Manhood

The struggle for manhood is riddled with obstacles of social myth, and uncertain blundering. The circumstances surrounding this type of transformation vary significantly between cultures, but in the end, when a boy truly feels that his actions at all times will affect his life forever, he will man up. This realization is not always found easily, and sometimes not at all. Because of incorrect notions about the habits of men, many youths are lead into a false sense of manliness which hinders them in their quest to make the leap to adulthood.

In different cultures, boys become men at different ages, and in different ways. In Germany, many boys take part in an initiation ceremony called a Jugendweihe at the age of fourteen, where they receive their identity papers and are "addressed with the formal pronoun Sie (as opposed to the informal due)" ("Jugendweihe"). In Finland, boys ages fifteen to eighteen go to "root camps" called Juurileiri where they "get familiar with the way of life, world view, beliefs and traditions of ancient Finns for a week through discussions, handicraft, drama, and skills necessary for life in primitive conditions." ("Secular coming of age ceremony"). And in China, a ceremony called Guan Li is practiced where boys at the age of twenty are given a style name, which is a "symbol of adulthood and respect" ("Chinese style name"). The point is, that no matter what part of the world, or how it is done, when boys get and appreciate the respect that gives them the power to govern over their own lives, they become men. But in many cultures that do not have a specific initiation to adulthood, boys do not always obtain and even more rarely appreciate that power.

In many cases, the social stereotypes about men in a culture mislead boys about what they should do to become a man. In the American culture for instance, you have to follow a strict set of erroneous rules to be true man. You have to win fights, be able to drink a lot of alcohol, love red meat, watch sports constantly, be better than women, not have emotion, and plenty of other ridiculous expectations. The fact is, that often these rules detract from the true manly virtues of responsibility and courage. But confused youths will usually look to the misguided stereotype of a man because they see it often, and associate it with manliness. The TV and the internet are two significant amplifiers of the stereotypical man. For instance on the popular social networking website Facebook, there is a group titled "Men" with 196,248 members. Under the "Common Interests" section of the page, the group suggest that all men like "Guns (okay, weapons in general), food (red meat, or prepared by women), beer, cars (fast or big, mean or sexy), chest hair, war (movies or otherwise), pain, sports, fire, sleep, not asking for directions, face melting guitar riffs, blood and sweat (not tears), big dogs, speeding, pipes and cigars, tattoos, gambling, fight clubs, blowing things up, rational thought and discourse, irrational activities and actions, and never being wrong" (Tom). If boys actually shared all of these interests, they would never become men. But many American boys try to be exactly that way, and only truly grow up after they have realized that they need to take responsibility for their own actions, and made enough mistakes to realize what is really manly, and what is not.

The main character, David, in Richard Wright's novel Almost a man, didn't ever realize what manliness is. Working as a slacking field hand, David believes that to reach manhood, he needs respect. He deduces that to gain respect, he must have a gun. But while carelessly playing with the gun he bought, he accidentally shot a mule owned by his employer. Then, he tried to cover up his mistake by burying the gun. But he is caught, and loses the respect of all the people who witnessed him being chastised and hit by his father. In the end, David uncovers his gun, and runs away with the thought that he is a man. But he is very far from it, his qualities of recklessness, dishonesty, cowardice, and thoughtlessness are some of the most unmanly qualities. He also has no responsibility, for by running away, he left his family to pay the fifty dollars he owed his employer for killing the mule. This story is a perfect example of a boy striving to be a man who was not only misguided by his incorrect image of a man, but never learned from his numerous mistakes.

David should have been able to ascend to manhood, especially since he had a manly father to teach him. A character in Barn Burning by William Faulkner named Colonel Sartoris Snopes became a man against all odds. He was secluded to the companionship of his family, for they moved often, and his only role model was his criminally minded