The traumatised male : Dada, surrealism and masculinity

Abstract

This thesis asserts the crucial role of gender, and in particular of masculinity, in the productions of the dada and surrealist movements. World War I is viewed as having exercised a decisive influence upon the formation of those involved in these movements, producing a generation of traumatised males, and the question of there being a consequent crisis in is analysed in some detail. These factors are explored within the broader socio-cultural context associated with the development of modernity - shifting gender roles, the emergence of the New Woman, popular culture, anarchism, etc. Gender is understood here as a largely social construct, with particular attention given to the performative model of gender proposed by Judith Butler. Particular importance is accorded to the entire fantasmatic surrounding the machine within the male imaginary, together with the role of related phenomena such as electricity, magnetism and hypnosis. The central actor here is the male body, though masculinity is never considered apart from femininity, and hence the role of femininity, male attitudes towards women and the depiction of the female body, all inevitably figure within the study. Within this general approach, certain specific figures (Andre Breton, Jacques Vache, Max Ernst, Francis Picabia, and Marcel Duchamp) are analysed within specific contexts: including, the impact of the War, Oedipal conflict, the role of the machine, hysteria, fantasy, fetishism and male desire. Running throughout this study is the theme of the physical, corporeal body, the importance of which to the creative process is continually underscored within a range of significant contexts. In an appendix, the continuity of many of these themes is demonstrated in an analysis of the drawings of Antonin Artaud, in which particular attention is given to the interrelationship of machine and body in the specific context of Artaud's electroshock treatment