Masculinity and gender stereotypes in Lords of Discipline

Masculinity and gender stereotypes in Lords of Discipline

        In Lords of Discipline, the author Pat Conroy presents the chronicles of a group of boys in the Carolina Military Institute, a Charleston military college. This novel, divided into 4 parts, introduce the reader to the life of military college's students in the 1960's, and what they had to face to graduate: violence, humiliation and bullying. Eventhough this novel is a “ work of fiction” as it is said in its foreword, the story was inspired by the experience of the author himself and by testimonies of men from several military high school around the South such as “ West Point Annapolis, the Air Force Academy, VMI, the Citadel...” ( Conroy 12). The subject of boys's military education in this novel is directly linked to the conception of masculinity in South America in the 1960's. Indeed, the aim of these institutes is to make boys become “ real Institute men” ( Conroy 32) by “submitting themselves fully to a system of discipline” (Conroy 76).  This system of discipline is mostly based on violence. In the speech given by General Durell in chapter 7, it is said that everything had been done to make this system hard, in order to produce a “ higher quality of Institute man” ( Conroy 76). The Institute can be seen as a factory producing “real men” and this means that masculinity is something which is teached, not something naturaly given. According to the Carolina Military Institute in this novel, a boy becomes a real man at the end of its 4 years training when he “ wear the ring” ( Conroy 100) and stand “strong, proud, clear-eyed, and erect” (Conroy 76). In this novel, masculinity is clearly stereotyped but femininity is too. Indeed, the character of Annie Kate is symbolic as she is first seen as a poor pregnant girl, left by her boyfriend and kept hidden in her house with her mother. Her only distraction is to sit in her garden and she has to wear sunglasses and raincoat in order not to be recognized. However, what is important to notice is that even if Pat Conroy presents male and female gender stereotypes, the story then shows that “real men” or “ real women”do not necessarly have to instantiate these stereotypes. To demonstrate this, I will first deal with the notion of masculinity in the 1960's, then focus on the characters within the novel and finally prove that the “ real men” in this story are those who did not became what the Institute wanted them to be.

        According to Linda L. Lindsey's study on gender roles, Gender Roles: A Sociological Perspective, there is a notion of “ hegemonic masculinity” which were acted out by the most powerful men in History. “The taken-for-granted statuses are likely to be those men who are white, middle class, and heterosexual” ( Lindsey 285). All other masculine styles seems to be considered as “inadequate and inferior”. For Lindsey, there are masculine markers that were defined by History , starting from the Greco-Roman era that defined male role standards. The first masculine marker is very relevant in the context of Lords of Discipline as it is “War and Soldiering”. Indeed, war is historically “ linked with the idealized rethoric of virtue and glory” ( Lindsey 281). This masculine marker is very important as the story takes place in a military institutes, where soldiers are considered as heroes “I even had moments of wanting to die heroically in battle to fulfill my father’s legacy or to prove the Institute wrong about my fitness as a cadet” ( Conroy 88). After the World Wars, military training was seen as the way to build the manhood of the nation. Still according to Lindsey's study, war and soldiering “ embrace key characteristics of masculinity that include violence, risk-taking, sadism, masochism, independence and heroism” ( Lindsey 283). These key characteristics are those who are teached at  the military institute in Lords of Discipline mostly through the plebe year. Again, there is the idea of the military institute as a factory building “real men”. The novel by Pat Conroy takes place during the 1960's, which is an important period for America. During the 1960's, many subjects had been put into questions such as the position of women in society but also racial equality with Martin Luther King's speech in 1963 asking to dream with him of when the “ grandsons of slaves and the grandsons of slaveowners “ would “sit down together at the table of brotherhood” ( Kimmel 173). In this context, the notion of masculinity had also been questionned. In November 1958, the historian Artur Schlesinger declared in Esquire:

        What has happenned to the American male? For a long time he seemed utterly confident in         his manhood, sure of his masculine role in society, easy and definite in his sense of sexual         identity. Today men are more and more conscious of maleness not as a fact but as a problem.         The ways by which Americans men affirm their masculinity are uncertain and obscure.         There are multiplying signs, indeed that something had gone badly wrong with the American         male's conception of himself. ( Kimmel 173)

According to Michael Kimmel's study, Manhood in America: A Cultural History, the “masculine mystique” of the Self-Made Man was questionned in 1960's in work, politics, and even body image.   The “self-made man” was supposed to be strong and the culture of muscle building started to emerge. Indeed, the definition of masculinity in the 1960's became based on the exclusion of the “other”: women, gay men, black men, ethnic immigrants. ( Kimmel 178). With the begginning of the gay liberation movement, homophobia started to spread too. To quote Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique, there was a fear that homosexuality “was spreading like a musky smog over the American scene” (Kimmel 184). Indeed, this vision of masculinity is present in Lords of Discipline.

...