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Masaryk University the Portrayal of Women in Charles Bukowski's Work

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Masaryk University the Portrayal of Women in Charles Bukowski's Work Masaryk University Faculty of Education Department of the English Language and Literature The Portrayal of Women in Charles Bukowski's Work Bachelor thesis Brno 2019 Supervisor: Mgr. Barbora Kašpárková Author: Natálie Hlavatá I hereby declare that I worked on my bachelor thesis independently and that I used only the sources listed in the bibliography. I agree with keeping this work in the library of Masaryk University at the Faculty of Education for study purposes. …………………………………………………… Natálie Hlavatá Acknowledgements: I would like to express my very great appreciation to my supervisor Mgr. Barbora Kašpárková for her valuable advice, patience and understanding for my writing tempo. Additionally, I would like to thank my family and friends for their support and to Charles Bukowski for being authentic. Abstract: The main aim of the bachelor thesis is to provide an analysis of the portrayal of women in selected novels written by a controversial author Charles Bukowski. The analysis deals mainly with description, sexual objectification and position of female characters in novels Women (1978), Ham on Rye (1982), Hollywood (1989) with a special reference to possible differentiation in illustration of female characters considering the time gap in publishing the works and also author's personal life that is inherently connected to his writing and time period he lived in. Key words: Bukowski; Beat generation; women; sexual objectification; description of women; position of women Anotace: Hlavním cílem této bakalářské práce je poskytnutí analýzy vyobrazení žen ve vybraných dílech kontroverzního autora Charlese Bukovského. Analýza se zabývá především popisem, sexuální objektifikací a pozicí ženských postav v románech Ženy, Šunkový nářez a Hollywood, s ohledem na možnou odlišnost ve vyobrazení žen vzhledem k časovému odstupu ve vydání jednotlivých děl a také na autorův osobní život neodmyslitelně spjatý s jeho tvorbou a dobou ve které žil. Klíčová slova: Bukowski; Beatnická generace; ženy; sexuální objektifikace; vyobrazení žen; pozice žen Contents 1 Introduction -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 2 Charles Bukowski's Background -------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 2.1 Born into this --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 2.2 Wild years ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4 2.3 First relationship ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6 2.4 Harlequin -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7 2.5 Independence -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8 2.6 Newcomer ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10 2.7 Dirty Old Man ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 11 2.8 The woman --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13 3 Beat Generation and Female Gender ----------------------------------------------------------- 15 3.1 Beat Bukowski ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 15 3.2 Women's output --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15 3.3 Muses ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 17 3.4 Women in words -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18 4 Bukowski's Depiction of Women ---------------------------------------------------------------- 21 4.1 Description of female characters ------------------------------------------------------------ 22 5 Sexual Objectification of Women ---------------------------------------------------------------- 26 6 A Position of Characters in Novels --------------------------------------------------------------- 30 7 Conclusion -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 36 Works Cited ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 39 1 Introduction There are not many writers with an audience of such an ambivalent approach. Charles Bukowski is beloved and cursed. Beloved moreover for his plain, unconventional and original style of narrating and ability to add a deep philosophical thought absolutely naturally. Nevertheless, he is the target of criticism mainly for his vulgar expressions, often connected to female characters in his pieces of writing, that caused his status of a misogynist. This bachelor thesis is devoted to the analysis of portrayals of women in his selected novels, concretely Women (1978), Ham on Rye (1982) and Hollywood (1989) focusing on the potential progress in the portrait of women according to dates of publishing, time period he lived in and ageing of the writer as his novels are based primarily on autobiographical features. The first chapter deals with the background of Charles Bukowski, that is inherently connected to his writing because his own life experience is the most significant inspiration of his extensive work. Especially his rather pessimistic childhood, where the misunderstanding with women began, loneliness in his early adult age and first real relationships with women in his middle age, continuing to an unexpectable wave of fame and finally settling down at the end of his controversial life. Considering the time period he lived in and actively wrote, he should be classified as an author of the Beat generation. However, he personally refuses to be a part of Beatniks. Although they represented the society of castaways, Bukowski was an outsider even among them. He did not share their romanticization of the unconventional life and dwelt on crude depiction without embellishments. Nevertheless, he unconsciously shared a similar attitude 1 to women with the Beat generation and patriarchal society in the USA generally, that probably projects in his narratives and poems. As the novels selected for the analysis were published with more than four years gap, the main aim of the analysis is to focus on possible differences in the women's depiction between each novel. The presence of hypothetical changes is studied in three aspects of Bukowski's illustrating of women – concretely in the description of women, objectification of women and their position in the novels. Although there are already theses concerning similar topic in writing of Charles Bukowski, such as the Representation of the Female in the Work of Charles Bukowski by Michal Macner or Women and Style in Bukowski and Nabokov written by Mária Pitoňáková, this bachelor thesis should provide a more complex picture of Bukowski as an author and mainly the comparison of portrayal of women in his three significant novels. 2 2 Charles Bukowski's Background 2.1 Born into this1 The necessity for understanding and accepting Charles Bukowski´s writing is a knowledge of his life or at least a small awareness because his narratives are equally controversial to his own seventy-four years of living and even he himself declares that his works are predominantly autobiographical. Charles Bukowski was born in Germany in 1920 as a son of an American soldier Henry Charles Bukowski with German origin (his parents emigrated to the USA) and the local sewer Katharina Fett. Due to the financial crises in 1923, they decided to move to the USA, concretely to California ̶ the future nettle of the Beat generation and often the setting in their and Bukowski's stories (Sounes 20). He describes his childhood as a very unhappy and harmful period, because of the physical neglection done by father, which usually involved hard criticism of Charles. Even his mother was beaten by Henry, however, Charles Bukowski did not find any solace in her attitude as she usually defended his father (Christy 15). Therefore the first picture of a woman that Bukowski perceived, was quite tragical ̶ a woman accepting the violent behaviour of a man, unfortunately, of her husband who should be a support, being weak and preferring conformity instead of dignity or trying to help her son. Another important female personality in his childhood was his grandmother Emilie – mother of Henry, who is mentioned in autobiographical novel Ham on Rye (1982). Although the relationship between Charles Bukowski and his grandmother was rather positive, she was 1 “Born into This“ is the poem from the poetry book The Last Night of the Earth Poems from 1992 and also the name of the film about Charles Bukowski. 3 no source of love for him. Her behaviour was affected by her German roots which that create the impression of impersonal and cold attitude: no show of emotion, no kissing or touching her grandchildren…This frigid carapace did not mean she had no feelings; such restraint was common across the whole of Europe in the days of large families and very high child mortality; to get too close and then have the child die could be devastating. Many parents continued to maintain a heartbreaking distance between them and their children which only the 1960s generation really broke down. (Miles 1) Similarly, as Bukowski did not feel to be a part of the family, he was also an outsider during his school years. A mindset of the other children to Charles was refusing, mostly due to his German origin as it is fundamental to realize that the first
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