This essay explores Freedom as a potential critique of late-capitalist masculinity, focusing on how this theme is embodied in the character of Walter Berglund. Walter’s identity crisis is analyzed through the lens of ecomodern masculinity, a concept that reconfigures industrial masculine ideals with ecological concern. Drawing on theorists like Hultman and Connell, the essay explores how environmentalism becomes a new stage for hegemonic masculinity, rather than an alternative to it. Walter navigates competing demands—familial trauma, sociopolitical expectations, and ecological responsibility—by embodying a hybrid masculinity that ultimately upholds the very hierarchies it aims to transcend. This article argues that under the illusion of ecomodern masculinity’s strategic flexibility, Walter becomes a violent caregiver in disguise.
AckerJ.1992. “Gendering Organizational Theory.” In Gendering Organizational Analysis, edited by MillsA. J.TancredP., 567–79. Sage.
2.
AlthusserL.1971. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes Towards an Investigation.” In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Translated by B. Brewster, 127–94. Monthly Review Press.
3.
BourdieuP.1977. Outline of a Theory. Translated by R. Nice. Cambridge University Press.
4.
BunninN.YuJ.. 2004. Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy. Blackwell Publishing.
ConnellR. W.1987. Gender and Power: Society, the Person, and Sexual Politics. Stanford University Press.
7.
ConnellR. W.1990. “The State, Gender, and Sexual Politics: Theory and Appraisal.” Theory and Society19 (5): 507–44. https://www.jstor.org/stable/657562
DaggettC.2018. “Petro-Masculinity: Fossil Fuels and Authoritarian Desire.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies47 (1): 25–44.
10.
DobsonK.2015. “Neoliberalism and the Limits of the Human: Rawi Hage’s Cockroach.” Textual Practice29 (2): 255–71. doi:10.1080/0950236X.2014.993519.
11.
DockstaderS.BellS.. 2020. “Masculinity, Biofuels, and the Rhetoric of Green Energy.” Environmental Communication14 (1): 1–15.
12.
FisherM.2010. Capitalist Realism: Is there No Alternative?Zero Books.
13.
FranzenJ.2001. The Corrections: A Novel. Picador.
14.
FranzenJ.2002. “Mr. Difficult.” In How to be Alone, 238–69. Picador.
15.
FranzenJ.2010. Freedom: A Novel. Picador.
16.
GonzálezJ. Á.2015. “Eastern and Western Promises in Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom.” Atlantis: Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies37 (1): 11–29.
17.
GriskeviciusV.TyburJ. M.Van den BerghB.. 2010. “Going Green to be Seen: Status, Reputation, and Conspicuous Conservation.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology98 (3): 392–404.
18.
HassanP.2021. “Inherit the Wasteland: Ecofascism & Environmental Collapse.” Ethics and the Environment26 (2): 57–71.
19.
HopkinsD.GösslingS.CohenS.HannaP.HighamJ.. 2023. “Aeromasculinities and the Fallacy of Sustainable Aviation.” Energy Research & Social Science106: 103319. doi:10.1016/j.erss.2023.103319.
20.
HultmanM.2013. “The Making of an Environmental Hero: a History of Ecomodern Masculinity, Fuel Cells and Arnold Schwarzenegger.” Environmental Humanities2: 79–99.
21.
HultmanM.2016. “Green Men? Exploring Industrial-, Ecological-, and Ecomodern Masculinity.” Special Issue Environmental Humanities in Kulturella Perspektiv12 (1): 28–39.
22.
HultmanM.2017. “Exploring Industrial, Ecomodern, and Ecological Masculinities.” In Handbook of Gender and Environment, edited by MacGregorS., 239–52. Routledge.
23.
HultmanM.2018. “Green Authoritarianism and Hybrid Masculinities.” In The Routledge Handbook of Green Politics, edited by DimadamasD.BellD., 79–91. Routledge.
24.
HultmanM.2021. The Process of Ecologisation: Is Schwarzenegger Back to Teach Us Something New?” In Men, Masculinities, and Earth: Contending with the (m) Anthropocene. 169–81. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
25.
