Abstract This article is a critical and scathing review of poet Robert Bly's attempt at a non-fiction, self-help book for men. Included is an examination, as an aspect of Bly's work, of the mytho-poetic men's movement. The article outlines Bly's contentions within the book, which revolve around a self-conceived crisis in masculinity and his solutions for resolving and restoring masculinity for men. This essay examines Bly's assumptions regarding masculinity and the way in which he signifies patriarchal domination and misogyny toward women as a solution to the masculine 'crisis'. It examines general essentialist theory, extending to a discussion of Jungian archetypes as an example of essentialism.
From the Paper "How is it possible, in today's gender aware society, that the writing of one author can be simultaneously described as "expos[ing] ... patriarchal domination" and "blocked by ... sexist stereotypes" ? This is the conundrum which surrounds Robert Bly, his nonfiction text "Iron John: A Book About Men" (Bly 1999), and the mythopoetic men's movement which has sprung up as a result of Bly's work with, what he terms, "soft males" (Bly 1999: p.2). All three have focused on reclaiming masculinity; a masculinity which, according to Bly, is not only in crisis, but with which there is "something wrong" (p.2). However, in the task of reclaiming a truer form of masculinity for men, is it possible that Bly is simply reasserting his idea of patriarchal domination as a defensive response to feminism (Connell 1992: p.31)? Or does Bly indeed, as he claims, not wish to return men to the "domineering mode that has led to the repression of women" (p. x) ? To ascertain the answer to this question, it is vital to return to the source and examine the foundations upon which Bly bases his contentions and solutions regarding the supposed masculinity in crisis."
Abstract This paper explains that Vietnam War literature positions American religion as being a God-fearing culture that seeks to be moral. The author points out works by Tim O'Brien, Norman Mailer and Robert Bly that refer to this everyday American religion and culture and to myths of American power, politicians and industrialists as being insane and immoral and as changing forever how Americans saw their country. The paper relates that these works project the Vietnam conflict as something in which Americans should never have been involved including describing its soldiers as victims or as people responsible for terrible crimes of war. The author stresses that Vietnam was a working-class war rejected by the American bourgeoisie, who did not need to go to combat. The paper concludes that the literature discussed in the paper is the work of Americans with the option not to go to Vietnam and that it needs to be examined along with other literature produced in the next decades, too.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Damning Literature
Tim O'Brien's "In the Field"
Norman Mailer
Robert Bly Poem: "The Teeth Mother Naked at Last"
Last Remarks
From the Paper "Norman Mailer's "The Army of the Night" was published in 1968 and is an allegorical description of the March on the Pentagon. The reader is shown the extreme contrast between rather decadent hippies of the anti-Vietnam War movement and the thousands who then fought in Vietnam, ordinary Americans who dealt with every terrible aspect of jungle warfare. The last pages of "A Confrontation by the River" tell of a clash of American popular myths and moral beliefs about America and a "true religious war of Christ against the Communist" in relation to Vietnam towards a "whole crisis of Christianity in America... ""
Abstract This paper examines how, in Adrienne Rich's poem "Living in Sin", and Robert Bly's poem "In Rainy September", the main characters are portrayed as being unsatisfied when it comes to relationships. It looks at how in Rich's poem, a woman comes into her relationship with higher expectations without a sense of reality, while a man in Bly's poem is ready to end his relationship because he is not happy living with his partner. Using feminist criticism, the paper shows how both poems clearly show how gender roles play in the relationships and how both men and women react to social expectations.
From the Paper "Like any other relationships in real life, many couples are not happy with their marriage. Many of us picture marriage as a wonderful thing because everything seems so perfect, but we forget to realize that marriage needs work and improvement. Things change when one becomes involved in a relationship. Instead of just thinking of oneself, one must think of the other as well. Particularly for traditional women, they will have to be more responsible for all things involved in the relationship. One needs to learn how to do the house chores, how to live with other people, how to deal with arguments, how to adjust oneself to different situations, etc. Moreover, one has to make sure that everyone in the house is happy, and especially their husbands. Mostly women must be the one who sacrifice. The woman in Rich's poem sees her relationships as unsatisfying because it's not what she expected before entering into this attachment. She thinks that she doesn't have to do anything within this marriage and everything will take care of itself."
