Contesting the Astronaut as a Masculine Ideal: Narratives of Myth in Tom Wolfe's 'The Right Stuff'

Llinares, Dario (2008) Contesting the Astronaut as a Masculine Ideal: Narratives of Myth in Tom Wolfe's 'The Right Stuff'. In: Bound and Unbound: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Genders and Sexualities. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle, pp. 76-92. ISBN 9781847185396

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Abstract / Summary

Analysing the representation of the astronaut in 'The Right Stuff' I contend that idealisations of masculinity should be thought of in mythological terms and that mythology has the effect of perpetuating hegemony across historical or contextual shifts. The coherence of its gendered meaning is mythically naturalised despite inherent contractions in its informative discourses. Myth, in these terms, has undoubted ideological implications in terms of its naturalisation of certain meanings and therefore as Culler suggests is representing a "delusion to be exposed" (Culler, 1983: 33). In the following I set out to highlight the instability of elements, such as technological control and the male body, as essential masculine qualities in order to reveal the fragility of fixed identity formulations.

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