We Put the Male Back into Masculinity and Male Psyche

Men put pressure upon themselves to be viewed in a certain way by society and others. Masculinity is defined as "the quality or condition of being masculine." Male psyche is best defined as "to put into the right psychological frame of mind." [dictionary.com] Three stories that show masculinity and male psyche are, "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven" by Sherman Alexie, "The Bath" and "A Small Good Thing" by Raymond Carver, and "Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka. In sociology, Janet Saltzman Chafetz comprised of seven areas of masculinity. Those areas are: 1. Physical- Virile, athletic, strong, brave. Unconcerned about appearance and aging; 2. Functional- Breadwinner, provider; 3. Sexual- Sexually aggressive, experienced. Single status acceptable; 4. Emotional- Unemotional, stoic; 5. Intellectual- Logical, intellectual, rational, objective, practical, 6. Interpersonal-Leader, dominating; disciplinarian; independent, individualistic (applies to western societies); 7. Other Personal Characteristics- Success-oriented, ambitious; proud, egotistical, moral, trustworthy; decisive, competitive, uninhibited, adventurous.

In Sherman Alexie's "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven" Alexie's life being looked upon as being different. His masculinity is ignited by each person he encounters. The clerk at the store where he buys a drink and starts sassing the clerk. He makes his masculinity known when he starts to poke fun at the clerk and making the clerk nervous. Even his male psyche was ignited by scaring the clerk. When he tells the clerk to "give him a cherry slushie" he is asked what size and he firsts responds "large." When the clerk fails to listen to him he asks him again what size he wanted and this time, the main character responds "small" just to confuse him. Alexie's psyche finds this humorous. Then his male psyche is continued to be ignited when he tells the clerk to "forget the slushie and sing the lyrics of Ð''The Brady Show'" which scares the shit out of the clerk, but makes the main character laugh. Another time when a police officer spots him on the road, the officer asks him "what are you doing out here?" His masculinity kicks in and becomes brave and says to the police officer "I'm lost" which can mean in both sense of the word. He was lost in the area he was in, and he was lost where he was suppose to be in his life. Lastly of the many examples of masculinity and male psyche is when Alexie goes to a local place and plays basketball with the B.I.A. son. He's a well known great basketball player so when his masculinity kicks in, he figures he can wipe the floor with this newcomer. Unfortunately that didn't happen and Alexie feels he let everyone down. Not only does his masculinity cool off, he gets a job and changes his outlook on life. Even his girlfriend calls him up at work and brings him back into her life.

In Raymond CarverÐ''s "The Bath" and "A Small, Good Thing" the male that shows the masculinity and male psyche is the baker at the shop where the mother orders a cake for her seven turning eight year old son. The baker listens to the mother and has been this numerous times so he tells her that the cake will be ready for Monday. So when the author jumps from Friday to Monday, the birthday boy is walking with his friend eating chips heading to school. Not paying attention to where he is, the boy is struck by a car and is headed to the hospital. While the grieving parents are waiting for any change to their son, each parent goes home on their own. When the father goes home first to take a bath, he receives a phone call from the baker, but he doesn't know that and all he hears is that "your order is ready for pick up." This confuses the husband and his masculinity kicks in because he had no idea about his wife ordering a cake. When he returns to the hospital he tells his wife about the mysterious call she is completely baffled as the husband. When the wife goes home for tea, she also receives a call from the baker repeating the same demand. This drove the wife crazy and she ran back to the hospital. After the death of their son, they are grieving over him and the telephone rings and when the wife picks it up, the baker states, "your cake is ready for pick up!" Still baffled she says some unkind words towards the "unknown" caller. After receiving the call, they go and take their anger out on the baker because of his constant calling. After this, the baker's masculinity kicks in and lashes out on the couple. He explains how he hears