Annie Proulx and the Masculine Aesthetic

Up until recently, I considered literary fiction’s masculine aesthetic to be best epitomized by Hemingway and McCarthy. The former wrote with concision and acuity on war, love, loss, and life while the latter imbued his western tales of vengeance with King James verbiage. Both writers were matter-of-fact, unsentimental, and economic in their prose and reflected the traditional masculine traits of stoicism, assertiveness, and strength through their writing. 

For instance, take the opening sentence of Hemingway’s The Old Man And The Sea: “He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.” In one sentence, Hemingway outlines the central conflict of the story and introduces us to the setting and main character. As another example, take this opening sentence of Cormac McCarthy’s Cities of the Plain: “They stood in the doorway and stomped the rain from their boots and swung their hats and wiped the water from their faces.” Nevermind that this Border Trilogy finale’s title is taken from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the entire sentence seems plucked directly from the Old Testament (if Jesus grew up in Laredo). Additionally, admire McCarthy’s polysyndeton – his repetitive use of the conjunction “and” to slow the prose and lend it gravitas. Just by their opening sentences, we can see why Hemingway and McCarthy are our uncles’ favorite authors. 

Now, after reading Annie Proulx’s short story “Brokeback Mountain” and rewatching Ang Lee’s iconic on-screen adaptation, I am convinced that the aesthetics of masculinity are best epitomized by a literary triumvirate. Let’s look at this story’s opening sentence:  “They were raised on small, poor ranches in opposite corners of the state, Jack Twist in Lightning Flat, up on the Montana border, Ennis del Mar from around Sage, near the Utah line, both high-school drop-out country boys with no prospects, brought up to hard work and privation, both rough-mannered, rough-spoken, inured to the stoic life.” Here, Proulx employs asyndeton, putting commas instead of conjunctions between the different clauses. This stream-of-consciousness style suggests a bartender wistfully recalling the story of two men he met one summer. What’s more, the words “privation” and “inured” seem derived more likely from a Baptist sermon than a coastal author. For these reasons and many more, Annie Proulx’s writing embodies the masculine aesthetic while simultaneously undermining its conventions. 

In “Brokeback Mountain,” Proulx subverts the conventions of the western genre and the masculine aesthetic which it embodies. By earnestly depicting the lifelong love affair between Jack Twist and Ennis del Mar, Proulx criticizes societal homophobia and the damage it inflicts on closeted gay couples. Moreover, she demonstrates that both the western genre and masculine aesthetic reinforce a view of men as stoic, solemn providers without emotional lives. Indeed, while Hemingway and McCarthy may be the most celebrated literary purveyors of American masculinity, Proulx may be its most astute critic.