Performing Potency: Masculine Pride and the Refusal of Decline in Drama in English

This article examines how drama in English portrays men who anchor their self-worth to sexual potency and masculine performance, particularly when that confidence faces direct challenge or the quiet pressure of ageing. Through sustained close reading of Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, the analysis traces how characters negotiate pride, vulnerability, and the defence of manhood through dialogue, pacing, and silence. Existing criticism has often approached these moments through historical or ideological lenses; this reading instead attends to the psychological negotiation visible in the text itself. Drawing on established work on gender performance and narrative identity, the article treats masculine pride not as a fixed cultural pattern but as a dramatic act that characters repeat, defend, and sometimes surrender. The theoretical tools serve the text rather than dictate it, allowing the plays to reveal how men construct, protect, and adjust their sense of virility when it is called into question. The findings emerge from careful attention to scene structure, verbal exchange, and the unspoken tensions that shape dramatic portrayal.