Abstract This paper scrutinizes the phenomenon of political correctness through the lens of three classic novels that deal with this topic. The novels, which each confront utopianism, are George Orwell's "1984", Ray Bradbury's "The Affluence of Despair" and Robert Bly's "Little Book on the Human Shadow". This paper demonstrates how these novels were conceived by the authors as spiritual warnings against what they considered destructive social trends. Through a review and critique of these stories, the author attempts to support his thesis that like the societies depicted in these novels, American society today is also endangered by utopianism. In America, asserts the author of this paper, it is the feminists, gays and other supporters of the liberal agenda who are most dangerous to true liberty.
From the Paper "Orwell rightly noticed that in totalitarian country the government would try to deprive people of the sense of personal uniqueness, by making them to feel being just a particle of huge social machine. Since there is no way that people can be effectively deprived of their emotions and physical drives, Communist society will try to redirect them in such way that these emotions would be "harmlessly" released. The best way to do it is when person is encouraged to become emotional only within certain boundaries. An individual can be happy as long as it a "social happiness" and he/she is also allowed to feel hate, but only towards Party's enemies: "All over Oceania this morning there were irrepressible spontaneous demonstrations when workers marched out of factories and offices and paraded through the streets with banners voicing their gratitude to Big Brother for the new, happy life which his wise leadership has bestowed upon us." (Orwell, p. 15)."
This paper analyzes the abstraction of death in "Driving Through Minnesota During the Hanoi Bombings" by Robert Bly and "War Photographer" by Carol Anne Duffy.
Abstract The paper compares and contrasts the abstraction of death in the poems "Driving Through Minnesota During the Hanoi Bombings" by Robert Bly and "War Photographer" by Carol Ann Duffy. The paper portrays how the points of view of the authors of these poems reflect the abstraction of death from first world perspectives.
From the Paper "The poem "War Photographer" by Carol Ann Duffy relates the abstraction of war and its consequences through the "lens" of photography as an artistic medium. Many of the poems themes revolve around the photo development process of the Vietnam War, which take place in a dark room. Although the "photographer' being used in this poem has seen the horrors of war, the abstraction of death is clearly the process of viewing and processing the images that are dislocated from the battlefields."
Tags: Vietnam, War, battlefields, lens, perspective, medium, images
Abstract This paper discusses how the men's movement is a social movement that focuses primarily on issues involving gender identity, gender role, and the overall rights of men in respect to child access and marriage and how some of the most significant movements acknowledged within the men's movement are men's health, men's liberation, male rape victims, and pro-feminism. The paper specifically focuses on Joseph Campbell's work in the field of comparative mythology which is known as the mythopoetic men's movement and looks at how Robert Bly is its core leader. The paper also examines how Bly, along with authors Michael J. Meade and Robert L. Moore, conduct the mythopoetic men's movement through an assortment of workshops and self-help groups.
From the Paper "In a PBS documentary collaborated with Bill Moyers in 1990 (called "A Gathering of Man"), Robert Bly offered his insight on the "Wild Man," in which he referred to as the inner masculine validity that was disoriented during the Industrial Revolution. He suggested that when fathers began distancing themselves emotionally and physically from their families (by working extensive shifts at factories every day) their sons - especially - were left with a sentiment of abandonment and without the emotional security of the fathers that was desired. According to Bly, the younger generation lost the opportunity to learn lessens of manhood which in the long run caused them to lose a sense of male identity. "
From the Paper "Robert Bly's principal claim in The Sibling Society is that in contemporary American society (and in those societies that mirror or imitate it) the vertical orientation of the past--"tradition, religion, devotion"--has been replaced by a horizontal orientation in which the only connections that matter are those made in the present between people at the same level of experience (age or maturity level) (Bly viii). Bly says that in today's America adults "regress toward adolescence" and that adolescents, therefore, develop no desire to become adults (viii). He uses the term 'sibling' as a metaphor for this leveling tendency and says that at least a third of Americans have these qualities while everyone else is headed in this direction. Schools and traditions will no longer matter Bly says, "because only people one's own age will be worth listening..."
Abstract This paper discusses how Oates' story is a compressed version of "Turn of the Screw". It explains how the setting and the names (or lack thereof) of the characters in question are the same. However, despite this initial sense of familiarity, the reader emerges with a very different ghost story when reading Oates? vision of James? world. It shows that Oates? story is comic in tone, rather than intent upon creating a sense of horror. Yet Oates? story also has far more subtlety than her predecessor James? story in its understanding of supposed female sexual repression.
