期刊名称：NEW ACADEMIA: An International Journal of English Language, Literature and Literary Theory
印刷版ISSN：2277-3967
电子版ISSN：2347-2073
出版年度：2014
期号：2368
页码：12
出版社：Barloni Books Pune
摘要：Gwendolyn Brooks embeds latent strains of Queer Theory in her works in order to parallel the struggles of the black community. Growing up in Chicago, a city known for two historical districts—Boystown and Bronzeville—Brooks uses these two dynamic districts to create a powerful political statement. Primarily focusing on Brooks' “Gay Chaps at the Bar” series, “The Sundays of Satin-Legs Smith,” and Maud Martha, this paper delves into the emasculation black and gay male soldiers experienced in World War II, the hypersexuality of the zoot suit and drag costumes, and the negative effects of homosocial relationships on heterosocial relationships. Drawing heavily on contemporary theories and scientific research such as Alfred Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male in conjunction with modern Queer Theory ideologies and concepts like Graham Thompson's Male Sexuality under Surveillance: The Office in American Literature, this paper explores the possible link between Gwendolyn Brooks and the gay community living in a McCarthy-embracing, Post-World War II America. Such Queer Theory elements analyzed in this paper consist of: the covert homosexual nature of the soldier in “Gay Chaps at the Bar,” the homosocial relationships the soldier cultivated and the farce exploitations of heterosexual performance, the emasculation of black males in a white-dominated society, the hypersexuality of the zoot suit and its paralleled structure of the drag costume, and the collapse of the marriage between a couple due to homosocial relationships, surveillance of male masculinity, and the Drag Balls of Harlem during the 1920's.
