Contents

I  Introduction.  4

II  Theoretical Approaches to Masculinity  6

II.1  Constructing Gender - Constructing Masculinity.  6

II.2  Connell's Concept of Masculinities: Hegemony, Subordination, Complicity  

and  Marginalisation  9

II.2.1  Hegemony  9

II.2.2  Oppression and Subordination  9

II.2.3  Complicity  10

II.2.4  Marginalisation.  10

II.3  Psychoanalytic Perspective  11

II.4  A Role Perspective on Men  12

II.5  A Social Relations Perspective on Men  13

II.6  Cultural Ideals of Masculinity  15

III  The Novels  16

III.1  Alan HOLLINGHURST - The Swimming-Pool Library  16

III.1.1  Main Homosexual Characters and Their Presentation  17

III.1.2  Minor Homosexual Characters and Their Presentation  25

III.1.3  All-Male Environments.  28

III.1.4  Presentation of Heterosexual Male Society  33

III.1.5  The Portrayal of Racial Minorities  40

III.1.6  Masculinity and Femininity.  42

III.1.7  Summary  43

III.2  Nick HORNBY - High Fidelity.  45

III.2.1  Rob Fleming  46

III.2.2  Heterosexual Desire  50

III.2.3  Blasts From the Past - Masculine Journey Back in Time.  52

III.2.4  Male Relationships  56

III.2.5  Summary  59

III.3  Irvine WELSH - Trainspotting  60

III.3.1  Working Class in Trainspotting  60

III.3.2  Male Protagonists  63

III.3.3  Male Relationships  74

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III.3.4  Changed Masculinity - Drugs and Their Effects.  76

III.3.5  WELSH and the Feminine Role  77

III.3.6  Youth Culture and Masculinity  79

III.3.7  The Older Generation  82

III.3.8  Scottishness  83

III.3.9  Masculinity and Language  84

III.3.10  Summary  85

IV  Construction of Stereotypes by the Authors Looking at Their Own  

Background  /Sexuality.  86

V  Conclusion  90

VI  References.  94

VII  Abstract  101

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I Introduction

The 1990s has witnessed a groundswell of interest in men and masculinity. The book market saw countless publications, the media took up the topic and discussions about the 'nineties man' became and still are very much en vogue (even though we are on the brink of the next millennium).

Parallel to public interest there was also an increase in academic writing. Numerous sociological and psychological studies endeavoured to explore the roots of masculinity and examined the mechanisms of its functions in cultures depending of various kinds of gender division. They concluded that masculinity has no fixed concept, that masculinity is not just what a group of men happen to do. Rather it has to be understood in relation to the gender role as a social practice negotiated by men and understood in relation to the gender order. So one should instead speak of ‘masculinities’ if one wants to grasp the different representations of maleness in society.

Feminists and multiculturalists have repeatedly criticised the dominant gender position of men in society and questioned the legitimacy for patriarchy. They asked for a ‘new man’, a new social understanding of male values and attitudes and asked for change. Since the mid-1970s men responded to the call for change, explored aspects of men’s lives and started to question whether the traditional concept (a concept that is still very much practised by men throughout the Western world) of male domination is still irreproachable. This, however, also sparked off a crisis, indeed a dilemma because many men felt that, without a fixed basis to define themselves they lost their bearings. Bearing this in mind it is an interesting question to ask in what way men represent men so the task of my thesis is to find out what kind of men are presented in Alan HOLLINGHURST's The Swimming Pool Library, Irvine WELSH's Trainspotting and Nick HORNBY's High Fidelity and what relationships to other men and women the authors form.

I chose this combination of novels and authors for a number of reasons. The novels are all contemporary works of fiction, in a publicational time span from 1988-1995, making them fictional works written at the peak of masculinity research and the social questioning of masculine concepts. Male characters and their authors come from

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different social backgrounds and thus promise interesting aspects, which take power, class and sexual orientation into consideration.

I will focus more on Alan HOLLINGHURST’s The Swimming Pool Library and Irvine WELSH’s Trainspotting than on Nick HORNBY’s High Fidelity firstly because of the wider representation of male characters and secondly because of the special status homosexuality and working-class based sub cultures have in society. I will nevertheless try to present the essence of Nick HORNBY’s male representation centring very much on his narrator and protagonist Rob Fleming. As I am dealing with fictional work, which can only be seen as a representation of society, it is necessary to develop certain tools.

