley's manhood, this chapter examines how these assaults make Stanley strongly anxious about his manhood. First of all, Stanley finds his manhood endangered by the intruder, Blanche, whose loss of the Dubois family’s property makes him wonder about his and Stella’s financial rights. After losing Belle Reve as the Dubois’ property in Laurel, Blanche seeks refuge with Stella. While it seems at first like a straightforward visit, Stanley, the male householder, finds the sister-in-law strange and feels her loss of the house is not a simple case. Worried and suspicious of how Belle Reve came to be taken away without explanation, Stanley asks. 16 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(25) Stella for any information and explains to her why he needs to ask questions about Dubois’ inheritance: STANLEY. She [Blanche] didn’t show you no papers, no deed of sale or nothing like that huh? STELLA. It seems like it wasn’t sold. ... STANLEY. Have you ever heard of the Napoleonic code? STELLA. No, Stanley, I haven’t heard of the Napoleonic code and if I have, I don’t see what it––. 政 治 大. STANLEY. Let me enlighten you on a point or two, baby.. 立. STELLA. Yes?. ‧ 國. 學. STANLEY. In the state of Louisiana we have the Napoleonic code according to. ‧. which what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband and vice versa. For instance if I had a piece of property, or you had a piece of property– (Williams. er. io. sit. y. Nat. 35). After receiving no hints about Belle Reve, the lost house, Stanley becomes more suspicious.. al. n. iv n C Despite Stella not being mindful, Stanley keeps talking to understand what happened h e nstill gchi U with Belle Reve. By validating the strength of the relevant aspect of the Napoleonic code, he wants to catch Stella’s attention to how seriously he takes the lost property. Nevertheless, Stella continues to make it clear that the loss of the property is not an important question, and suggests that Stanley not take it to heart: STELLA. My head is swimming! STANLEY. All right. I’ll wait till she gets through soaking in a hot tub and then. 17 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(26) I’ll inquire if she is acquainted with the Napoleonic code. It looks to me like you have been swindled, baby, and when you’re swindled under the Napoleonic code I’m swindled too. And I don’t like to be swindled. (Williams 35) The play displays the couple’s different attitudes towards lost Belle Reve. To Stella, Blanche is her beloved sister, a normal girl who comes to her for help; however, Stanley regards Blanche as the intruder menacing his family as well as him. Regarding the situation of the property, he is ready to question Blanche. Additionally, not only does he intend to get involved with the Dubois property to acquire wealth, but he also aims to take Stella as his “property” to suppress her with the power of the patriarchal code. “Legitimizing his. 政 治 大. domestic reign of terror, [Stanley] invokes the power of the primal male . . . buttressed by. 立. Napoleonic law” (Kolin 461). In other words, it seems that Stanley deliberately wants to. ‧ 國. 學. use the code as a patriarchal ideology to express his male dominance over his family.. ‧. Stanley confesses his concern for the fact that Stella and he may be financially disadvantaged and, more seriously, swindled by Blanche. This is the main reason why he. y. Nat. er. io. sit. eagerly has to clarify why and how Blanche is losing Belle Reve. By taking out Blanche’s expensive belongings, he hastily informs Stella that Blanche must have misappropriated. al. n. iv n C the property to benefit herself secretly: “Then the money if the place was sold? . . . h e nwhere’s gchi U. Open your eyes to this stuff! You think she got them out of a teacher’s pay?” (Williams 35). With Blanche’s high-priced items discovered, it is reasonable for Stanley to infer that Blanche must have exploited the Dubois family, which must have deprived Stella and Stanley of the right to inheritance. Cautious about Blanche’s exploitation and conscious of his being the head of the household, Stanley is eager to protect his family from the risk of financial loss. If Stanley fails to make his family financially stable, his manhood would be publicly discredited for being financially incompetent. Having been alarmed by the loss of Belle Reve, Stanley foresees his manhood being threatened and thus anxiously needs to. 18 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(27) find a way to maintain it by interfering with the Dubois family’s property, aspiring to secure his and Stella’s right to inheritance. Secondly, boldly ignoring her role as a guest in the Kowalski family, Blanche demeans Stanley’s manhood, causing another assault to exacerbate his anxiety as well. While staying in the Kowalski home, she seldom respects Stanley as a host, offhandedly using anything that belongs to the family. Examples such as turning on the radio without permission and frequently occupying the bathroom for a long time illustrate Blanche’s impudent and manipulative behaviour. During one poker night, without asking for permission from the radio’s owner, Blanche just turns on the radio for fun, showing that. 