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ity, physical factors have always played an indispensable role and have a close interactive relationship with masculinity, and the material form of the male body has inevitably been entered into the code of masculinity. Therefore, Citrine strives to build a sturdy body to meet the standard of judging the ideal male image in the traditional social culture. 

Lenore Manderson and Sandile Peake (2005) argued that one way for males to reconstruct or recover their masculinity is through its social performance and their respondents are able to achieve this through sport which is laden with culturally sanctioned notions of masculinity. In Humboldt's Gift, Citrine took part in various sports activities to strengthen his body. “I had joined an athletic club in Chicago and with elderly effort kept myself in shape. I played a swift hard game of paddle ball, a form of squash.” (Bellow, 2007:7) While participating in sports activities, Citrine got to know and made some friends, including underworld leaders, local ruffians and hooligans who deal with the problem violently that represented the real male images. 

Conclusion

Saul Bellow is a great writer with a strong sense of social responsibility. In his works, he often skillfully combines literary themes that reflect real life with modern artistic techniques to describe the living state and spiritual world of contemporary Americans in detail, which shows a broad social and historical picture of the United States. Humboldt's Gift is his sixth novel. On the one hand, the novel exposes the destruction of spiritual civilization by materialism and truly reproduces the bizarre picture of life in contemporary American society. On the other hand, the novel pays full attention to the American men in the transitional period and shows Bellow's sympathy for the unfortunate fate of men and expectations for ideal masculinity. 

From the perspective of Connell's masculinity theory, this thesis analyzes the dynamic construction of the masculinity of Charlie Citrine in Humboldt's Gift. Due to different historical periods and different social circumstances, Citrine shows hegemonic masculinity, subordinated masculinity and complicit masculinity in the process of constructing his own masculinity, and the performances of them are different as well. In early stage, Citrine's obedient behavior to Humboldt and the feminine characteristics revealed in him virtually confirmed his subordinated masculinity and gradually reduced him to a subordinate position in the society. Therefore, Citrine strived to construct hegemonic masculinity through a variety of body reflexive practices. When he struggled to entered the middle class, he changed from subordinate position to dominant position in gender relations, and the reflexive practice of hegemonic masculinity also changed from pursuit to maintenance. He paid more attention to adopting circuitous strategies to maintain his hegemony. This is mainly reflected in the fact that Citrine has won the recognition of the upper society and his dominant position in gender relations through his professional success.

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