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Nicole Feretich
Engl 200
April 28, 2014
The Definition of Manhood In David Bradleys Chaneysville Incident
There are several possible definitions for manhood or masculinity in any given
culture or time period. Whatever the majority group defines these terms to mean is still
fluid and can change between generations, with the possibility of variation in definition
between a father and a son. Sigmund Freud has noted the identity of a man to be formed
based off of fear and the subconscious, while feminist Laura Mulvey would claim mens
identities are based off the oppression and objectification of others, specifically women.
Moses Washington, in the novel The Chaneysville Incident by David Bradley, had his
own definition of man, one which his friend Jack could only moderately teach John being
that the journey of placing yourself in history is the main attribute of manhood; this
attribute was one specific to Moses and John Washington.
Sigmund Freud focused heavily on the influences of the subconscious and the fear
that dwells inside it. This fear is vital in the development of identity for males. According
to Freuds Oedipus complex, young boys feel a strong attraction to their mothers with the
fear of castration being the only thing that keeps them in line until they outgrow such an
attachment. But, there is a lingering outweighing of the two parents importance in the
childs life, which is born from this. Furthermore, Freud also held the belief that what is
familiar to us is actually unfamiliar or uncanny and also is what we fear; women are the
objects of admiration for males but that is because men ultimately fear women, usually
subconsciously.
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Laura Mulvey, a feminist writer, also held the belief that women are the objects of
fear in the minds of men. In her essay, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, she
analyzes the viewing of movies and what it means for the men watching them. Men will
look upon actresses with desire, but this admiration is tied to a deep fear of women. Her
definition of being a man included oppressing, objectifying and sexualizing women as
means of controlling the fear they had of them.
Freuds idea of one parent outweighing the other and the general fear of women is
touched upon as a reasoning for Jack coming into Johns life upon Moses death. Jack
says to John that Moses said you was too much your mamas child. Said he was worried
you was gonna end up bein a preacher or a sissy or somethin on account a the way that
woman carried on around you, fussin with your clothes an fixin you food an things
that a man oughta be able to do for hisself (Bradley, 34). There was a fear of becoming
too much like a woman. If John were to end up basing his identity off of how his
mother treated him, he would not be a man, according to Moses and Jack. If John were to
turn into a sissy it would make Moses life irrelevant and would make everything he did
mean nothing, also allowing there to be no identity construction for John.
Disregarding the role of women in the construction of identity for man, another
theorist, Paul Gilroy, wrote about identity itself and how it comes about. He claimed that
identity comes from intercultural experiences throughout time and in respective contexts.
For John Washington, a huge role in his identity would be his close ties between the
black and white communities. John completely disregarded his role in the black
community (the one he was born and raised in), which went against what it meant to be a
man. According to Meg King in her article Father Knows Best, John, by abandoning his
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birthplace, abandoned his folk culture entirely which in turn results in the loss of
masculinity. In order for John to anchor manhood, she says, he must figure out his
paternal history which is the reason why Jack comes to John in the first place, although it
is unclear if Jack really knew the reasons Moses needed John to become a man.
Jack and Moses, although friends, had differing opinions on several topics;
although they both engaged in drinking, cussing, and hunting, it is unclear if Jack could
even fathom the life Moses was actually living, which was not his own. So, when Jack
speaks for Moses, it seems that Moses probably did not hold the same ideas as Jack and
although Jacks guidance is appreciated and necessary, it is not the same that Moses
himself would have given. Moses focused more on the hunting of history and story,
rather than the hunting of animals. Perhaps this means that Jack is not a man by Moses
standards.
At first, in the novel, it is made to seem that being a man meant hunting,
drinking, and cussing exclusively but there is more to this ideal of manhood than that.
Jack says to John, A man should have a say, or else he is an animal, (Bradley, 42). The
point of Jack teaching John (under the instruction of Moses) to hunt, drink, and cuss, is so
that he is able to survive and to leave a mark on this world. On page 48 of the novel, John
notes that the death of a man results in his story being lost. Being a man means
continuing the lost or unfinished story left by his father, Moses, who was discovering the
story of his grandfather, C.K., whose story would have been lost, had Moses not based
his life around it.
I opened the Bible at the place where it had been marked, the book of
Jeremiah. Part of the first chapter had been marked with pencil. I did not read it; I
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sat there and memorized it: Then said I, Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak:
for I am a child. But the Lord said unto men, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt
go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.