政 治 大. she does not care to pay homage to the male master:. 立. (She [Stella] goes into the bathroom. Blanche rises and crosses leisurely to a small. ‧ 國. 學. white radio and turns it on.). ‧. .... STANLEY. Who turned that on in there?. sit. y. Nat. io. er. BLANCHE. I did. Do you mind? STANLEY. Turn it off.. n. al. C htheir music. U n i STEVE. Aw, let the girls have engchi. v. ... (Stanley jumps up and, crossing to the radio, turns it off. He stops short at the sight of Blanche in the chair. She returns his look without flinching . . .) (Williams 51) Blanche acts in a way that does not recognize the distinction between host and guest in the Kowalski family. To Stanley, Blanche has started to regard it as unnecessary to seek the permission from the head of the family. Although Steve suggests that Stanley should not bother these women, Stanley insists that Blanche’s behaviour is impertinent enough to affect him; he assumes that she is intentionally challenging the authority of his manhood.. 19 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(28) Switching off the radio, Stanley, rude but direct, warns her to be respectful of his manhood. This radio incident triggers his uneasiness regarding his manhood, as Blanche’s loose attitude is indicative of her denial of him as the host of the family. In addition to the case of the radio, Blanche also depreciates the masculine power of Stanley’s manhood in the family by her frequent use of the bathroom. After the radio incident, Blanche still pretends nothing significant has happened by staying in the bathroom for a long time. The bathroom seems to have become a place controlled by Blanche, who has started to empower herself through the occupation of domestic space: STANLEY. (Blanche) here? STELLA. In the bathroom.. 立. 政 治 大. STANLEY. (mimicking) “Washing out some things?”. ‧ 國. 學. STELLA. I reckon so.. ‧. STANLEY. How long she been in there? STELLA. All afternoon.. y. Nat. er. io. al. n. .... sit. STANLEY. (mimicking) “Soaking in a hot tub?”. i STELLA. She says it cools herC offhfor the evening. U n engchi. v. STANLEY. And you run out an’ get her cokes, I suppose? And serve ’em to Her Majesty in the tub? (Williams 97) In spite of Stella’s excuse about Blanche’s urgent need to calm down, Stanley feels more anxious about his manhood, implying that both the radio and the bathroom belong to his family and therefore should be respected by Blanche. However, Blanche remains blind to her status as a guest and considers herself a queen worth serving in his house. It makes Stanley sense that she marks herself as superior to him as well as Stella. In his view,. 20 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(29) Blanche intentionally subverts and belittles the firmness of his masculine manhood, and means to increase her power over the Kowalski family. By using the host’s radio and bathroom at will, Blanche demonstrates her “feminine clutches” in opposition to Stanley’s manhood within his own domestic space. From Blanche’s perspective, it is not a big deal when a woman turns on the radio just for some music, and using a bathroom is a way a woman relaxes her fragile nerves. However, from Stanley’s point of view, Blanche utilizes her feminine clutches to rebel against his authority in the family. In his anxious position as a family master, Blanche’s impolite manner is her feminine threat to his manhood and family.. 政 治 大. Stanley’s anxiety about Blanche abusing his domestic space underlines his view that. 立. men need to uphold their territories (in their homes) to prove and maintain their manhood.. ‧ 國. 學. Before Blanche’s visit, Stanley has the total control over his domestic (public and private). ‧. space; however, with the appearance of a “long-stay” visitor, he is forced to acknowledge the fact that his private space is now turned into a public space. Honestly, women may. sit. y. Nat. io. er. make men feel uneasy and unconfident in the space, especially in public, where femininity presides over masculinism. To confirm woman’s domestic power as having a powerful. al. n. iv n C effect on self-perceived manhood, hKimmel elaborates e n g c h i U on masculinism as a means to. maintain manhood in the home environment where femininity may be an increasing threat to men: Masculinism is, at its centre, resistance to femininity, to the forces that turn hard men into soft, enervated nerds; it is by escape from women and resistance to femininity that masculinists hope to retrieve their manhood. In their view, men had to wriggle free of these feminine, feminizing, clutches––ironically, the very clutches that male insecurity had created to free the workplace of female competition and to make the home into a man’s castle and thus preserve patriarchal authority. It was in. 21 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(30) the public sphere that men faced the greatest challenges to their manhood, where their sense of manhood was won or lost, and yet these anxieties were projected, instead, onto women as the bearers of enervating lassitude. Men were suddenly terrified of feminization in the very homes they had created, and now yearned to escape or at least more clearly demarcate themselves from women. (The History of Men 21) Masculine power and feminine power appear as two strengths when man and woman coexist in a space. Then home is a typical space for masculine and feminine powers to struggle with each other. To Kimmel, despite patriarchal ideology, women can have more advantages than men at home, since women spend more time staying at home to develop. 