Masculinity In The Moonstone Analysis

Gender is the basis for defining norms within men and women. Society expects each sex to follow their respective stereotypes. However, when these gender expectations are unsatisfactory, people face shame and rejection for deviating from the norm. This becomes further apparent in literature, where the authors use their platform to introduce abnormal versions of gender, in this case, masculinity. In the Moonstone, author Wilkie Collins acquaints readers with Ezra Jennings, a social outcast. As a sensation novel, it uses his role to understand the unfairness when being cold-shouldered by people. His physical deformities and female constitution are obvious to him and others. His closest friend Franklin Blake introduces Jennings by commenting
This incorporates physical through loss and appearance as well as emotionally. In addition, these texts silently undercut masculine traits that are vital to the plot. Both authors create awareness of larger themes in the text, the flaw of gender stereotypes men face and the lack of placement in communities for deformed men.
In comparison, the beginning of these novels differ as to where each character stands. In Half of a Yellow Sun Nnamdi’s fiancé promotes manliness within him through her narrative. This is clear through her description of him, “Sometimes I looked at him and saw what he would have been two hundred years before: an Igbo warrior leading his hamlet in battle (but only a fair battle) shouting and charging with his fire warmed machete, returning with the most heads lolling on a stick” ( Adiche, 68). Nnamdi’s engagement to the female protagonist is now acceptable by her family because of his machoism. “ ‘Your uniform is so debonair darling,’ she said, and hung around him as though she was her son, as though she had not muttered that I was too young, that his family is not quite suitable, when we got engaged a year ago” (70). From this description, the reader gets a sense of him lacking