Ragged Dicks: Masculinity, Steel and the Rhetoric of the Self-made Man - Softcover

James V. Catano

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0809323958 ISBN 13: 9780809323951

Publisher: Southern Illinois University Pr, 2001

Synopsis

Portraits of self-made men are rife in Western culture, as James V. Catano observes in this text. Positive and negative, admittedly fictional and ostensibly factual, these portraits endure because the general rhetorical practice embodied in the myth of the self-made man enacts both the need and the very means for making oneself masculine: verbal power and prowess. The myth of the self-made man, in shoty, is part of ongoing rhetorical practices that constitute society, culture, and subjects. To explain those practices and their effectiveness, Catano argues that the basic narrative achieves much of its effectiveness by engaging and enacting the traditional psychological dynamics of the family romance: pre-oedipal separation, oedipal conflict, and ""proper"" post-oedipal self-definition and socialization.

About this title

About the Author

James V. Catano, professor of English at Louisiana State University and a member of the women's and gender studies program, is the coordinator of the Writing and Culture Concentration. He is the author of Language, History, Style: Leo Spitzer and the Critical Tradition.

Edition details

• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Pr
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0809323958
• ISBN 13: 9780809323951
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 288