Go back fifty years in the United States and you wouldn't see many men staying home to raise their children, cooking dinner for the family, or washing the dishes. Those tasks all fell into the domestic sphere, and the domestic sphere was a woman's place—not a man's.
These days that's changed, and those changes are reflected in books like Graceling. To be sure, there are men in the book who probably have no interest in cooking, cleaning, or caretaking, but Kristin Cashore uses her male characters to demonstrate that men come in many shapes and sizes and that there is no one way in which a man must think and behave in order to be a man. In fact, through the character of Po in particular, she suggests that men can cook, clean, and be emotionally sensitive without compromising their masculinity at all. Hallelujah.
Questions About Men and Masculinity
- Beyond anatomy, what are the qualities that make a man masculine?
- Think of all of the male characters in the book (Po, Raffin, Giddon, Oll, Randa, Leck, the sailors on Captain Faun's ship, Ror, and Skye). If you had to rank them from least masculine to most masculine, how would you do it? What qualities would you rely on to create your rankings?
- For which male character(s) in the book do you have the most respect and why?
- The book seems to hint that perhaps Raffin and Bann are in a romantic relationship together. Does being gay compromise a man's masculinity? Why or why not?
- Can women be masculine? Explain.
Chew on This
[Po, Raffin, Giddon, Oll, Randa, Leck, or someone else] is the most masculine character in the book.
Between Captain Faun and Katsa, the two most masculine characters in Graceling are women.