The Protean Masculine: A Study of the Male Characters in Selected Short Stories of Damodar Mauzzo’s The Wait and Other Stories

Abstract

Studying the female, the feminine and the feminist has been a part of literature for quite some time now but the study of men, male and masculinities is a novel field in literature which is gaining popularity lately. The idea of masculinity studies is to provide a firm platform to the masculine and male ideologies that have been relegated to the back owing to the ever-increasing feminist studies and prevalence of feminist ideologies in the field of literature. Just like the female identity, masculinity or masculine identity is a construct and mostly a probe into studies of men and male principles. Such studies reflect that masculine representations in literature are now open to ideas of alternative masculinities that do not essentially reinforce the existing patriarchal image. The fictional world sends out ideas about the existence of the protean nature of masculine and the male. It can be understood that the male identity is not restricted to the patriarchal masculine but branches into other forms like romantic masculine, lustful masculine, new masculine, and cathectic masculine. The current paper explores this concept of alternative masculinities and the protean nature of the male and the masculine as reflected in the works of Damodar Mauzzo, a Goan writer. His short story collection The Wait and Other Stories presents a gamut of male characters who represent alternative masculinities ranging from patriarchal to the egalitarian.