So in chapter II I will present the theoretical framework that I will revert to in order to analyse the different representations of masculinities in my novels. On the one hand I have chosen to concentrate on American sociologist Robert CONNELL’s approach to the gender power structure because it offers a theoretical perspective on masculinity, social inequality and domination ¹ . CONNELL used his approach to analyse the Western European / American concept of masculinity and as I am dealing with novels from Britain, which is very much part of the Western world, and its social construction, I find it a helpful tool to understand the power relations between men and men and men and women. Nevertheless, I have had to include other perspectives, which are necessary to understand male representation, as there is no single theory, or academic approach that can capture all the different facets of men and male life.

In chapter III, the main part of my thesis, I will concentrate on the selected novels. As I am dealing with different representations of masculinity I will, on the one hand take the theoretical framework of chapter II as an analytical guideline and on the other hand try to elaborate on specific forms of male representation that can be analysed in the specific novels. In chapter IV I will attempt to find an answer to the question as to how far the authors construct fictional stereotypes taking their own background and sexuality into consideration and in chapter V I will present a résumé of my findings.

¹ Ilse LENZ reviewed CONNELL's book Masculinites and came to the conclusion that it is "the fundamental study on masculinity as a formative factor of modern social inequality and also one of the most important books in the social sciences in recent years" (cf. LENZ, Ilse: "Reviews". In: KRAMER/LENZ/STRATMANN (eds.): Journal for the Study of British Cultures - Masculinities. Volume 3, No. 2/96, Gunter Narr Verlag, Tübingen, 1996, pp. 193-194.)

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II Theoretical Approaches to Masculinity

This chapter is intended to present the main theoretical approaches I have chosen to use in my thesis. To find out what kind of different concepts of masculinity the novels present and how they are presented one has to answer the following questions: What place in the social power structure do my selected authors place their men in? How are they determined by specific socio-cultural contexts? What kind of self realisation of masculinity do the characters offer? And do the authors themselves, taking their backgrounds into consideration, construct male protagonists, that are characterised by simply being representations of male stereotypes?

II.1 Constructing Gender - Constructing Masculinity

To analyse how men and male relationships are presented in works of fiction it is important to ask oneself what makes and marks men and masculinity in the first place. Feminist Simone de BEAUVOIR ² pointed out that one is not born but rather becomes woman making clear how society influences the interpretation of what is seen as feminine, of how society feels a woman should be. This statement can be reversed and can be just as well applied to men.

Masculinity, just like femininity, is an artificial allegorization defined by society and based on several factors. The word "masculine" describes "attitudinal and behavioural characteristics that, in a socially accepted sense, are considered appropriate to the biological inheritance of the male." ³ But with a growing liberational concept of gender it has become more and more difficult to define what the attitudinal and behavioural characteristics are. As many factors play an important role in defining and structuring maleness and its masculinity a lot of gender research has been conducted, especially in the nineties, to explore the "multifacetedness of masculinity" ⁴ .

² De BEAUVOIR, Simone: The Second Sex. Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1972, translated by H.M. Parshley (ed.), originally published, Gallimard, 1949.

³ SCHOENBERG, B. Mark: Growing Up Male. Bergin & Garvey, Westport, 1993, p. 29.

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In order to analyse representations of masculinity and concepts behind them it is necessary to make certain points clear. First of all it has to be said that masculinity cannot function as an overall concept without femininity. The antagonism between women/men is necessary in order to define femininity and masculinity. This approach is also fundamental to all feminist gender studies. Feminists analyses of gender ⁵ and the breakthrough of feminism in the late 1960s were stepping stones that led to gender-awareness and definitions of sex roles gender studies which apply today. The findings forced men, as the bearers of power, to redefine themselves and their masculinities within the social and historical context they move in today. Feminist research made clear that masculinity and femininity are both opposing social concepts in a system of gender relations. CONNELL ⁶ summarises:

A culture that does not treat women and men as bearer of polarised character types, does not have a concept of masculinity in the sense of modern European/American culture. In speaking of masculinity,

we are 'doing gender' in a culturally specific way. 7

But if one wants to understand, what makes gender, what defines the masculine and what defines the feminine, thus constructing the gender tag and its evaluating power, one has to look at how Western European society is constructed, what its gender opposition is based on.