政 治 大. feminization or femininity as a power against men. On the other hand, men usually go out. 立. for work, and then usually overlook being enervated by feminine clutches at the domestic. ‧ 國. 學. space when they stay home. As Kimmel has claimed, if a man remains ignorant of the. ‧. phenomenon that a woman has controlled the house with feminization or femininity, he will face a threat to his masculinism, and thus his manhood will be threatened and weakened. y. Nat. er. io. sit. by women’s rising domestic power.. Based on Kimmel’s argument above, most men must not be merely concerned about. al. n. iv n C whether their job is stable enough to make noticed in the workplace or society. Even h ethem ngchi U though they should work hard in the workplace to prove their manhood, they should pay attention to their homes as well. Such women as Blanche will take advantage of everything domestic by the time the power of femininity is spread across the space where man and woman coexist with each other. Under these circumstances, men’s anxiety about their manhood will become too apparent for them to ignore. The less space is left for men’s manhood to be retained, the weaker their selfperceived masculinism must be. Thus, men will neither resist women’s power nor restore their masculinism in the space charged with femininity. Along with masculinism. 22 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(31) diminished by women’s rising domestic control as a disadvantage to men, their manhood will be regarded as feminized; it thus makes them lose confidence to successfully respond to the family and the public. With the evidence of Blanche’s use of the radio and the bathroom, the play indicates that Blanche forms her power of femininity and tries to reduce Stanley’s strength of masculinism in the Kowalski family. Stanley, as husband or host caring about his manhood, cannot help but become tenser; he perceives Blanche disturbing the family and depriving his manhood of his self-perceived masculinism. Thirdly, Blanche’s discrimination against his manhood is also a major reason for his. 政 治 大. anxiety. It is quite obvious that Blanche, who is proud of her French heritage, does not think. 立. high of Stanley, a Polish descent. Apprehensive about her sister as socially superior, Stella. ‧ 國. 學. reminds her of the differences among groups; nonetheless, Blanche looks down at Stanley’s. ‧. and his friends’ Polish identity by teasing their appearance and calling them Polacks: STELLA. Stanley is Polish, you know.. sit. y. Nat. io. al. n. .... er. BLANCHE. Oh, yes. They’re something like Irish, aren’t they?. ni Ch BLANCHE. Only not so––highbrow? U engchi. v. (They both laugh again in the same way.) ... STELLA. I’m afraid you won’t think [Stanley’s friends] are lovely. BLANCHE. What are they like? STELLA. They’re Stanley’s friends. BLANCHE. Polacks? STELLA. They’re a mixed lot, Blanche. BLANCHE. Heterogeneous––types? (Williams 23). 23 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(32) Although Polack means “[a] Polish immigrant [or] a person of Polish descent” (“Polack, n. and adj”), the Oxford English Dictionary Online emphasizes that it is a very derogatory word that needs avoiding. Born in a high-class family, and as an heir to the French upperclass, Blanche regards herself as more classic and elegant than Stanley and his friends. She never finds it wrong using derogatory terms such as Polacks; for an upper-class woman like her, it is proper to avoid that social bias as an assault on manhood’s self-esteem. Blanche’s disrespect for Polish heritage acts in such a way that it denigrates the power of Stanley’s manhood. Kimmel points out the impact of more and more immigrants in twentieth-century America creating a melting pot increasingly fraught with fear of. 政 治 大. xenophobia. He further declares with evidence that contemporary American people,. 立. swayed by xenophobic remarks, blindly believed that new American immigrants were. ‧ 國. 學. “depicted as less mentally capable and less manly––either as feminized and effete or wildly. ‧. savage hypermasculine beasts––and thus likely to dilute the stock of ‘pure’ American blood” (Kimmel, Manhood in America 128). As xenophobia was deeply planted in the popular. y. Nat. er. io. sit. mind, American men would have “[r]acist impulses . . . suffused with gender imagery . . . [that] new immigrant group[s] [were] tainted with . . . gender slanders” (Kimmel, Manhood. al. n. iv n C in America 129). Not only the immigrants but also their descendants were h e nthemselves gchi U maliciously labelled as deteriorating American manhood. Correspondingly, censured as corrupting American manhood, those untypical American men were anxious about their manhood as well. It is very difficult for Stanley to prove his competent