(Bradley, 141)
The above quote continues with this idea that being a man means having a say. To
be a child would mean not having the ability to speak which is what Moses and Jack
tried to avoid with John. So, this Bible passage holds a lot of truth and relevance in it to
Johns situation of learning to speak and place himself into the history that his father left
for him to figure out.
Again referring to Meg Kings article, she discusses that manhood is transference
of family history (assuring the mans place in it), survival skill (surviving nature and
outwitting a discriminatory society), and raising successful children regardless of
oppression. Moses Washington was very well able to achieve this outline of manhood; he
was able to leave behind clues for John to figure out the history of the men in their family
and with the folio showed John the ways of having power over people as a means of
survival. John also learned survival skills from Jack through the means of generic
hunting.
Trudier Harris wrote, in the book Exorcising Blackness: Historical and Literary
Lynching and Burning Rituals, that there are multiple journeys present in the novel The
Chaneysville Incident, all of which are tied together through and by John Washington.
The dominant journey, however, is that of figuring out his fathers life.
It is made clear that Moses immersed himself in the identity of his grandfather so
that his store can be unfolded for Moses to understand. Moses desired this same type of
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hunting for John, although John came to understand the story in a neater fashion. John
had to figure it out (subconsciously) through the means of manhood: hunting and by
leaving his woman in order to go about figuring out his life. But, he also combined it with
the typical attributes of womanhood that his father wanted to avoid instilling in John;
being imaginative like a woman and involving other people to help figure out the history
was something not typical for their (Moses and Jacks) definition of manhood. But if it
were not for Judith, Johns girlfriend, he probably would not have came to the
conclusions that he did and would not have been able to uncover the fear lingering in his
subconscious about women and whites.
Jesus Benito, his essay The Narrator as Historian, sums up the interaction of
these conflicting roles as being comparable to the working together of fiction and
history, narrator and historian, marginal discourse and masters discourse. There is
constantly a negotiating of terms in order for there to be a clear identity or solution
created. Although Moses and Jack did not want John having anything to do with women,
it is through embracing the woman in his life that John is able to discover the history
Moses left for him to place himself in.
The placing of oneself in history is what it means to be a man. Having the
attributes of being a man (being masculine) is not the same as being able to sit down and
figure out your history, albeit your paternal history. Moses dedicated his life to
mimicking a man who had a say in society against the oppressors. Moses, too, held a say
in the community by being smart enough to survive just long enough to figure out his
history. He left his son these broken clues and teachers in order for him to discover the
truth of Moses death. When he does piece together the story, he reaches the peak of
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manhood. All that is left to do is to break the story apart again, so that Johns son can
one-day return to this place and become a man himself. This becomes a game, a game
that will cycle on for generations as long as it is done correctly.
Meg King stated, Bradleys novel chronicles a mans search for the truth about
his father as a means of establishing masculine identity. The mere act of knowing where
the bodies are buried and why they are buried there is enough to generate a sense of
masculinity. For John, he had to embrace the fears of his subconscious (women, whites,
his own birthplace) in order to reach this type of understanding of the contexts that lead
to him existing.
Masculinity is not always clear. There are different contexts that the word can be
placed into, morphing the definition and the actions taken to achieve it. For John
Washington, being a man meant figuring out the lost story of his father and thereby his
great-grandfather. Having a say in history and society, all while placing himself in it,
allowed for him to construct a masculine identity and continue this cycle of placement for
his own son to follow and learn from.








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Works Cited:
Benito, Jesus. David Bradleys The Chaneysville Incident. The Narrator as
Historian. Ed. Susana Onega. Telling Histories: Narrativizing History,
Historicizing Literature. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 1995. N. pag. Print.
Bradley, David. The Chaneysville Incident: A Novel. New York: Harper & Row, 1981.
Print.
Harris, Trudier. Chapter 6: Beyond the Ritual? Chaneysville Incident Exorcising
Blackness: Historical and Literary Lynching and Burning Rituals. Bloomington,
IN: Indiana UP, 1984. N. pag. Print.
King, Meg. Father Knows Best: Manhood in David Bradley and Philip Roth. Philip
Roth Studies 9.2 (2013): n. pag. Project MUSE. Web. Apr. 2014.
Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: Norton,
2001. Print.