CONNELL bases the structure of gender on a three-fold model ⁸ that distinguishes relations of power, production and the politics of desire (cathexis). It will be more than helpful to take the relational gender concept into consideration as it can be taken as a tool to grasp the representation of males and their masculinity in the chosen novels.

The main axis of power in contemporary Western European gender order is the overall subordination of women and the dominance of men - a structure named 'patriarchy'. The patriarchal concept of power has naturalised men's dominant

⁴ BASSNETT, Susan / ECKER, Gisela: "Editorial". In: KRAMER, J. / LENZ, B. / STRATMANN, G.(eds.): Masculinities. Journal For The Study Of British Cultures. Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen, Tübingen, 1996, p. 100.

⁵ From as early as the 18 ^th Century with the work of Mary WOLLSTONECRAFT (A Vindication of the Rights of Women [1792]), over Simone de BEAUVOIR’s application of psychoanalysis directly to gender (The Second Sex [1947]), to name but a very few of the pioneering feminists.

⁶ He works as a professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz (United States) and he specialises in gender studies and the study of masculinity. His work on the concept of male power has been a key influence in gender studies.

⁷ CONNELL, Robert W.: Masculinities. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1995, p. 68.

⁸ Ibid., p. 74.

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position and privileges. But it is never absolute and has to constantly defend itself especially as patriarchal power has come under growing attack by feminists in this century and is facing the growing problem of legitimacy. This tension has led some men to cults of masculinity such as violent movies (e.g. the US movie sequel Rambo) or the phallus-orientated sexual strive for masculine success whilst others have supported feminist reforms.

Western European society is also divided when one looks at the ratio between men and women in industry. The social construction of masculinity is based on the fact that men and not women control nearly all major corporations and the great private fortunes. Although the number of women in lower and middle management positions has grown and allowances are made when it comes to equal job opportunities, they are generally paid lower wages for jobs although they put in the same amount of hours as compared to their male colleagues.

Also sexual relations between genders and within genders, the politics of desire, play an important role in the definition of masculinity. Feminism changed the attitude that sexual pleasure was for men only. As a result, the overall female attitude toward sex and sexual pleasure changed and women today claim, just as men have done for centuries, sexual pleasure for themselves and demand control of their own bodies. Heterosexual, as well as homosexual practices were touched by the changes and a growing social acceptance of different sexual lifestyles was the result.

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II.2 Connell's Concept of Masculinities: Hegemony, Subordination, Complicity

and Marginalisation

Gender also interacts with race and class. CONNELL ⁹ points out that with the growing recognition of this form of interplay it has also become quite common to recognise many different forms of masculinity. There is no masculine concept per se! One cannot say that society has a fixed black or white masculine concept, or a working class and a middle class conceptual approach. The concept CONNELL developed of masculinity is very useful as a leitfaden that grasps different masculinities on a broad social level.

II.2.1 Hegemony

Within the masculine concepts in Western Europe one finds not just suppression of women and the domination of men (the patriarchal power construction). Within groups of men we also find domination and suppression. The concept of 'hegemony' refers to the "cultural dynamic by which a group claims and sustains a leading position in social life." ¹⁰ The top-level group of social power is called the hegemonic group. 'Hegemonic masculinity' expresses that certain male groups and institutions in society command unsurpassed power in business, the military forces, government and the media. They do not just dominate women but also other men. Hegemony relates to cultural dominance in society as a whole.

II.2.2 Oppression and Subordination

Within the overall framework of hegemonic masculinity a specific relationship of dominance and subordination between groups of men exist. One could speak of a vertical form of power relationship because one form of masculinity towers above another thus dominating and subordinating the inferior group. Forms of vertical power

⁹ CONNELL, op. cit., p. 77.

¹⁰ Ibid., p.77.

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relationships are for example, domination of heterosexual and subordination of homosexual males, or domination of white males and the subordination and suppression of black males.

A vertical power relationship within masculine hierarchy would put white, educated, employed heterosexual males at the top of the scale and black, unemployed, homosexual males right at the bottom. 11

Within each single group, dominated by another on the vertical scale and taking up hierarchical positions, there are subverticals within the groups. This approach has to be explained in more detail. A group of white heterosexuals might dominate or suppress a group of white homosexual males. A clear form of vertical oppression. But the group of white homosexuals themselves might oppress other homosexuals as well (because of race or class). This would fall into the concept of subvertical domination and suppression. Both concepts in combination explain the different variations of oppression and subordination.