manhood in American society because Blanche’s discrimination intensifies the misjudgement of his ability to strengthen his self-perceived manhood. This atmosphere full of social bias inevitably led Blanche to develop a similar discriminatory attitude towards foreign American men like Stanley. Holding her social supremacy, she naturally plans to favour her French ancestry over a. 24 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(33) Polish one. This discrimination is evident in Blanche’s derision of Stanley being a PolishAmerican; she jokingly takes him as different from the typical “pure” Americans. Besides, this bias indicates her disdain and her negation of Stanley’s manhood because he is not pure enough and therefore not as manly as “pure-blooded” American men. Blanche’s bias represents her (and society’s) dismissal of his Polish manhood, arousing his anxiety. Fourthly, because of her experience with Stanley’s uncivilized manhood, Blanche lampoons it. Blanche never comments on Stanley’s masculine character as advantageous to him; instead, she criticises him for being so monster-like. Angry about Stanley’s belligerence, Blanche makes direct complaints about Stanley’s manhood to Stella:. 政 治 大. He acts like an animal, has an animal’s habits! Eats like one, moves like one, talks. 立. like one! There’s even something––sub-human––something not quite to the stage of. ‧ 國. 學. humanity yet! Yes, something––ape-like about him, like one of those pictures I’ve. ‧. seen in––anthropological studies! Thousands and thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is––Stanley Kowalski––survivor of the stone age! . . . Maybe. sit. y. Nat. io. er. he’ll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you! That is, if kisses have been discovered yet! Night falls and the other apes gather! There in the front of the cave, all grunting. al. n. iv n C like him, and swilling and gnawing His poker night! ––you call it––this h e nandghulking! chi U party of apes! Somebody growls––some creature snatches at something––the fight is on! God! Maybe we are a long way from being made in God’s image . . . In some kinds of people some tenderer feelings have had some little beginning! . . . Don’t–– don’t hang back with the brutes! (Williams 72) In a long speech, Blanche gives her sister a warning that Stanley will destroy the family. Moreover, lest her sister would totally be under the control of this beast, Blanche seriously recommends that Stella escape the atmosphere of danger. Loving Stella as her only relative, Blanche hopes Stella to be aware of Stanley’s animal-like feature by showing evidence. 25 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(34) from anthropological studies. On the other hand, she radically censures Stanley’s manhood merely because of her hatred and bias. By highlighting Stanley’s uncivilized and inhumane nature, Blanche purposely besmirches Stanley’s manhood to sway Stella by the studies in anthropology. Although Blanche’s suggestion to her sister is well-meaning, she appropriates anthropological studies for her own personal usage. In fact, leading twentieth-century scholars in anthropological studies such as Margaret Mead find that American men are emotionally anxious regarding their manhood due to some conventions of American society. What Blanche contends is simply based on her comparison between Stanley and animals.. 政 治 大. This comparison is not only misleading but also an unfair condemnation of Stanley. Mead. 立. believes that the reason American men have a tough manner and experience anxiety over. ‧ 國. 學. their manhood is due to the gender identity convention that seeks to shape them into the. ‧. ideal that American society expects (qtd. in Kimmel, Manhood in America 151). To a great extent, this social convention has many negative effects on most American men; these. er. io. sit. y. Nat. effects mainly lead them into repressing their emotions.. Mead uses anthropological studies to underscore that American men suffer from their. al. n. iv n C repressed emotions; they are instructed h not to easily become e n g c h i U emotional but to seriously be. aggressive in situations disadvantageous to them, i.e. on the proper occasions. Mead continues to contend that the American instruction would “teach [American men] to be tough and to stand up for themselves, and . . . teach them that aggression is wrong and should be repressed, and, if possible repressed” (qtd. in Kimmel 151, Manhood in America). Even though they are instructed to avoid being aggressive, Mead fears that they sometimes need to be aggressive: “[A]gressiveness . . . can never be shown except when the other fellow starts it; aggressiveness which is so unsure of itself that it has to be proved” (qtd. in Kimmel, Manhood in America 151). Most American men have been punctilious about the. 26 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(35) outmoded convention since a very young age, in which they also have to learn how to handle and control their emotions. As they never detect that their emotions have been limited and repressed, it is difficult for them to express what they undergo emotionally. In addition, they must feel more stressed about the society that expects them to be men who properly employ aggressiveness. Society is so unfriendly and indifferent to their expression of feelings that American men will lose their faith in maintaining and proving their manhood. In this case, it is hard for them to grow into a typical man who can both possess a tough attitude and display a properly aggressive character. These social expectations only leave deep anxiety regarding their manhood and hinder their emotional relief. Being. 