Writing Men: Literary Masculinities from Frankenstein to the New Man Book

Berthold Shoene-Harwood outlines the historical development of literary representations of masculinity from Mary Shelly's Frankenstein to Ian McEwan's The Child in Time. Detailed readings of modern classics such as Lord of the Flies, A Clockwork Orange, Look Back in Anger, and Room at the Top reveal the persistence of patriarchal gender hierarchies in the 1950s and early 1960s. The book also discusses Neil Bartlett's Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall as an attempt to subvert patriarchal masculinity from a gay male perspective.