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patriarchal culture’s reification of manhood. McCullers
turns the army into a grotesque site of alternative
masculinities and seething homoeroticism. Far from a
discrete entity that has nothing to do with the political and
the national, sexuality, I will show, is in fact a powerful
critical lens through which we can peer into the ideological
mechanism that produces meaning in a particular cultural
moment of U.S. imperialist expansion. In her daring
portrayal of masculinities that embrace castration and
alterity, McCullers proves herself a courageous artist with a
discerning eye for the oppressive nature of hegemonic
masculinity and its affiliations with heteropatriarchy and
imperial nationhood.
Key Words:
Carson McCullers,
Reflections in a Golden Eye
,
homosexuality, nationalism, masculinity