The phoenix inverted: The re-birth and death of masculinity and the emergence of trauma in contemporary American literature

Examining a select list of American works published after 1975, I rely on trauma theory and masculinities studies to determine how particular American male authors portray the trauma of war and how that portrayal of war-time trauma is similar to and different from the portrayal of trauma during a relative period of peace in America, namely the 1980s. Tim O'Brien and Cormac McCarthy present characters who are soldiers; these characters suffer trauma experienced in war. However, the manner in which O'Brien and McCarthy present such trauma differs greatly. O'Brien's characters focus on the trauma suffered in war and try to come to some understanding of that trauma while McCarthy's characters completely ignore the trauma and horrors of war. In each of these works, this view of trauma affects the characters' perception of not only their own masculinity but also the masculinities of those around them. This examination of trauma and its impact on masculine identity continues in the works of Chuck Palahniuk with one important distinction: The characters in Palahniuk's novels are not traumatized by war, but the trauma they suffer is no less important than the trauma suffered by the soldiers who populate the works of O'Brien and McCarthy. No less violent than O'Brien's works or McCarthy's novels, Palahniuk's narratives reveal how characters can be traumatized by society, culture, and consumerism. Finally, all of these works rely on a teacher/student archetype, specifically that model made famous by Ernest Hemingway, most often referred to as the Hemingway hero. The traditional Hemingway hero includes a teacher and a mentor, with the former illustrating how a person can survive in a world where tragedy and death are unavoidable. O'Brien's works at once embrace and attack this traditional view of the Hemingway hero while the works of McCarthy and Palahniuk subvert such roles. While this study's scope is tightly focused, the implications of this study and its parameters can be extended to examine works that rely on trauma to explore other issues related to gender.