War Trauma and Masculinity - Essay Example

War trauma and masculinity War is an important issue in terms of literature since many having undergone armored conflicts create theirliterary reflection by interweaving their own experiences with their ingenious imagination. Literature knows a number of different war stories, which highlight a number of post-war problems - either personal or social. In the present essay the author intends to analyze two stories - E. Hemingway's 'Soldier's home' and 'Maus' by Art Spiegelman - in terms of the influence of war trauma on protagonist's masculinity. According to the related primary and secondary sources, 'post-war' personal changes have two directions, which are arguable and controversial: 1) masculinization, or growth of man's gender identity; 2) demasculinization, caused by the feelings of guilt, distress, depression and by observing human death, which is traumatic indeed. These two changes are extremely ambivalent and are determined by the personal qualities and conditions the person faces. First of all, in order to understand masculinity as a phenomenon, it is important to study its definition. Maculinity is a specific gender identification, related to stress, independence and self-management. "Like femininity, masculinity operates politically at different levels. At one level, it is a form of identity, a means of self-understanding that structures personal attitudes and behaviours" (Leach, 1994,p.36). Another level is associated with seeing masculinity as a form of ideology, in which "it presents a set of cultural ideals that define appropriate roles, values and expectations for and of men" (ibid, p.36). It is important to note that masculinity is not 'natural', as it can be developed (or, conversely, destroyed) throughout the life course as a response to certain social expectations. It can be viewed as cultural interpretation of maleness, developed and maintained by participating social relationships. The sociocultural nature of masculinity is shaped by values, believes, and, naturally, requirements, dictated by the epoch. For instance, Spiegelman and Hemingway's time is characterized by the belief that man is a breadwinner, problem-solver, or more specifically, autonomous, strong and independent person, who is capable of defending his motherland from invaders. Furthermore, this definition of masculinity is basic for the present paper, as it is the starting point of the whole analysis. In 'Soldier's home' Hemingway depicts a personality, torn in two by controversial attitudes towards his home, where he's just returned. In spite of Harold Krebs's parents comfortable middle-class life, he experiences a sense of homelessness, of quilt and despair, because of having experienced his close friends' death' and all the problems related to war. First of all, it is important to note that Hemingway doesn't reveal why Harold has been wandering for many years before he comes back (about ten years, in fact), so this time probably has been devoted to searching for a new home and re-thinking his own life. By that time "all the other former soldiers have found a niche for themselves in the community" (Imamura, 1996, p.102), but Krebs needs some more time to get accustomed to new conditions; he plays pool, "practiced on his clarinet, strolled down town, read, and went to bed" (Hemingway, 1995, p.146). "What he is doing, of course, is killing time" (Imamura, 1996, p.103). The problem is associated with Harold's understanding of who has become. He realizes he has been altered by the circumstances, and this alteration becomes much more dramatic, once he sees that his town has remained almost the same comparing to the period when he graduated from higher school: the same streets and the same girls walking down the streets, the same parking place for his father's car (Hemingway, 1995). In fact, these changes in his own outlook can be explained by his pre-war and war experiences. Before the World War I, as Hemingway narrates us, Harold studied at a Methodist school, an educational institution with religious philosophy and religious values, which, as we know, prohibit armored conflicts and murder. Hemingway writes "There is a picture which shows him among his fraternity brothers, all of them wearing exactly the same height and style collar" (Hemingway, 1995, p. 145). Thus, the young man was really concerned about his appearance and his perfect behavior. Furthermore, influenced by mother's values and getting religious education, Harold as a literary character doesn't fit the criteria of masculinity. New values, brought by the war, require of man much courage and the ability to participate in armored conflicts. In spite of the fact that he has been enlisted in the Marines, whose prototypes are 'a few good men', Krebs doesn't have enough personal qualities to become a good soldier. As Lamb observes, Hemingway cues at the fact "that Krebs did not fight bravely in the war. . . . Krebs admits to himself that he has lied in public about his military experiences, but he cannot stop lying to himself about the real extent and the psychological effect of his lying" (Lamb, 1995, p.18). Thus, being, to some extent, weak, Krebs fills this personal gap by creating a positive image of himself, as women usually do, because lying is typically attributed to females. The lack of masculinity is compensated by artistic qualities and flexibility, which are traditional for men who experienced strong female influence embodied in mother, who either imposed or bred