Crisis Of Masculinity In David Hare’s “State Of The Nation” Trilogy

British dramatist David Hare(1947-)has been widely acknowledged as one of the leading left-wing playwrights of the post-war generation.Since 1960 s,Hare has been actively writing to voice his thoughts and opinions on British politics and society.Among his oeuvre,the “State of the Nation” trilogy,comprising of Racing Demon(1990),Murmuring Judges(1991)and The Absence of War(1993),was created near the end of Thatcher’s government.The trilogy stands out as a cornerstone of Hare’s mid-career,in which he presents a panoramic view of the state of the nation and the everyday struggle of the British people by closely examining the operations of the three pillars of the British system: the Church,the Law and the Party.Existing academic research on Hare’s works mostly focused on issues such as morality,history,and women,and few scholars have analyzed his works from a male perspective.The thesis will apply Connell’s theory of multiple masculinities as its primary theoretical framework,examining the predicament of masculinity as found both from outside gender and within the gender relations and discussing what the playwright thinks of the crisis of masculinity prevalent in Thatcher’s Britain.According to Connell’s theory,there are four types of masculinities,each associated with different positions of power: hegemony,subordination,complicity,and marginalization.To begin with,the thesis examines the precarious status of complicit masculinity.While Connell believes that complicit men are the majority of men who benefit from the patriarchal dividend,in Hare’s trilogy,they are nevertheless confronted with difficulties to manifest masculinity on different levels.They tend to struggle with the father identity,with the feminization of work,and with national leadership.Agitated by the widespread crises,men in a hegemonic position,however,are inclined towards toxic performances to reinforce their masculinity at the expense of both women and nonhegemonic men.Women are otherized as sexual objects in the workplace and in intimate relationships,while men are forced to engage in the aggressive same-sex competition of displaying masculine power.Humanity has become the cost of securing masculinity,which Hare vehemently criticizes.Connell contends that gender relations are historically dynamic,and crisis tendencies develop in the gender order,which will always implicate masculinities.In Hare’s trilogy,when the constitutive practices of complicit masculinities fall out of coherence with the hegemonic ideal,and the hegemonic deliberately estrange those who are in the complicit position,hegemonic masculinity undermines the very basis of its production and reproduction,making itself harder to sustain and potentially leading to a rupture of the gender relations.On the other hand,endowed with the power of resilience,subordinated and marginalized masculinities challenge the current model of hegemonic masculinity by promoting a new version of masculine traits that celebrate human virtues.Hare believes that in the neo-liberal era,all men are trapped in the gender hierarchy and forced to comply with patriarchal ideologies,which contributes to the crisis of masculinity.He urges to explore different masculine ideals in order to reform a masculine culture that is intrinsically harmful and unsustainable.