(Non)Hegemonic Masculinities in Carson McCullers’s Reflections in A Golden Eye

Year 2025, Issue: 64, 97 - 111, 30.12.2025

Onur Yiğit

Abstract

The concept of hegemonic masculinity has held a peculiar career in social sciences, receiving both positive and negative feedback, and reappearing in various formulations. Although its examination has come a long way thanks to the growing interest in critical masculinity studies through the 1970s and 1980s, there is still a research knowledge gap in terms of analyses of fictional masculinities, particularly the works of mid-20th century American writers. Carson McCullers’s Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941), set in a normative setting where traditional masculinity is a prerequisite, is a fitting novel for making a re-assessment of fictional representations of masculinity. While McCullers uncovers the constructed yet bogus nature of hegemonic masculinity practices in a rigidly masculinized backdrop, she simultaneously offers possibilities of non-hegemonic masculinities that exist outside hegemonic norms that impinge on men, women, and racial and sexual minorities. This article argues that McCullers procreates different visions of masculinity, far ahead of her time, especially non-toxic, non-hegemonic masculinities that do not legitimate men’s power in oppressive ways but thrive in healthy relationships, baring the novel’s sociological potential to interrogate America’s relationship to masculinity.

Keywords

Carson McCullers , Reflections in a Golden Eye , masculinity , masculinity studies , non-hegemonic masculinities

References

• Billig, Michael. Freudian Repression: Conversation Creating the Unconscious. Cambridge UP, 1999.
• Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. Routledge, 1993.
• Carr, Virginia Spencer. The Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers. U of Georgia P, 1976.
• Christensen, Ann-Dorte, and Morten Kyed. “From Military to Militarizing Masculinities.” NORMA, vol. 17, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1–4.
• Connell, R. W. Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics. Polity Press, 1987. ---. Masculinities. U of California P, 2005.
• Demetriou, Demetrakis Z. “Connell’s Concept of Hegemonic Masculinity: A Critique.” Theory and Society, vol. 30, no. 3, 2001, pp. 337–61.
• Espiritu, Yen Le. “All Men Are Not Created Equal: Asian Men in U.S. History.” Men’s Lives, edited by Michael S. Kimmel and Michael A. Messner, Allyn & Bacon, 2010, pp. 17–25.
• Evans, Oliver. Carson McCullers: Her Life and Work. P. Owen, 1965.
• Free, Melissa. “Relegation and Rebellion: The Queer, the Grotesque, and the Silent in the Fiction of Carson McCullers.” Studies in the Novel, vol. 40, no. 4, 2008, pp. 426–46.
• Freud, Sigmund. Collected Papers. Vol. 2, translated by James Strachey, The International Psycho- Analytical Press, 1925.
• ---. Three Essays on Sexuality and Other Works. Translated by James Strachey, The Hogarth Press, 1981.
• Gleeson-White, Sarah. Strange Bodies: Gender and Identity in the Novels of Carson McCullers. U of Alabama P, 2003.
• Goffman, Erving. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Penguin Books, 1963.
• Goldstein, Joshua S. War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa. Cambridge UP, 2001.
• Graham-Bertolini, Alison. “‘Nature Is Not Abnormal; Only Lifelessness Is Abnormal’: Paradigms of the In- Valid in Reflections in a Golden Eye.” Carson McCullers in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Alison Graham-Bertolini and Casey Kayser, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 175–88.
• Graver, Lawrence. Carson McCullers. U of Minnesota P, 1969.
• Harker, Jaime. The Lesbian South: Southern Feminists, the Women in Print Movement, and the Queer Literary Canon. U of North Carolina P, 2018.
• Hinojosa, Ramon. “Doing Hegemony: Military, Men, and Constructing a Hegemonic Masculinity.” The Journal of Men’s Studies, vol. 18, no. 2, 2010, pp. 179–94.
• Hsu, Jen-Yi. “Desiring Brotherhood: Alternative Masculinities and a Critique of the American Empire in Carson McCullers’s Reflections in a Golden Eye.” EurAmerica: A Journal of European and American Studies, vol. 45, no. 3, 2015, pp. 409–44.
• Kimmel, Michael S. Manhood in America: A Cultural History. Oxford UP, 2006.
• ---. “Masculinity as Homophobia: Fear, Shame and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity.” Feminism and Masculinities, edited by Peter F. Murphy, Oxford UP, 2004, pp. 182–99.
• Kinsman, Gary. “Men Loving Men: The Challenge of Gay Liberation.” Feminism and Masculinities, edited by Peter F. Murphy, Oxford UP, 2004, pp. 165–81.
• “Lieutenant.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, 2023, www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/military- ranks-in-order.
• Lindsey, Linda L. Gender: Sociological Perspectives. Routledge, 2021.
• Matsui, Miho. “Reflections in a Filipino’s Eye: Southern Masculinity and the Colonial Subject.” ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, vol. 26, no. 2, 2013, pp. 121–27.
• McCullers, Carson. Reflections in a Golden Eye. 1941. Bantam Books, 1970.
• McCullers, Carson, and Carlos L. Dews. Illumination and Night Glare: The Unfinished Autobiography of Carson McCullers. U of Wisconsin P, 1999.
• Messerschmidt, James W. Hegemonic Masculinity: Formulation, Reformulation, and Amplification. Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.