Representing the Male: Masculinity, Genre and Social Context in Six South Wales Novels

(Paperback)

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A study of masculinity in six Welsh novels, linking the critique of structural patriarchy to that of industrial capitalism.

The book undertakes a gendered analysis of the male characters in six South Wales novels written between 1936 and 2014, uncovering a critique of the form of masculine hegemony propagated by structural patriarchy and industrial capitalism. The novels depict characters confined to a limited repertoire of culturally endorsed behavioral norms that prohibit the expression and cultivation of the self. Ideologically subservient and feminized in the context of work, the working-class characters are ideologically dominant and masculinized at home. As the characters negotiate, resist, or strive to reconcile the irreconcilable demands of such gendered practices, Jenkins shows how recurring patterns of exclusion, inadequacy, and mental instability become evident in their representation.

Reviews

"This innovative and illuminating analysis of the representation of masculinity in south Wales coalfield fiction digs deep beneath the surface of the texts and mines a rich seam of profound gender complexity and contradiction. To read it is an energising intellectual experience, which highlights the general relevance of these novels."
-- Jane Aaron, University of South Wales * University of Wales Press *
"John Jenkinss sensitive and acute exploration of these novels reinstates the unjustly overlooked Ron Berry into the canon, and persuasively demonstrates that damaged and toxic masculinities are still a feature of post-industrial and post-devolution Welsh literary cultures this is a fine addition to the field of Welsh literary masculinities."
-- Aidan Byrne, University of Wolverhampton * University of Wales Press *
"Jenkinss book is a long-overdue, trenchant and exceptionally perceptive analysis of the culture of masculinity in the Valleys, as represented in some key industrial novels including Lewis Joness Cwmardy and Menna Gallies Strike for a Kingdom. Ranging from the 1930s to the 1980s, it shows how a persistently macho culture can repress and warp both women and men For Welsh readers, particularly, this is an essential book, analysing a phenomenon that is so ingrained in our culture that it has for too long been simply accepted as the norm." -- Katie Gramich, Cardiff University * University of Wales Press *

Author Bio

Following a career in teaching, lecturing, and writing on English and American literature, John Perrott Jenkins is currently working on postcolonialism, border identity, and the social construction of gender in anglophone Welsh fiction. He was born in Wales and now lives in Bath, England.