KojolaE.2022. “Petro-Nationalism and Masculinities in Resource Extraction Politics.” Environmental Sociology8 (1): 1–12.
26.
KusserowA. S.2004. American Individualisms: Child Reading and Social Class in Three Neighborhoods. Palgrave Macmillan.
27.
LetourneauM.DavidsonD.KarsgaardC.IvanovaD.. 2023. “Proud Fathers and Fossil Fuels: Gendered Identities and Climate Obstruction.” Environmental Politics33 (4): 678–98. doi:10.1080/09644016.2023.2274271
28.
MacGregorS.2006. “Reading the Climate Crisis Through a Feminist Lens: Epistemological Issues.” In Environmental Politics, edited by RedcliftM., 35–50. Routledge.
29.
MeadG. H.1934 In Mind, Self, and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist, edited by MorrisC. W.. University of Chicago Press.
30.
MechlenborgM.Gram-HanssenK.. 2022. “Masculine Roles and Practices in Homes with Photovoltaic Systems.” Buildings and Cities3 (1): 638–52.
MuñozJ. E.2009. “Just Like Heaven: Queer Utopian Art and the Aesthetic Dimension.” In Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity, 131–46. New York University Press.
33.
NeubauerR.GrahamE.KrobathE.. 2023. “Extractive Populism: Fossil Fuels, National Identity and Climate Change Denial.” Environmental Politics32 (5): 775–94.
34.
NilgesM.2015. “Neoliberalism and the Time of the Novel.” Textual Practice29 (2): 357–77. doi:10.1080/0950236X.2014.993524.
35.
PatelR. N.2011. “Crisis: Late-Capitalism, Economics and the Environment.” Undergraduate Economic Review8 (1): 3.
36.
PelegríT. R.2013. “Negotiating a Masculine Bloc: Jonathan Franzen’s the Corrections.” Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses66: 99–109.
37.
PelegríT. R.2014. “Fathers who Care: Alternative Father Figures in A. E. Proulx’s the Shipping News and Jonathan Franzen’s the Corrections.” In Alternative Masculinities for a Changing World, edited by CarabíÀ.ArmengolJ. M., 115–28. Palgrave Macmillan.
38.
PooleR. J.2008. “Serving the Fruitcake, or Jonathan Franzen’s Midwestern Poetics.” Midwest Quarterly - A Journal of Contemporary Thought49 (3): 263–83.
39.
PuléP. M.2013. A Declaration of Caring: Towards Ecological Masculinism. PhD diss. Murdoch University.
40.
PuléP. M.HultmanM.. 2019. “Men in Nature: a Critical Mythopoetic Men’s Movement.” In Ecomasculinities: Negotiating Male Gender Identity, edited by FictionU. S.CenamorR.BrandtS. L., 31–50. Lexington Books.
41.
RyanM. L.2001. Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media. Johns Hopkins University Press.
42.
TošićJ.2006. “Working and Living Environmental Protection.” Ecocriticism, FACTA UNIVERSITATIS Series3 (1): 43–50.
43.
TwineR.2021. “Masculinity, Nature, Ecofeminism, and the ‘Anthropo’ Cene.” In Men, Masculinities, and Earth: Contending with the (m)Anthropocene, edited by PuléP. M.HultmanM., 117–33. Palgrave Macmillan.
44.
VriesA. de. 1976. Dictionary of Symbols and Imagery. North-Holland Publishing Company.
45.
WågströmA.2021. “Masculinisation and Isolation of the Swedish Anti-Nuclear MovementAfter1980: A Call for Environmentalists to Learn from the Past.” In Men, Masculinities, and Earth: Contending with the (m)Anthropocene, edited by PuléP. M.HultmanM., 247–267. Palgrave Macmillan.
46.
WeinsteinP.2015. The Comedy of Rage: Jonathan Franzen’s Fiction. Bloomsbury Academic.
47.
ZeritiA.RobsonM.SpyropoulouS.LeonidouC.. 2014. “Sustainable Export Marketing Strategy Fit and Performance.” Journal of International Marketing22 (4): 44–66.
