In these final paragraphs I briefly discuss some conclusions to be taken from this study and then reflect on current circumstances in the United States.

Although the novels of the Forties and Fifties represented masculinity as diverse, contradictory, conflicted and contested, they also frequently manifest a concept of gender identity that is deeply rooted in biological difference. R. W. Connell's theorisation of hegemonic masculinity and its derivation from Gramsci's ideas remind us of the ideological nature of such formulations, and of the way they are constructed in culture and then internalised as ‘common sense’. This essentialist notion of gender identity articulated a core set of attributes and behavioural codes to which men and women were expected to conform and which shaped the dominant form of masculinity. Even in novels where contestation, anxiety and complexity are evident, there is frequently a striving for a masculine identity shaped by such cultural expectations. The strength of these expectations may be seen in the way that novels such as Vidal's The City and the Pillar, Jones's From Here to Eternity and Himes's If He Hollers Let Him Go continue to valorise, recirculate and identify with dominant forms of masculinity despite the fact that these forms marginalise and oppress their characters.

Related to this essentialist notion of gender is the problem of articulating alternative ways of being a man. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March and Ellison's Invisible Man, from their different perspectives, certainly represent the unsatisfactory aspects of contemporary models of manhood, but none of their novels have leading characters who are comfortable with their male identity in the context of post-war America.

Following the period covered by this book, second-wave feminism developed an extensive and sophisticated analysis of gender, emphasising in particular the constructed nature of identity and challenging biological determinism. Black feminist writers then challenged the singular perspective of some second-wave feminists and established the need to consider race and class in analysis of gender inequalities. Such developments in academic writing, in journalism and in cultural forms combined forces with political campaigning to make progress in removing inequalities.