This volume offers an alternative reading of the male figures in Elfriede Jelineks narratives by considering gender-theoretical concepts for the reception. Jelineks specific conception of figures enables her to express her feminist critique on the ruling patriarchal society. The figures are prefailed since they cannot live up to the requirements of a patriarchy, incorporated in hegemonic masculinity. Satirised figures from desperate masculinities are being presented, eventually reducing the societal orders of the patriarchy to the absurd.