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Curing the Cultural Disease of Toxic Masculinity in Octavia Butler’s “Speech Sounds”
LI Qing-yang, QI Jia-min
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5836/2025.03.003
School of English Education, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China School of English Education, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China
This paper delves into African America writer Octavia Butler’s Hugo-Award winning “Speech Sounds” to explore how the author uses a fictional pandemic as a metaphor to critique toxic masculinity in 1980s American culture. By analyzing the story, it reveals how the unnamed illness functions as a social pathogen, intensifying the negative aspects of hegemonic masculinity, leading to the breakdown of communication and the prevalence of violence. Through the character of Rye, the paper also examines how black feminist resilience offers a counter-narrative to the destructive forces of toxic masculinity. The study concludes that Butler’s work not only exposes the cultural disease of toxic masculinity but also provides a vision of healing and regeneration through communal care and the cultivation of hope, highlighting the power of speculative fiction as a tool for social critique and imagining alternative futures.
“Speech Sounds”, masculinity, pandemic, Octavia Butler
Journal of Literature and Art Studies, March 2025, Vol. 15, No. 3, 135-141
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