The Culture of Consumption and Performative Masculinity in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises

• 발행기관: 한국아메리카학회
• 저자명: Bomi Jeon
• 간행물 정보: 『미국학논집』제45집 1호, 289~310쪽, 전체 21쪽
• 주제분류: 인문학 > 기타인문학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2013.05.31

영문 초록

Although a number of studies have investigated the representation of Jake Barnes's masculinity in Ernest Hemingway's novel, The Sun Also Rises, there is little consensus among scholars in their interpretations of it. While considering the social background of economic boom and following the development of a consumer culture in 1920s America, this study begins with the assumption that the protagonist's consumption is a performative act offered as compensation for his incomplete masculinity. Jake Barnes, a man whose war wound has made him impotent, not only reflects personal trauma after the Great War, but also the emptiness and fear later experienced by American society. He tries to overcome his gender identity crisis by repetitively spending on middle-class goods and services and by paying for relationships that can characterize him as possessing normative masculinity. After first examining how Jake's desire for consumer goods and images interact with his thoroughly gendered and classed consumption, this paper will explore the process through which his consumption pattern incessantly positions and repositions him with respect to the middle-class masculinity ideal within the heterosexual/homosocial matrix.

목차

Ⅰ. Introduction

Ⅱ. "It is a good place to buy in": Placing Middle-Class Masculinity in the Marketplace

Ⅲ. Leisure, Tourism and Homosocial Consumption

Ⅳ. Conclusion

Works Cited

Abstract

키워드

performative masculnity modern consumer culture homosociality economic agency exchange value