write an interpretation of Hairstyles of the Damned.

GENDER LITERARY ANALYSIS OF HAIRSTYLES OF THE DAMNED: BY JOE MENO Student: Professor: Course title: Date: Gender is one of the important common dimensions on which the status differences are grounded. It is a social contrast which specifies the culturally and socially prescribed functions which men and women adheres to. As Wolfe notes in "The Gender Question" of all the ways through which a specific group has mistreated one another, the subordination of women by men has been one of the prominent. According to this author, all the other types of human discriminations pale by contrasts (Wolfe, 32). In the novel Hairstyles of the Damned, Brian who is the main character in the novel goes through confusing seasons in his adolescence stage. He seeks to find his identity and he does so by engaging himself in peer activities. He has several friends who offer him various music choices in tapes and he gets exposed to them. Brian attempts to find the best genre that perfectly relates to his liking or identity. The social and peer pressure makes Brian to believe that masculinity is about being tough, working hard, rebelliousness, relationships with girls and popularity. He does not however realize until too late that identity has to be only found within the inner person, as it is unique because everybody is unique. According to the gender literary theory, women are normally depicted as the weaker sex in society. In contrast, Brian finds Gretchen a strong character and is greatly admires her personality. This is despite the fact that she appears rude, arrogant and consistently provokes fights with others. Right in the first paragraph of the novel, he expresses that “Another problem I had experienced was that I had started falling in love with Gretchen, who became my best friend”. He also point out that she does things which he himself have no guts to do (Meno,15). This means that Brian was surprised that though Gretchen was a lady, she could do things that were even the abilities of some men. Also in this novel, Brian finds that most of the boys in the novel are obsessed with sex due to peer pressure. They are out to impress girls and get the opportunity to go to bed with them. The resultant peer pressure caused by the interaction between his friends and fellow students greatly influences his character a lot and he too starts searching for skirt wearers, this is one of the reasons why he engages in love affair with Gretchen. In this novel, women are thus portrayed as sex objects, which is a characteristic of the gender literary theory. This goes to show that boys attach a low value on girls or women. Brian wishes to have a vehicle like his friends. He associates vehicles with prestige and attractiveness. He believes that acquiring one will add allure to his life and enable him to get more dates. This inner belief in him is more of cultivated from the behaviour of his friends who employs material possessions to lure ladies on their side. They depict their perception that women are unable to think beyond what they can see, those women have little capacity to deeply meditate and critically analyze situations before making a decision (Nussbaum,3). Therefore, he ought to work hard to earn what he is desired by him because he realizes that as a man. He takes up a job in order to get a car for himself. He seems to believe that for a man to be successful and admirable, he has to earn it. He becomes more focused on achieving his personal goals and ambitions instead of being a spectator. He spites watching other people’s success while doing nothing to achieve his ambitions. When Brian probes his father about sleeping in the basement, his father rubs the issue away. From his reaction, the father influences his attitudes towards women and he gets the notion that men are not supposed to talk about the difficult issues that they face in life. Instead, men ought to deal with those issues by themselves. This results to the fact that he starts keeping his problems to himself without disclosing even to his friends. This is in line with the femin...