Research Information System
Studien zur Deutschen Sprache und Literatur, vol.2, no.54, pp.153-172, 2025 (ESCI, Scopus, TRDizin)
This study examines Joseph Roth’s Weights and Measures within the framework of critical masculinity studies. Set against the early twentieth century—marked by imperial collapse, war, and shifting social values—Roth’s literature explores statelessness, faith, justice, nostalgia, and identity crises. Long before masculinity became a theoretical concern, Roth addressed its complexities in his fiction. In Weights and Measures, protagonist Anselm Eibenschütz confronts the fragility of masculinity through his transition from military to civilian life, his wife’s betrayal, Euphemia’s seduction, and the presence of Sameschkin, a chestnut seller who lives outside social norms. Drawing on Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity, this study analyzes how hegemonic, subordinate, complicit, and marginalized masculinities are constructed through the novel’s characters and how these forms generate tensions within Eibenschütz’s identity. Combining critical masculinity studies with literary analysis, the article evaluates character relationships through the lens of gender and power dynamics. The analysis reveals the collapse of Eibenschütz’s attempts to assert legitimacy as a soldier, father, and patriarch, and highlights the instability of his subjectivity. His final vision at the moment of death underscores the ambivalence of social identities and the theme of justice, while exposing the tension between hegemonic masculinity and human values within his inner world. This study contributes to a rereading of Roth’s work through gender and masculinity debates, showing how literary texts, when approached from this perspective, can reveal latent issues and offer new insights for literary criticism.