her conformist standpoint in her son. Furthermore, we learn that Krebs was "badly, sickeningly frightened all the time" (Hemingway, 1995, p.146). Naturally, Harold's war experience was not glamorous, and he should carry the battle-scarred baggage, which can be viewed either as material things, which cause appropriate remembrances, or his own soul scars, which developed decisiveness, firmness and probably some personal traits of violence and cruelty. As Lamb indicates, "The shadow that renders Krebs incapable of action and that lies at the crux of the story is stated in three sentences that follow immediately after his first statement that young women are not worth it: "He did not want any consequences. He did not want any consequences ever again. He wanted to live along without consequences" (Lamb, 1995, p.19). On the one hand, being disillusioned by the war and having replaced his romantic attitudes towards war by the sense of being in the objective reality, Krebs becomes stronger and more independent. This also can be seen in his decision to start living separately in order to free himself from mother's 'hypercare' and sister's control. War trauma led to the reinforcement of male instincts, such as instinct of independence and self-regulation. Furthermore, in spite of the fact that nobody wishes to understand his unique personality (for instance, his mother, who repeatedly tells him about the necessity of being employed), he is able to resist those new influences and parents' neglect. He responds to his mother's monologues with phrases like: 'My life is my own life', 'I'm not like others', 'I will decide it myself', because he has already understood that he couldn't rely on anyone but himself. Harold's mother uses typical for small-town-woman argument, which points to the fact that 'others do so'. Furthermore, she claims that all the other young men "just your age" (Hemingway, 1995, p. 148) are settling down, building their own families and becoming "really a credit to the community" (ibid). This takes reader back to the first paragraph, in which Krebs depicts his life among fraternity brothers, who have the same appearance and, probably, act similarly. By the end of the short story, Harold breaks those stereotypes and patterns and finds in himself enough moral power to tell the truth to his mother, when she asked whether he loved her. As we can see, Krebs has partially healed himself from lies, so war has purified his man's nature, or 'masculinized' the protagonist. On the other hand, Harold's desire to avoid consequences, his unwillingness to build his life productively and are probably caused by subconscious feeling of guilt directed to people (in the most abstract meaning), because he had to kill them during the war. "He fondly recalls the French and German women because relationships with them were uncomplicated and without consequence; there was no need even to talk" (Lamb, 1995, p. 20). Furthermore, he still perceives himself as his parents' son, who is to be supported financially and morally by his parents, regardless of his age. Harold wants them to understand his complex personality, but he makes almost no steps to show himself as a 'novel' (more masculine) embodiment. Thus, war trauma also stimulated the processes of weakening of responsibility, which is typically attributed to masculine males. In my opinion, two contrasting processes as a result paralyze Harold and make him vulnerable and indecisive and engender new lies both in his conscience and in his attitudes towards the external world. Another interesting writing, which examines the changes in gender identity, is 'Maus' by Spiegelman. Holocaust is a place where all prisoners lived in a constant fear and constantly experienced physical sufferings, which can be understood merely by close relatives of survivors. The children of ex -prisoners of Holocaust are influenced by their parents, who are re-feeling and re-considering their own emotions, and those children are usually brought up in a spirit of post-traumatic stress. In his story Spiegelman uses miniaturization techniques and reduces the players to mice (the Jews), cats (the Nazis) and pigs (the Poles) in order to compress the experience and to depict post-traumatic stress in a comic way. Building the bridge between past and present, language and image, father and son, this literary work "bears witness to the process of bearing witness, and the technical and technological requirement of writing and tape-recording in order to produce a narrative of the trauma and thereby alleviate the symptomology of depression and withdrawal that is the danger of a past left to fester as an unhealed wound" (Friedlander, 1992, p.42) . Maus, in describing son's reflection of the father's story, does not ignore any trauma-related difficulties, which bring the same effect of 'acting out' (Spiegelman, 1996). Maus, created in a 'lower' comic style, poses important questions such as the genetic memory of Holocaust 'heritage' and its distressing impact on personality. The relationship between the ex-prisoner and his child is conflicted, because the parent still cannot become reconciled with his past, while child lives in the objective reality, which constructs a wall between father and the son, who have the only connection - Anja, Artie's mother and Vladek's wife, who committed suicide. Mother, being physically absent, is in fact present as an image or as a remembrance, which was later burned by Vlodek as Anja's diary. This work, dealing with children of formerly