ABSTRACT This essay examines the ways Graham Swift’s novel Shuttlecock critically examines the dialectical construction of masculinity as the discourse of the patriarchal Other. Foregrounding a Lacanian reading of the text which locates the absence of signification at the level of the Symbolic which then paradoxically produces imaginary figurations and fictions of desire, I read the novel as using the paradigm of espionage (itself premised on possessing and inhabiting the secret of the Other) as a powerful way of interrogating Prentis’ construction of his father’s masculinity as well as his own understanding of power and violence within the social economy of patriarchy. I argue that Lacan’s reading of psychoanalytic desire provides a useful paradigm through which to understand not only Prentis’ unconscious projection of Oedipal ambivalence against father figures such as Quinn, but also Swift’s deconstruction of the social and political constructs of masculine heroism as focalised through the war hero.

中文翻译：

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男子气概不可救药：在格雷厄姆·斯威夫特的羽毛球中颠覆认知意志

摘要 本文考察了格雷厄姆·斯威夫特的小说《羽毛球》批判性地考察了男性气质作为父权制他者话语的辩证结构的方式。以拉康式的文本阅读为背景，将意指的缺失定位在象征的层面，然后矛盾地产生想象的形象和欲望的虚构，我阅读小说是使用间谍范式（它本身以拥有和居住的秘密为前提）他者）作为一种有力的方式来质疑普伦蒂斯对其父亲男性气质的建构以及他自己对父权制社会经济中的权力和暴力的理解。