Project Mailer - User contributions [en]

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-05-02T00:02:42Z

JBawlson: /* Works Cited */

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE
|last=SANDERS
|first=Jaime L.
|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders
|abstract
|mailer has been...uniform edition.
|This paper served me...to participate.
}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>N</big>orman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|351|}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.
{{pg|352|}}

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness. Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches? Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning. Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality. Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond. Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
{{pg|353|}}

== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom. Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos. By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.
{{pg|354|}}
== Works Cited ==
Hemingway, Ernest. Death in the Afternoon. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Mailer, Norman. An American Dream. New York: Dial Press, 1965.
Mailer, Norman. Cannibals and Christians. New York: Dial Press, 1966.
Sanders, J’aime L. “Death, Art and the Disturbing: Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing.” The Mailer Review, vol. 4, no. 1, 2010, pp. 1–21.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-05-02T00:01:52Z

JBawlson: /* Works Cited */

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE
|last=SANDERS
|first=Jaime L.
|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders
|abstract
|mailer has been...uniform edition.
|This paper served me...to participate.
}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>N</big>orman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|351|}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.
{{pg|352|}}

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness. Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches? Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning. Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality. Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond. Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
{{pg|353|}}

== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom. Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos. By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.
{{pg|354|}}
== Works Cited ==
Hemingway, Ernest. Death in the Afternoon. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.

Mailer, Norman. An American Dream. New York: Dial Press, 1965.

Mailer, Norman. Cannibals and Christians. New York: Dial Press, 1966.

Sanders, J’aime L. “Death, Art and the Disturbing: Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing.” The Mailer Review, vol. 4, no. 1, 2010, pp. 1–21.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-05-02T00:01:27Z

JBawlson: /* Works Cited */

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE
|last=SANDERS
|first=Jaime L.
|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders
|abstract
|mailer has been...uniform edition.
|This paper served me...to participate.
}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>N</big>orman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|351|}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.
{{pg|352|}}

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness. Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches? Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning. Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality. Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond. Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
{{pg|353|}}

== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom. Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos. By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.
{{pg|354|}}
== Works Cited ==
Hemingway, Ernest. *Death in the Afternoon*. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.

Mailer, Norman. *An American Dream*. New York: Dial Press, 1965.

Mailer, Norman. *Cannibals and Christians*. New York: Dial Press, 1966.

Sanders, J’aime L. “Death, Art and the Disturbing: Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing.” *The Mailer Review*, vol. 4, no. 1, 2010, pp. 1–21.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-05-01T23:57:10Z

JBawlson: /* Works Cited */

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE
|last=SANDERS
|first=Jaime L.
|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders
|abstract
|mailer has been...uniform edition.
|This paper served me...to participate.
}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>N</big>orman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|351|}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.
{{pg|352|}}

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness. Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches? Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning. Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality. Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond. Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
{{pg|353|}}

== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom. Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos. By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.
{{pg|354|}}
== Works Cited ==
Hemingway, Ernest. *Death in the Afternoon*. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Mailer, Norman. *An American Dream*. New York: Dial Press, 1965.
Mailer, Norman. *Cannibals and Christians*. New York: Dial Press, 1966.
Sanders, J’aime L. “Death, Art and the Disturbing: Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing.” *The Mailer Review*, vol. 4, no. 1, 2010, pp. 1–21.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-05-01T23:56:31Z

JBawlson:

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|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders
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|This paper served me...to participate.
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== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>N</big>orman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|351|}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.
{{pg|352|}}

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness. Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches? Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning. Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality. Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond. Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
{{pg|353|}}

== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom. Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos. By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.
{{pg|354|}}
== Works Cited ==

- Hemingway, Ernest. *Death in the Afternoon*. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
- Mailer, Norman. *An American Dream*. New York: Dial Press, 1965.
- Mailer, Norman. *Cannibals and Christians*. New York: Dial Press, 1966.
- Sanders, J’aime L. “Death, Art and the Disturbing: Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing.” *The Mailer Review*, vol. 4, no. 1, 2010, pp. 1–21.

J'aimé L. Sanders

2025-05-01T02:49:48Z

JBawlson:

Written by J’aimé L. Sanders

J'aimé L. Sanders

2025-05-01T02:47:08Z

JBawlson: Created page with "https://projectmailer.net/pm/Category:Written_by_J%E2%80%99aim%C3%A9_L._Sanders"

https://projectmailer.net/pm/Category:Written_by_J%E2%80%99aim%C3%A9_L._Sanders

Template:BYLINE

2025-05-01T02:41:48Z

JBawlson:

{{byline
| align = left|right (right is default)
| type = Written|Edited (Written is default)
| last = Sanders
| first = J'aimé L.
| abstract = An exploration of Hemingway’s influence on Mailer’s existentialism and his philosophy of art, focusing on the aspects of their commensurate interest in the violent and disturbing as it relates to their philosophies of writing and art, and reveals how both writers put their existentially founded philosophies in motion in order to teach readers how to live in the highly modern and post-modernized consumer culture both authors question and reject throughout their canon of works.
| url = https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders)
}}

Template:BYLINE

2025-05-01T02:37:01Z

JBawlson: Created page with "{{byline | align = left|right (right is default) | type = Written|Edited (Written is default) | last = Sanders | first = J'aime L. | abstract = An exploration of Hemingway’s influence on Mailer’s existentialism and his philosophy of art, focusing on the aspects of their commensurate interest in the violent and disturbing as it relates to their philosophies of writing and art, and reveals how both writers put their existentially founded philos..."