From the Paper "Re-envisioning James? story was an ambitious project upon Oates? part. James? story initially seems to completely depend upon its gothic environment and setting to generate its sense of suspense. The governess is anonymous. This is true both from the reader's point of view but also in terms of the way the other characters, except the children, envision her. She is alone. She is unable to articulate her most basic physical desires in her environment. The passions of the dead servants become articulated in the children in her charge. It is as if her own desires have now, against her will, become voiced in the innocent faces of Miles and Flora, whose characters gradually become twisted with an adult sexual awareness. The remoteness of the local and the woman's isolation cause the reader to question her sanity until the very end of the tale. How could someone not go mad in such an environment, in such circumstances? The sexual repression inherent in the narrative's setting seems to be necessary to believe in the ignorant character of the unnamed narrating governess. How could a modern reader believe in a woman who was so innocent to her own sense of sexual knowing and her charges' developing sexualized, alien personas?"
Abstract A young governess put in sole charge of two small children, Miles and Flora, in a country house called Bly records her progressive discoveries that the children are not innocent but demonic, in communication with the ghosts of their deceased former governess, Miss Jessel, and a male servant, Peter Quint. The young governess fights for the souls of the two children against the pervasive influence of the evil dead. The frustrated narrative desire of the reader mirrors the agitated state of the governess. The ghosts are a clear representation of the tenuous nature of reality.
Abstract The four works analyzed are: "Real Men" by Joe Jackson, "Men's Power with Women, Other Men, and Society" by Joseph H. Pleck, "If Men Could Menstruate" by Gloria Steinem, and "Men's Initiation Rites" by Robert Bly. This paper analyzes each of these works in relation to men and gives a personal view point of what everyone can learn from these works.
Abstract This paper examines the themes of repressed sexuality in the novel "Turn of the Screw" by Henry James. The author analyzes James's slowly unfolding plot and his often criticized habit of withholding information from the reader. As the paper explains, the story, which is full of unnamed allusions to improper behavior, is actually an allegory for Victorian reluctance to openly discuss sexual matters, particularly female sexuality. The plot of the novel revolves around the ability of the main character -- a governess -- to allegedly see ghosts. This paper looks at each of the ghosts and discusses their symbolic significance. The paper concludes with the author's opinions about the governess and why she claimed to see the ghosts.
From the Paper "Many people think Henry James was homosexual. He lived in an era and society that was particularly unforgiving of deviation from the sexual norms. It was Oscar Wilde who called homosexuality "the love that dare not speak its name." Although, he had to be extremely circumspect about his sexuality, James was able to conduct a metaphorical discussion of homosexuality in Turn of the Screw. The "unmentionable" in his story inevitably carries sexual connotations, but homosexuality truly occupies the "sin" that cannot be named. Rather than supporting conventional Victorian attitudes about sexuality like most gothic fiction, Turn of the Screw actually critiques them."
Abstract The paper compares the two primary characters whose delusions provide the basis for the drama within each literary piece. The paper explains that in "Othello", Iago brings about the tragic events in the play, while in "The Turn of the Screw", the delusions of the governess provides the suspense. The paper describes how these distorted views of reality within each character exert their influence through their acceptance by central characters within the story as well as by the authors of such delusions. In conclusion, the writer posits that the illusions in both these stories creates a heightened effect within each story. The writer explains that this effect draws the readers in so that they feel compelled to seek the truth of the story.
From the Paper "The story itself is set up with mystery and intrigue before her first sight of this apparition. We know further that the governess who relates the tale dies, but her death is shrouded in mystery. It must be remembered that the children of these parents had been killed, then the uncle and aunt of these children entrusted with their care were also killed, leaving the responsibility of their care to the son of the deceased relatives. It is known the son, the master of Bly, rarely visits the children, and makes as minimal an amount of contact as possible with them. We wonder as well as with the governess for why he seeks to make as little contact as possible with Bly estate and the children. The delusion of the governess is given further basis in reality when she discovers from Mrs. Grose that the former governess to these children , Miss Jessel, as well as the master's valet who had been in charge of the children, Peter Quint, had also died. From all these deaths, it becomes no wonder why the master of Bly avoids the place and avoids contact with these children as if they were the plague. The common link of all these deaths draws compelling evidence that there is something very strange about these children. Is there a curse which falls upon any who come into contact with these children? The reader is drawn into the delusion that there may be a hidden and unspoken evil that is present with these children who appear like "angels". The answer is never revealed as to the real reason for these apparitions, if they ever existed at all except in the mind of the governess. Were the ghosts of Miss Jessel and Peter Quint seeking to corrupt or destroy Miles and Flora or were they there to seek revenge against the wrongful deaths inflicted upon them somehow by these children? That answer too is never revealed completely to the satisfaction of the reader."