II.2.3 Complicity

Male domination and subordination is not carried out by all men. The numbers of men "rigorously practising the hegemonic pattern" ¹² in its entirety is relatively small. But, as CONNELL makes quite clear, the majority of men gain clear advantages from the hegemonic, patriarchal power structure. These men might not openly suppress women or gay men, but as they do not do anything to change the social power structure they can be labelled as being at least in complicity with male hegemony.

II.2.4 Marginalisation

To grasp the relations between masculinities in dominant and subordinated classes or ethnic groups CONNELL uses the term 'marginalisation' ¹³ . Those masculinities that face domination by the hegemonic masculinity in power are moved to the margin, as they are confronted with authoritarian power.

¹¹ This structure may seem to be “black and white” but it should only be seen as a working theory based on the hegemonic masculine concept taken from CONNELL. ¹² CONNELL, op. cit., p. 77.

¹³ Ibid., p. 80.

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According to CONNELL one finds two types of relationships that help to analyse specific masculinities:

One is hegemonic, domination/subordination and complicity and the other marginalisation/authorisation and they provide a framework in which specific masculinities can be analysed.

Masculine concepts and self-definition of masculinity very much depends on men’s position in the power structure. Are they in power their masculinity is strengthened, is a male individual in a less powerful position his masculinity is weakened, so either he accepts his position and there is a consentience or he tries to look for other ways to enhance and build his masculinity.

CONNELL's view is very much an outside one and even though power is paramount, other perspectives need to be taken into consideration to grasp the male individual’s behaviour.

II.3 Psychoanalytic Perspective

Psychoanalytics puts its emphasis on the individual and its early social experiences. During childhood the individual’s gender identity is shaped and according to its pioneer Sigmund FREUD "male dominance can be seen to be underpinned by the conditions of their own psychological development." ¹⁴ He very much concentrated on the development of boys in the phallic or Oedipal stages when, according to FREUD, at around 3 years of age a boy’s sexual love of the mother and the incest taboo of society he encounters leads to the fear of castration by the father (as mother/sister do not have a penis and so for the boy’s perception have already ‘lost’ it). So to save his sexual organ the boy internalises “the values and standards set by his father (the ‘superego’)” ¹⁵ . FREUD’s attitude towards the fact that men were to be seen as the superior sex was very much questioned in the 1960s and 1970s and psychoanalysts came to the conclusion that “men appear to be in a constant state of uncertainty about their gender identities.” ¹⁶ Sex and sexual performance seem to play a very important role when it comes to tagging masculinity. Men feel that through sex and

¹⁴ EDLEY, Nigel / WETHERELL, Margaret: "Masculinity, power and identity." In: MAC an GHAILL, Mártín (ed.): Understanding Masculinities, Open University Press, Buckingham, 1996, p. 99. ¹⁵ Ibid., p. 99.

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sexual performance their male gender is strengthened thus they become masculine. And society seems to represent this attitude: Being a man means being able to sexually perform as “men have a lot at stake when they confront a sexual problemthey risk their self-image as men.” ¹⁷ Still this does not mean that through sexual contact to the female sex an emotional relationship is also set up. "Some psychoanalysts claim that men simply suppress these feelings or 'project' them back on to women, saying in effect 'I don't need her. She needs me.'" ¹⁸ - an attitude that we will encounter in HORNBY's representation of masculinity with Rob Fleming later on in this thesis. Still the psychoanalytical approach only seems to explain how identities are produced but offers no explanation of men’s dominance over women.

II.4 A Role Perspective on Men

This approach is based on the theatrical metaphor in which “all social behaviour is viewed as a kind of performance” ¹⁹ . It draws attention to the fact that most people, for most of the time, behave and act in ways that are socially prescribed. Most sociologists following the role theory came to the conclusion that men play a certain role and masculinity presents just a set of lines and stage directions that men have to follow in order to be masculine. Its foundations were set up by the work of Lewis TERMAN and Chatherine MILES in the 1930s. They conceived men and women as two opposing types of personality located them on either end of a single bipolar dimension and set up the 'M/F scale'. ²⁰ Certain characteristics were put into opposition to another and were assessed to be either male or female (e.g. courage (M) was opposed with timidity (F) and so on).

This approach was developed further but contained the following problem that the characteristics that were used to measure this behaviour seemed to simplify the social pattern. Critics such as CONNELL argued that sex-role theorists had three major flaws:

¹⁶ EDLEY / WETHERELL, op. cit., p. 99.

