Reviving the Southern Gentleman : Ideals of Manhood in Madeleine L’Engle’s Fiction (1946, 1971)

• Main Author: Suzanne BRAY
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Université du Sud Toulon-Var 2015-01-01
• Series: Babel : Littératures Plurielles
• Subjects: Ilsa (1946); southern gentleman; southern masculinity
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/babel/4066
• ISSN: 1277-7897; 2263-4746

Reviving the Southern Gentleman: Ideals of Manhood in Madeleine L’Engle’s Fiction. At the beginning of her career as a writer, Madeleine L’Engle (1918-2007) was certainly not a fan of the Southern gentleman. As the daughter of a Southern Belle, L’Engle had visited the region regularly since childhood, but always felt completely out of place there and found many of her Southern male relatives far from ideal. The first of her novels to be based in the South, Ilsa (1946), reflects this negativity. Dissatisfied with Ilsa, L’Engle decided to research her family history and the history of the region thoroughly before writing another novel based in the South. What she found convinced her that, the ideal of the Southern gentleman was still valid and could be revived. It needed, however, to be extended to include those who had previously been excluded: African-Americans, poor white men and children, and to rediscover its Christian roots. The Renier family and their household in The Other Side of the Sun (1971) and their descendants in Dragons in the Waters (1976) all present role models for Southern masculinity based on the traditional gentleman and also on some of L’Engle’s ancestors. At the same time, counter examples are presented of what happens when the tradition of the Southern gentleman goes wrong and deserts its Christian origins for a more tribal understanding of a man’s responsibilities.