迷失与追寻:《大都会》中的男性气质问题

Loss and Pursuit:The Problematic Masculinity in Cosmopolis

唐·德里罗的小说《大都会》中,年轻有为的主人公埃里克·派克表面上是支配性男性气质的典型代表。实际上由于亲缘关系变异和全球化语境的异化,其男性气质始终处于危机之中。为掩盖男性气质焦虑和身份认同危机,他必须遵照社会期待执行性别规范,极力扮演出理想中的男性角色。尽管埃里克重构主体身份的种种尝试大多以失败告终,最终他还是实现了对真实自我的追寻。小说透视了当代美国社会对男性气质的狭隘定义给男性带来的压力和恐惧,但也在结尾暗示了转变的可能。

Being young,opulent and promising,Eric Packer,the hero of Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis,is a textbook example of hegemonic masculinity on the surface.However,his masculinity is always in crisis because of fragmented family relationships and alienation in the context of globalization.He has to perform the ideal masculine role in conformity with social expectations to conceal his masculine anxiety and identity crisis.Although he fails in most of his attempts to reconstruct his subjectivity,he eventually accomplishes his pursuit of the real self.The novel exposes the pressure and fear created by the narrow definition of masculinity in modern American society,but its ending also hints at the possibility of change.