{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.014822134387351778, 'fraction_numerical': 0.001976284584980237, 'mean_word_length': 4.923976608187134, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Securing the Border as a Creative Site: Southern Masculinities and the Urge to Tell

This chapter looks at the American success story of the self-made man and how it was reinterpreted in the context of 20th Century Southern masculinity. Focusing on novels by Wolfe, Ellison, Styron, Capote, and Warren, the chapter builds on earlier scholarship that identifies a shift from idealized images of planter and slave to new models of masculinity for blacks and whites. The central claim is that new narrative patterns were embraced that set male characters on journeys outside the South to encounter that world and find success. A mania of sorts evolved around this narrative as portrayed by Wolfe who represented wandering as opportunity for introspection, movement as a means to remake one’s self, and liminal space as a site of creativity for the neophyte writer but also a distinctly masculine zone. The chapter ends with reflections on how this journey is altered when males encounter racial or sexual prejudice.