Male Homosociality in Mario Puzo'sThe Godfather

Abstract

The research, in its careful and meticulous illustration, attempts to show whether the text holds enough evidences to support the assumed hypothesis. The text is particularly loud when it comes to the issue of male homosociality and masculinity as a response to the crisis in masculinity in the wake of growing feminist movements, changing gender roles and capitalistic bent of western social order. The novel, in its careful portrayal of all-dominant male characters and depiction of crime world, looks like a prototype of a masculine text. On the one hand, there are macho men and on the other there are submissive and rather insignificant female characters in the novel. While the whole plot builds in telling the tales of masculine virtues and sometimes vices, women in the novel have been restricted to the insignificant and petty domestic boundaries. There is a homosocial desire in every male and this male bonding helps them (re) assert their masculinity which the present study assumes to be in crisis. The traditional notion of masculinity and the institution of patriarchy that endorsed it lost its authoritative tone with the turn of century as times were changing fast, thanks to the ever-evolving technology, ever-contingent ideologies and ever-new time. While womenor the females were questioning feminity they were crossing over the gendered lines of history as well and often charting into new territories that often left their male counterparts confused. The Godfather, in its depiction of male fraternity and in itsnarration of a tale of a charismatic patriarch has addressed to this male anxiety of being cornered.