¹⁷ FRACHER, J. / KIMMEL, M.: "Hard Issues and Soft Spots: Counselling Men about Sexuality." In: KIMMEL, M. / MESSNER, M. (eds.): Men’s Lives. Allyn and Bacon, Boston, ⁴ 1998, p. 457.

¹⁸ EDLEY / WETHERELL, op. cit., p. 100. ¹⁹ Ibid., p. 100.

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The apparently neutral descriptions on which these definitions rest are themselves underpinned by assumption about gender. They already carry values that transport the danger of falling into stereotypes.

To list what men and women do requires that people be already sorted into the categories 'men' and 'women'.

To define masculinity as what-men-empirically-are is to rule out the usage in which we call some women 'masculine' and some men 'feminine', or some actions or attitudes 'masculine' or 'feminine'

regardless of who displays them. 21

It is important to recognise that validating male and female 'as en bloc' would mean that the terms 'masculine' and 'feminine' would become obsolete. As CONNELL points out:

The terms 'masculine' and 'feminine' point beyond categorical sex difference to the ways men differ

²² among themselves and women differ among themselves, in matter of gender.

So the approach to define masculinity and femininity by the roles they play does not suffice either as the way in which genders express themselves is also very much based on their social position.

II.5 A Social Relations Perspective on Men

This approach centres on practices that emerge from men's positioning within a variety of social structures - such as work, friends or family. Male identity is shaped through various institutions in which he is located or embedded, in other words this approach on the shaping of masculinity is very much concerned with "how a man's class, race and gender affects his identity or sense of the self." ²³ Most of the work in the field of social relations focuses on social class and here especially on the consequences of capitalist working practices for middle class and working class men. Through the works of Karl MARX it became clear how capitalism is based upon a fundamental clash of interests between workers and the owners. As workers have no capital they have to sell their labour to the owners for as much as they can. Owners

²⁰ EDLEY / WETHERELL, op. cit., p. 100.

²¹ CONNELL, op. cit., p. 69. ²² Ibid., p. 69.

²³ EDLEY/WETHERELL, op. cit., p.102.

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on the other hand try to employ workers for as little as possible to increase their 'surplus value' so they can make a profit. As working-class men are oppressed and ‘alienated’ ²⁴ by capitalism they are in a much less powerful position than middle-class men.

This stating point led TOLSON ²⁵ and SEIDLER ²⁶ to come to the conclusion that "because working-class men experienced little or no power within their occupational lives, they are more likely than middle-class men to attempt to dominate at home." ²⁷ Working-class men are also seen as "more likely to adopt aggressive, macho identity as a counterbalance to the powerlessness they feel at work” ²⁸ , again an example of how different factors effect men’s lives. This approach to a specific facet of masculinity will be helpful when looking at Irvine WELSH's representation of masculinity.

Still all approaches have their problems. Neither can fully claim to be the single option to grasp what makes and marks masculinity. A combination of the approaches presented can be used as helpful tools and reference points to filter out what masculine concepts are presented by the authors I have chosen, as I hope to have made clear, society has no single, consistent image of manhood, but a range of quite different, even contradictory representations.

It is also important to bear in mind the fact that we are dealing with fictional characters. To analyse masculinity in fictional work is not an easy task as the reader is only offered a sometimes more and sometimes less detailed picture of a character's masculinity. Sociologist's have real men, literary critics do not - they have to pick at the fictional construction the author offers, in our case three male authors, centring their writing on men. So a close look at three of their novels shall try and answer some of the questions already asked.

²⁴ MARX saw alienation as a state in which the worker is ‘deskilled’ and made to perform fragmented, repetitive tasks in a sequence of whose nature and purpose he or she has no overall grasp. The term ‘alienation’ has taken on different a different meaning for sociologists and is used to describe men who have no form of employment - thus are left without a base to define their own maleness. I will go into more detail in chapter III.3.1. ²⁵ TOLSON, A.: The Limits of Masculinity. Tavistock, London, 1977.

²⁶ SEIDLER, Victor J.: Rediscovering Masculinity: Reason, Language and Sexuality. Routledge, New York, 1989.

²⁷ EDLEY/WETHERELL, op. cit., p. 103.

²⁸ Ibid., p.103.

