Construction of Nice Guy Manhood Within "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" and "Close Range: Wyoming Stories" Juliette Bauer College

Rasmussen Tinsley of Annie Proulx’s “People in Hell just want a Drink of Water” and Oscar de León of Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao represent male characters who interact with a constructed form of manhood, which this paper identifies as the nice guy. This form of manhood showcases how cultures manipulate expectations of hegemonic masculinity so that men are always positioned as the dominant members of a society, especially over women. To begin to understand how both Oscar de León and Rasmussen Tinsley fit into this identity, it is important to first understand the ways in which the idea of manhood and the idea of the nice guy operate in relation to one another.

Hegemonic masculinity is the normative prescription of male identities within a specific context. However, to understand masculinity solely in this way has its pitfalls, as observed by Gail Bederman within “Remaking Manhood through Race and Civilization,” because it erases less dominant male identities which still hold power. As Bederman explains, “to define manhood as a coherent set of prescriptive ideals, traits, or sex roles obscures the complexities and contradictions of any historical moment” (7). Although there may be one set of dominant ideals...