ABSTRACT
The chapter examines masculinity in Indira Goswami’s fictions. Her fictions seem to present masculinity as a relational term. Looking from a sociological perspective of gender, masculinity has not only shaped social identity but also defined social roles. Any breach of masculine code is looked at as a disruption of the social norms. Each and every society with its own socio-religious codes seems to uphold, most often, only one image of masculinity that constitutes its hegemonic masculinity. The other kinds of masculine claims as well as a scope for femininity are crushed either under the social pressure or by the psychic inter-dialogism of the subject who yearns for an alternative space. In Goswami’s fictions, both male and female characters enact masculinity. Further, characters possessing the prospect of bearing alternative masculinities seem to fall under the feminine category as they are equally sidelined, liminalised or objectified. Nonetheless, the towering masculine figures are also shown crumbling down under the pressure of changing circumstances. Thus, the chapter establishes the enactment of alternative masculinities in Indira Goswami’s fictions. However, the hegemonic masculinities, which have monopolised the socio-cultural space of the patriarchal society, are shown to defy and resist the possibility of the existence of alternative masculinities.