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II.6 Cultural Ideals of Masculinity

There have also been several cultural ideals of masculinity in Western European fiction. A number of masculinities have been idolised in popular culture and they will be kept in mind when analysing the three novels. Among them are Jesus (the obedient son), Superman (a symbol of legitimised aggression), the Athlete (in total control of his body), and the cowboy/Marlboro Man (man linked to/in mastery of nature) ²⁹ . Masculine ideals that have been described in fictional works basically fall into two categories:

On the one hand the civilised, obedient, hard-working, male professional, aligned with societal norms, and on the other hand the uncivilised and rebellious man who is positioned in opposition to, or at least

³⁰ outside of, society.

So as well as taking the power position of the represented concept of masculinity into consideration it is also an interesting question what kind of masculine ideal Alan HOLLINGHURST, Nick HORNBY and Irvine WELSH construct in their fictional works. For all authors it was their first novel to be published.

²⁹ ERIKSSON, Helena: Husbands, Lovers, and Dreamlovers - Masculinity and Femininity in Women´s Novels of the 1970s. Uppsala University Press, Uppsala, 1997, p. 40. ³⁰ Ibid., p 41.

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III The Novels

The novels chosen display very different forms of masculinity. Yet, one factor seems to combine all three novels. All male characters portrayed are basically idle. Ross CHAMBERS ³¹ used the term loiterarture to describe literature that deals with characters who seem to live by the concept of désœuvrement. CHAMBERS explains: On the one hand they "make observations of modern life that are unsystematic, even disorientated, usually orientated towards the everyday, the ordinary and the trivial (called 'flâneur realism')" and on the other "the observer himself - almost always a man... is a social misfit who... has time on his hands and uses it to explore the sensations of the present." 32

It seems to be the case that the male protagonists in the novels do no want to live the success-orientated lifestyle the Western European male society finds achievable. Instead all men centring as protagonists do not use the chances that are given to them. They cannot seem to develop the energy necessary from within to carry out a productive, life-style and make a positive change for the better. Instead they choose to live a lifestyle that very much seems to make their masculinities part of marginalised maleness. A closer look at the novels shall clarify this point.

III.1 Alan HOLLINGHURST - The Swimming-Pool Library

The world Alan HOLLINGHURST creates in his novel The Swimming-Pool Library ³³ takes the reader to London during the summer of 1983. The time is important for, as the novel's protagonist William Beckwith points out, it is the “last of its kind there was ever to be“ ³⁴ - the last summer that enabled an unbridled sexual life without the death scare of AIDS and its restraining influences on gay culture in Britain’s metropolis. The male world HOLLINGHURST constructs around the novel's young narrator-

³¹ CHAMBERS,Ross: "Messing Around: Gayness and Literature in Alan Hollinghurst's The Swimming-Pool Library". In: STILL, J. / WORTON, M.: Textuality and Sexuality - Reading Theories and Practices, Manchester UP, Manchester, 1993, p. 207.

³² CHAMBERS, op. cit., p. 207.

³³ I will use the abbreviated form 'TSPL' throughout the thesis.

³⁴ HOLLINGHURST, Alan: The Swimming-Pool Library. Vintage, London, 1998 (first published by: Chatto & Windus, London, 1988), p. 3.

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protagonist is one of male homosexuality and ‘homosocial’ ³⁵ desire. Through his narrator and hero Beckwith HOLLINGHURST takes the reader into the gay metropolitan sub-world, a secluded, safe world that can only exist in such big cities and that holds offers of sexual experiences only a big city gay society can supply. The world of the novel is basically that of homosexually orientated men. As the narrator Will only moves in male cycles to quench his homosexual desires, women are almost excluded from the novel (cf. chapter III.1.6.). If they do appear then they are only mentioned as mothers, sisters or wives but have no importance to the men’s world whatsoever. The reader is generally taken into a system of homosociality.

But the novel goes a step further. Not only is a homosexual masculinity described and designed that takes the reader back to the mid 1980s. By building the diaries and memories of Lord Charles Nantwich into the novel, a historical recollection of homosexual masculinity from the beginning of our century is also constructed.

III.1.1 Main Homosexual Characters and Their Presentation

Alan HOLLINGHURST's novel presents masculinities that are very much based and defined through their sexual orientation, thus their homosexuality. The following paragraph analyses important male characters, shows what makes them special and what factors are important in their portrayal of masculinity.

