“自造男人”之梦的三重误导——基伦斯《随后我们听到了雷声》对美国男性气质的反思

Three Misdirections of "Self-Made Man" Dream——An Introspection of American Masculinity in Killens's Novel And Then We Heard the Thunder

In John Killens's novel And Then We Heard the Thunder, the protagonist Solomon Sanders could not make the right decision both in his career and marriage, and his personality is often in a split state. This paper maintains that Sanders's practical difficulties and psychological predicaments are closely related to his wrong perception of male identity. All signs indicate that what Sanders identifies is a kind of “Self-Made Man” masculinity which has long been advocated by the mainstream society of America. This model of masculinity's most serious defect lies in the fact that it pays much attention to men's external performance and banishes the spiritual and moral claims in terms of its judgment standard and value orientation. With a full display of Sanders's psychological and practical predicaments, the novel carries out an incisive introspection upon this model of masculinity.