Transformed masculinity in contemporary society (based on the collection of short stories ‘Flights of Love’ by Bernhard Schlink)

Abstract

The study is devoted to the psychological metamorphoses of male characters and the dynamics of intergender relations between characters of B. Schlink's collection of stories presented to the public under the name ‘Flights of Love’. A brief analysis of the transformation of ideas about male identity in post-war Germany is provided as well, with the help of stories from the collection, which were in turn used as an ideological mirror to highlight European societal change. The study examines the concept of ‘crisis of masculinity’ as a manifestation of the loss or reshaping of male identity in the context of the transformation of socio-cultural norms, identifies the key characteristics of its manifestation in the context of post-war Germany. The study traces the ways of expression and the impact of the crisis on the formation of male images in the collection of Schlink’s stories, as well as the role of periods of socio-economic crisis in gender discourse in the context of rethinking traditional ideas about men and women in society and, in particular, in German-language literature of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The analysis of the ‘Flights of Love’ collection examines the psychological transformations of male characters in each of the works, their interpersonal and intergender relations, as well as internal conflicts related to the loss of social orientation, emotional vulnerability and the search for identity. The study provides a brief analysis of the female characters in analyzed stories as catalysts for the internal transformations of the male protagonists (overcoming or unsuccessfully compensating for their masculinity crises). By combining the socio-cultural context with literary analysis, the study allows us to further our understanding of the nature of transformations of male identity in German-language prose of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, as well as to outline the prospects for further study of the phenomenon within the framework of German studies, gender studies and literary hermeneutics.