imprisoned by Nazis, illustrates "a complex syndrome of guilt at not measuring up to the strength, skill, and courage of one's survivor-parents" Friedlander, 1992, p.45), a religious nature of relationships between the parent and the child, "and an aesthetic quest for the icons and images appropriate to the experience of second generation survivors" (ibid, p.45). The fundamental role of Anja, the absent mother, is following: memories, stored in father's and son's consciences act as a real personality, or a censor, who evaluates the behaviors of both men. Spiegelman perceives his mother's suicide in a complex way, which leads to crystallization of such complex feelings to his father and his stepmother, who should fill the gap in Vlodek's soul that appeared after Anja's death. This, naturally, contributed to gender identities of both Vlodek and Artie, because Anja created an illusion of masculinity for both of them, who viewed themselves as strong men who had to protect their fragile wife and mother correspondingly. Moreover, after Anja's death, both men needed some reinforcement or support for their gender identities, yet for different reasons: whereas Vlodek felt his quilt for his wife's suicide, Artie's guilt was associated with the fact that he hadn't comprehended his mother's experience and with his inability to understand the reasons for father's annoying behavior. Artie's father has always been stingy -with money, hangers and even matches: "He grabs paper towels from restrooms so he won't have to buy napkins or tissues" (Spiegelman, 1996, p.56). Vladek's obsessive actions irritate Artie, but he cannot compare his life to dramatic past of his father, who survived cruelty, violence and hard work. In order to understand his parent more clearly, he creates a story, in which cats, mice and pigs are players and which in fact is a literal illustration of Holocaust reality. On the other hand, total misunderstanding between two different generations is reinforced by different events and conditions. For instance, having seen Artie crying because his friends leave him when he falls off his skates, Vlodek yells: "If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week then you could see what it is, friends!" (ibid, p. 96). As one can see, under his father's control, Artie feels subconscious aggression combined with shame because of not having such traumatic experience. To my view, Artie was a little envious with his father, because Vlodek had probably learned or developed those things, which are close-knit to masculinity (such as endurance, ability to solve complicated problems and resolve conflicts by using physical power), while he had been brought up like an ordinary boy, who lives in a peaceful country and needs no 'survival school' techniques. On the other hand, trying to get along with his fears and feelings, Artie becomes even more masculine than his father, in particular due to his autonomous separate life, and his new self-regulated values, which allow him to justify his own and his father's behavior (at least, partially). Artie, growing up, becomes a mature personality and creates more or less complete self-image, while Vlodek still lives in his own prison and remains fixated on his past. Furthermore, Vlodek constantly needs a person who would be associated with his horrifying past and who would create a logical chain between his past experience and his existing masculinity (or, more precisely, illusion of masculinity). Thus, Vlodek is less autonomous due to his incapacity of letting out his stressful memories and beginning new life, which is not haunted by the Holocaust ghost. As one can assume, war trauma has an impact on masculinity in two abovementioned directions, but Spiegelman and Hemingway depict these changes in different ways. While Hemingway associates masculinization with protagonist's liberation from his mother's control and with the development of self-management, Spiegelman illustrates Artie's understanding (at least, partial) of his father's past as the determinant of young man's masculinization. Furthermore, converse processes also take place in protagonists' conscience: Hemingway highlights Krebs's inability to change his behavior and his dependence on the parents, who act as advisors and support him financially; Spiegelman depicts Vlodek's limitedness and his inner imprisonment and Artie's guilt for his own 'peaceful' past. Thus, process of masculinization is described by both writers in terms of gaining new experience (which is positive from the viewpoint of pure objectivism, but negative from the subjective viewpoint), new skills and independent attitudes, and the destruction of gender identification is shown through the feelings of guilt and distress, which lead to dependence on those who either support or reinforce character's illusions. Works cited 1) Friedlnder, S. Trauma, Transference and Working-Through. History and Memory ,1992, 4 (4) pp. 39-55 2) Hemingway, E. "Soldier's Home", from Ernest Hemingway: The Short Stories. New York, Scribner Paperback Fiction Edition, 1995. 3) Imamura, T. Soldier's Home: Another Story of a Broken Heart. The Hemingway Review, 1996, Vol. 16, No. 1, Fall, pp. 100-105 4) Lamb, R.P. The Love Song of Harold Krebs. The Hemingway Review, 1995, Vol. 14, No. 2, Spring, pp. 15-21 5) Leach, M. The Politics of Masculinity: An Overview of Contemporary Theory. Social Alternatives, 1994, 12(4), January, pp. 36-37 6) Spiegelman, A. The complete Maus: A survivor's tale. London, Pantheon Books, 1996 Read More