III.1.1.1 William Beckwith

HOLLINGHURST's main character and, undoubtedly the hero of TSPL, William Beckwith, is a 25-year-old, sexually very active male, with an aristocratic background, who loiters and passes the time without having a goal in his life. HOLLINGHURST underlines how William in 1983 passes his days enjoying London’s gay life, picking up men (“I was riding high on sex and self-esteem - it was my time, my belle

³⁵ Homosocial is a term Eve Kosofsky SEDGWICK used to grasp a world in which women are excluded from the workings of power and men only interact with men on a social and sexual level (cf. SEDGWICK, Eve Kosofsky: Between Men. English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire. Columbia University Press, New York, 1985.).

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époque” ³⁶ ) and working his male body in the swimming pool in the basement of the Corinthian Club (the Corry) - an all-male environment. The portrayal of male environments is a very important factor in TSPL as a closer analysis will show in chapter III.1.3.

The character, Will Beckwith, is described as a figure without much power of direction, even though he comes from an upper-class background, with its education and wealth. These are his credentials and the fact that he is portrayed as being extremely attractive (he knows that other homosexual men find him beautiful and sexually arousing and that makes him rather 'cocksure') and sporty make him selfconfident to the point of certain self-importance. But this energy concerning the self is not used in a productive fashion. Instead, Will has become a loiterer (“doing nothing... kept me busy enough” ³⁷ ). Through his aristocratic background he has already inherited his part of his grandfather's fortune, thus making him financially independent. His masculinity is not based on the workplace, he neither has to strive for a career nor for money. William is portrayed as a man having everything and, as no family has to be supported, there are no material ties that could force him to change his life. The heterosexual world of male workers leaves him puzzled: "They were about to start work. I looked at them with a kind of swimming, drunken wonder..." 38

The City's workers and their lifestyle are so far from his own that they seem to be an alien breed in the narrator's eyes. His days are passed in désœuvrement. He gives up a position on the staff of the Cubitt Dictionary of Architecture for he sees it as a waste of time and a "crackpot affair" ³⁹ . Instead he would rather live the life of a parasite as all the wealth he owns - including his flat - comes from his grandfather Lord Beckwith. As one learns in the course of the novel Lord Beckwith holds a strong and powerful position in the patriarchal, heterosexual system and displays strong homophobic tendencies, as he was responsible for persecuting Lord Charles Nantwich. Hatred of homosexuality and acceptance are juxtaposed as Lord Beckwith in the 1980s cares for his homosexual grandson (cf. chapter III.1.4.).

³⁶ HOLLINGHURST, op. cit., p. 3.

³⁷ Ibid., p. 3. ³⁸ Ibid., p. 1.

³⁹ Ibid., p. 3.

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William’ s homosexual expression is a free one. As he is not confined to making a living, he does not come into contact with a heterosexual workplace and heterosexual men, so he is able to move within his own gay world, in a male environment, that does not threaten his sexual orientation in any way. So he can live a sexually intense life.

HOLLINGHURST underlines the fact that William discovers and acts upon his homosexual masculinity at a very early age. Being given the official title of a Swimming-Pool Librarian (cf. chapter 7 ⁴⁰ ) and the chores and responsibilities associated with it, the adolescent Will has the perfect environment to partake in bodily pleasures - a way of life he will continue to lead in the novel's present. As well as being sexually very active and making an early experience with his homosexual male self (”we learnt our stuff” ⁴¹ ), the pool area and its changing rooms at night were a safe milieu for Will's early homosexual life. The youngsters titled their safe, sexual haven as `The Swimming-Pool Library´, or just library for short, playful, concealing terms that enabled them to lead homosexually-driven lives and quench homosexual desires.

As obligatory to the aristocratic, upper class background, William enjoyed the same education as his alter ego Lord Charles Nantwich. He attended public school at Winchester and university at Oxford.

HOLLINGHURST shows how the character's upper-class background seems to be the major reason for Will's self-confidence. William is wealthy, he is vain and selfconfident. This is underlined in a rare self-reflective statement by the narrator:"...the delectable blond super-stud I loved so much was really a selfish little rich boy, vain, spoilt ...” 42

These characteristics are very much part of his masculinity and seem to be the reason why he likes to dominate others inferior to himself. This becomes clear in the sexual 'long-term' relationships HOLLINGHURST constructs around William. Will adapts the dominant role in a relationship, either sexual or intellectual. He prefers teenagers as lovers, likes their inexperience and the possibility of control. Will’s ‘long term’ lovers Arthur (cf. chapter III.1.5) and Phil (cf. chapter III.1.2) take the

⁴⁰ HOLLINGHURST, op. cit., pp. 140ff.

