an effort to prove their masculinity, again because of the retraction back to societal ways, cadets form a public transcript within the hidden one that is the Citadel. As new students enter the school, they are forced to endure a process of extremely violent hazing by the upperclassmen. The upperclassmen become the dominant and the freshmen are the dominated. In an all male institution, the upperclassmen place gender roles on the others. It is for their own security and to salvage their own masculinity that these gender roles are applied. A domestic atmosphere is created.The corps of Cadets once again seeks to obscure a domestic male paradise with an intensifying of virile showmanship and violence. The result is a ruthless intimacy, in which physical abuse stands in for physical affection, and every display of affection must be counterbalanced by a display of sadism. (299)This violence has been prominent at the Citadel for sometime now and has only been allowed to continue because of the silence of the freshmen. Out of fear, these underclassmen remain silent and endure the brutality that is forced on them. They become what is expected of them. “Those obliged by domination to act as a mask will eventually find that their faces have grown to fit the mask” (508). The freshmen in time evolve to hold the same ideas and perform the same actions as the upperclassmen that imposed the violence onto them. This cycle keeps reoccurring and permits this violence to remain present. The refuge that is the Citadel is placed of great importance to the men there. It is seen as their escape from society and the cadets see “the guarding of their tree house as serious business” (302). Using Scott’s essay, the actions and behaviors of the men at the school are clarified and the importance of the closed atmosphere is shown. Out of fear that the hidden discourse that has been created could be exposed, we can see h...