政 治 大. unconscious of Stanley’s repressed emotions, Blanche never finds American manhood. 立. anxious about how society expects American men to be either emotionless or aggressive.. ‧ 國. 學. She raises a strong concern that Stella should be protected, but she does not. ‧. alternatively attempt to presume and understand why Stanley is taught to be tough. In order to maintain his manhood, as expected by society, Stanley needs to be a tough guy with little. sit. y. Nat. io. er. emotion. Blanche finds Stanley hard to get along with since he does not tend to be an easy guy who will be emotionally affected. Also, the reason for his emotional anger is because. al. n. iv n C he has discovered Blanche’s intention offensive to him; Stanley has to become h eofnbeing gchi U aggressive enough to warn Blanche that she should not press his buttons. However, Blanche never tries to realise Stanley’s situation but blames him for being a danger to her and Stella. Without understanding the social stress and expectations of Stanley as a husband, Blanche naturally makes his self-perceived manhood more anxious. Having observed Blanche’s irresponsibility with the lost house, and her disrespect for him as a host with her offensive actions and statements, Stanley needs to fight against her for his manhood by growing aggressive. Stanley resorts to aggressiveness as a crucial attitude to combat Blanche, just as most contemporary American men competed against. 27 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(36) cultural conventions from Europe. As mentioned above, Mead has argued about the necessity of aggressiveness in men’s fight against their enemy. When American men refer to aggressiveness, the most apparent figure that springs to mind must be the cowboy, a leading exemplar for never considering disguising his strongly masculine performance. Correlating American men with the image of cowboy to distinguish American manhood, Kimmel contends that “[i]t was the United States that gave the world the cowboy legend, and Americans continue to see him as the embodiment of the American spirit” (The History of Men 94). From Stanley’s revengeful actions against Blanche, the “cowboy’s spirit” can be presented in Stanley, who is grimly dedicated to protecting his family and maintaining his manhood through this spirit.. 立. 政 治 大. Accenting the “cowboy’s spirit” of his manhood, Stanley recalls American. ‧ 國. 學. manhood’s tenacity in rejecting European manhood. The cowboy is the representation for. ‧. men to follow in twentieth-century America because the way he conveys masculinity to strengthen his manhood has been inspiring American men to resist any threats of American. sit. y. Nat. io. er. manhood, especially those from Europe. In Chapter One, three types of manhood to distinguish between European and American concepts were introduced. Genteel Patriarch. al. n. iv n C and Heroic Artisan are the typical typeshof European manhood, e n g c h i U which lead men to focus more on personal feelings and elegant performance in public. Although European concepts always influenced America with their emphasis on men being “careful, precise, elegant” (Kimmel, The History of Men 92), American men carried on the struggle against these European types of manhood; American men wanted their manhood to be “reckless, rough, and daring” (Kimmel, The History of Men 92). To differentiate themselves from European men, American men are eager to emphasize “‘American social character,’ a unique combination of attitudes, aspirations, and activities” (Kimmel, The History of Men 91). Self-Made Manhood is regarded as the. 28 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(37) masculine ideal, since it bestowed upon man evidence that he is such a restless motivator that he never stops pursuing success. In like manner, the cowboy can be seen as a persuasive symbol of Self-Made Manhood because he has “the dynamic of American masculinity more manifest than in our singular contribution to the world’s storehouse of cultural heroes” (Kimmel, The History of Men 94). Kimmel further describes the cowboy’s image and its meaning for Americans: [T]he cowboy is fierce and brave, willing to venture into unknown territory and tame it for its less-than-masculine inhabitants. As soon as the environment is subdued though, he must move on, unconstrained by the demands of civilized life . . .. 政 治 大. [T]he cowboy’s mission was to reassert [American manhood] against those forces. 立. that would destroy it (monarchy and aristocracy in the 19th century and communism. ‧ 國. 