⁴¹ Ibid., p. 140. ⁴² Ibid., p. 216.

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subordinate role. “Both of them were teenagers over whom I had many advantages; both of them watched me for the moves I would make.“ 43

But although William is portrayed as being able to relate to one person emotionally (Arthur, Phil) he has an unquenchable sexual libido that is always easily aroused when he meets an attractive man. And this happens frequently. HOLLINGHURST points out how William's gay male sexuality initialises the phallic male as the centred love-object.

With the construction of William Beckwith's masculinity HOLLINGHURST seems to progress in two directions: One that he constructs an openly gay, successful, untied, homosexual male, making the fictional character a hero for homosexual readers. But also a character that very much fits the stereotypical picture portrayed in the heterosexual world of homosexual men as extremely body-orientated and sexually driven.

III.1.1.2 Lord Charles Nantwich

The second important character next to the protagonist William Beckwith is his alter ego Lord Charles Nantwich.

In the summer of 1983 Lord Nantwich is as old as the century itself, namely 83. His life and his memories span the epoch of the 20 ^th century. His background is, just as William’s, the aristocracy. His family lived and apparently, still lives in Shropshire. He has been faced with many role models of heterosexual masculinity: The early 20 ^th century Edwardian, the soldier model of the fighting man of the Great War, they were all part of his childhood. Yet his homosexual desire, his love for men was so strong that it was to become a crucial part for the rest of his life. Just like William many decades later, Nantwich was given the typical and best education possible for a boy of his class. He ran through public schooling at college in Winchester and was given a university education. ROPER and TOSH ⁴⁴ make it clear that male role modes were to be formed at those institutions: Men who were to become leaders, either in economics, politics, or society. Men with power, with a

⁴³ HOLLINGHURST, op. cit., p. 144.

⁴⁴ ROPER, Michael / TOSH, John (eds.): Manful Assertions. Masculinities in Britain Since 1800. Routledge, London, 1991, pp. 119ff.

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rightful place in Britain's Empire and its patriarchal system, making sure of the next generation of identical men some day.

Although Charles Nantwich was part of the British or rather English moulding mechanism, his homosexuality made him take some different turns. Just as Will “he felt the opposition of gay men’s sexuality in the ‘man’s world’ of the patriarchal social formation.“ ⁴⁵ This opposition found its climax in the anti-gay mood that sent Nantwich to prison in 1954 - tragically and, as developments in the 80s show, ironically by Lord Denis Beckwith, at the time Director of Public Prosecutions (cf. III. 1.4.3 Oppression and Subordination by the State).

Charles Nantwich is never portrayed as a patriarch. Although he has financial power society’s homophobia severes his social power. Once his education ended, he chose a career in the Foreign Service. CHAMBERS points out how HOLLINGHURST shows “the `service´- orientated side of gayness“ ⁴⁶ . We see it in all the gay waiters in the novel, James the doctor and in Charles Beckwith.

Abroad Nantwich finds professional approval, although his homosexuality sparks off his personal desire for African men. Even though his sexuality would downgrade him if made public he holds a high social position due to his political status. Still one masculine attitude of the epoch never becomes a part of Charles. ROPER and TOSH point out that “Englishmen enjoyed a natural, racial superiority over the colonised people.” ⁴⁷ But the British colonial attitude towards blacks as master and subject finds no favour with Nantwich. He adores black men not just sexually but also aesthetically and disapproves of white dominance over them:

The beauty of the men is so openly displayed that it seems a reproach for lust. I felt anger and something akin to remorse last night when I thought of how this noble, graceful people [the Nuba] has,

until so recently, been stolen into slavery or mutilated into eunuchry. 48

Still he cannot become intimately involved with them because of his social status as he holds the position of “District Commissioner in the Polical Service” ⁴⁹ , thus making it impossible. It does not become clear whether a friendship with a black African actually becomes physical. But the relationship Nantwich has with his servants,

⁴⁵ CHAMBERS, op. cit., p. 212.

⁴⁶ Ibid., p. 212. ⁴⁷ ROPER / TOSH, op. cit., p. 120.

⁴⁸ HOLLINGHURST, op. cit., p. 108.

⁴⁹ Ibid., p. 178.

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