-
oa ‘Want hij was een van hen’
Oorlog en mannelijkheid in enkele Nederlandse romans uit de eerste naoorlogse jaren
- Amsterdam University Press
- Source: Internationale Neerlandistiek, Volume 62, Issue 3, Dec 2024, p. 235 - 259
-
- 31 Dec 2024
Abstract
This contribution expands on Meijer’s study of the representation of masculinity in Dutch Second World War fiction. Analyzing four Dutch novels set during WWII and published in the early postwar period, it examines the construction of masculine gender identities in a wartime situation in both occupied and non-occupied areas, comparing male-authored novels (Maurits Dekker, W. F. Hermans) to female-authored novels (Josepha Mendels, Dola de Jong). In Dekker’s novel the hierarchical relation between different masculinities is overdetermined by the antagonism between resistance masculinity and Nazi masculinity. In Hermans’ novel the war context produces a frustrated, subordinated masculinity as identification with normative resistance masculinity fails. The female-authored novels, set in non-occupied areas, afford more opportunities for an inclusive, non-hierarchical constellation of masculinities. The emancipatory impulses, however, remain tentative in light of the consolidation of hierarchical gender relations in the wartime context.