學. in the 20th, each of which is considered a foreign ideology, imported from Europe).. ‧. (Kimmel, The History of Men 94-95). The cowboy’s spirit reminds man of the importance of masculine aggressiveness in. sit. y. Nat. io. er. supporting his manhood. The cowboy is always aware of positive feedback in public by attending masculine activities, and avoiding or rejecting anything that threatens his. al. n. iv n C manhood. Regarding the cowboy spirit trend, American men started h easna twentieth-century gchi U to think about and construct their manhood in a different way than their European counterparts.. As a typical twentieth-century American man influenced by the cowboy spirt, Stanley has the intention of exhibiting aggressiveness in support of his manhood challenged by Blanche’s European-style manner. The battle between Stanley and Blanche can be connected to American men’s opposition to European conventions, judging by her changeable emotions and concern for the gentleman’s spirit regarding men. It is the reason that she does not consider whether her performance will offend Stanley. Blanche supposes. 29 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(38) that every “typical” man should respect each woman. In addition, her casual behaviour in the Kowalski’s house embodies her pride in believing that Stanley should have acted as a civilized man with decency, and not like an uncivilized brute. Nevertheless, given the different concepts in defining manhood in America, Stanley is more convinced that American men’s emphasis should not be put on a person’s feeling, or whether to be gentle with a woman; instead, they should be mindful of how to avoid any outside power that intentionally challenges their manhood. Such manhood needs no elegance or serious emotions from others, but such masculinity always results from aggressiveness. In order to put an end to this European style from Blanche that generally. 政 治 大. endangers American manhood, it is reasonable and inevitable for Stanley to become. 立. aggressive by adopting some drastic measures.. ‧ 國. 學. Like the cowboy, whose “American aggression is usually . . . retaliatory, a response. ‧. to an apparent injury,” Stanley is anxious to take aggressive revenge against Blanche’s menace to his manhood; the retaliation “is swift, effective, and inevitably. y. Nat. er. io. sit. disproportionately severe” (qtd. in Kimmel, The History of Men 93). It seems that he is desperate to humiliate her and put her on the spot. Nonetheless, what he aims at is Blanche’s. al. n. iv n C assaults on his manhood. In the face of is prepared to initiate retaliatory hthem, e n gStanley chi U actions against Blanche, as he claims: “Things I already suspected. But now I got proof. from the most reliable sources––which I have checked on!” (Williams 98). By reason of her assaults on his manhood, his main intention is so obvious as to convince him that Blanche will put his family in crisis and unhappiness. Like an aggressive cowboy ready for retaliation, Stanley is anxious to reinforce his manhood by claiming the justice Blanche owes him. Stanley has intensely planned retaliation in four ways to assert his determination to defend his manhood and reduce his anxiety caused by Blanche. Firstly, Stanley collects any. 30 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

(39) relevant news as a retaliatory method to safeguard his manhood against Blanche’s power over his family. Her sudden, pompous and unusual visit to Stella and him leads him to conjecture that Blanche will create utter chaos to his family. To avoid this threat, Stanley thoroughly checks her whole story. Holding cogent reports to support his statements, Stanley immediately informs his wife on how debauched her sister was before taking shelter with them: Blanche was suspected of having had many love affairs with many kinds of men: STANLEY. Honey, I told you I thoroughly checked on these stories! Now wait till I finish. The trouble with Dame Blanche was that she couldn’t put on her act any. 政 治 大. more in Laurel! . . . as time went by she became a town character. Regarded as. 立. not just different but downright loco––nuts.. ‧ 國. 學. (Stella draws back).. ‧. And for the last year or two she has been washed up like poison. That’s why she’s here this summer, visiting royalty, putting on all this act––because she’s. sit. y. Nat. io. er. practically told by the mayor to get out of town! (Williams 100) In his eagerness to degrade Blanche’s reputation by revealing her scandals as a retaliatory. al. n. iv n C attack, Stanley wants to convince Stella Blanche. He anxiously alleges how h e nnotgtoc trust hi U diligently his research is done on Blanche. If his manhood is aggressive enough, with more evidence as to Blanche’s scandalous affairs, Stella may clearly understand Stanley’s manhood-related anxiety regarding how dangerous Blanche is to their family. He also employs this retaliatory method to defame Blanche’s positive images in the minds of Stella and Mitch. Stanley’s research and his aggressive words of retaliation represent his anxious determination to fight against Blanche’s power over his home and to regain his manhood’s strength in his family.. 31 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000852.

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