This paper analyzes how Don DeLillo uses his fictional novel, End Zone, to examine the relationship between language, tradition, and the development of masculine identity in contemporary America. DeLillo resists post-structuralist notions that our words have no inherent stability and insists that the main problem with language is that it too rigidly traps men and boys within withering patriarchal structures. This paper offers a men's studies approach to the novel, focusing on the fact that End Zone encourages men to cultivate an unique male voice whose promise of liberation rests in the fact that it forces male readers to come to grips with unpleasant and often unspoken-of realities.
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