{{byline
| align = left|right (right is default)
| type = Written|Edited (Written is default)
| last = Sanders
| first = J'aime L.
| abstract = An exploration of Hemingway’s influence on Mailer’s existentialism and his philosophy of art, focusing on the aspects of their commensurate interest in the violent and disturbing as it relates to their philosophies of writing and art, and reveals how both writers put their existentially founded philosophies in motion in order to teach readers how to live in the highly modern and post-modernized consumer culture both authors question and reject throughout their canon of works.
| url = https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders)
}}

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-05-01T02:08:42Z

JBawlson:

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T14:58:34Z

JBawlson: added heading title

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{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
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{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>N</big>orman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|351|}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.
{{pg|352|}}

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness. Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches? Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning. Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality. Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond. Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
{{pg|353|}}

== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom. Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos. By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.
{{pg|354|}}

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T14:58:06Z

JBawlson: /* The Disturbing as Artistic Duty */ added page number

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{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>N</big>orman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|351|}}

{{pg|352|}}== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.
{{pg|352|}}

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness. Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches? Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning. Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality. Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond. Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
{{pg|353|}}

== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom. Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos. By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.
{{pg|354|}}

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T14:57:17Z

JBawlson: /* The Disturbing as Artistic Duty */ added page number

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>N</big>orman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|351|}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.
{{pg|352|}}

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness. Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches? Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning. Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality. Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond. Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
{{pg|353|}}

== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom. Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos. By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.
{{pg|354|}}

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T14:57:04Z

JBawlson: /* The Disturbing as Artistic Duty */ added page number

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>N</big>orman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|351|}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.
{{pg|352|352}}

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness. Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches? Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning. Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality. Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond. Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
{{pg|353|}}

== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom. Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos. By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.
{{pg|354|}}

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T14:56:29Z

JBawlson: /* The Illusion of the American Dream */ spaces

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>N</big>orman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|351|}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.
{{pg|352|}}

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness. Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches? Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning. Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality. Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond. Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
{{pg|353|}}

== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom. Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos. By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.
{{pg|354|}}

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T14:55:47Z

JBawlson: /* Art, Anxiety, and Mortality */ spaces

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>N</big>orman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|351|}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.
{{pg|352|}}

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness. Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches? Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning. Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality. Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond. Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
{{pg|353|}}

== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.
{{pg|354|}}

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T14:54:16Z

JBawlson: /* The Disturbing as Artistic Duty */

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>N</big>orman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|351|}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.
{{pg|352|}}

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
{{pg|353|}}

== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.
{{pg|354|}}

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T14:53:13Z

JBawlson: /* Introduction to Influence and Philosophy */ spaces

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>N</big>orman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|351|}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.
{{pg|352|}}

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
{{pg|353|}}

== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.
{{pg|354|}}

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T14:50:17Z

JBawlson: /* Introduction to Influence and Philosophy */ big text

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{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
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{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>N</big>orman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|351|}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.
{{pg|352|}}

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
{{pg|353|}}

== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.
{{pg|354|}}

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T14:35:47Z

JBawlson: /* Introduction to Influence and Philosophy */ page number

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|351|}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.
{{pg|352|}}

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
{{pg|353|}}

== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.
{{pg|354|}}

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T14:34:54Z

JBawlson: /* Introduction to Influence and Philosophy */ page number

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.
{{pg|352|}}

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
{{pg|353|}}

== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.
{{pg|354|}}

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T14:33:56Z

JBawlson: /* Introduction to Influence and Philosophy */ spaces

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|page 351|}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.
{{pg|352|}}

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
{{pg|353|}}

== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.
{{pg|354|}}

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T14:33:23Z

JBawlson: /* The Illusion of the American Dream */ added page

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|page 351|}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.
{{pg|352|}}

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
{{pg|353|}}

== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.
{{pg|354|}}

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T14:32:11Z

JBawlson: /* Art, Anxiety, and Mortality */ added page number

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|page 351|}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.
{{pg|352|}}

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
{{pg|353|}}

== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T14:30:21Z

JBawlson: /* The Disturbing as Artistic Duty */ added page number

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|page 351|}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.
{{pg|352|}}

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T14:27:51Z

JBawlson: /* The Disturbing as Artistic Duty */ indentions

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|page 351|}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T14:27:02Z

JBawlson: added page number

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|page 351|}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T14:26:38Z

JBawlson: added page number

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{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{|page 351|}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T14:25:55Z

JBawlson: added page number

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{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
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{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
{{pg|page 351|352}}

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T13:55:08Z

JBawlson: /* The Disturbing as Artistic Duty */ indentions

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
# page 351

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100) Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T13:52:12Z

JBawlson: /* Introduction to Influence and Philosophy */ big text

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{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
# page 351

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100)—Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.

Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity—of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.

Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T13:51:42Z

JBawlson: /* Introduction to Influence and Philosophy */ big text

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{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''<big>N</big><big>Big text</big>orman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
# page 351

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100)—Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.

Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity—of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.

Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T13:49:14Z

JBawlson: /* Introduction to Influence and Philosophy */ page number

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== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.
# page 351

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100)—Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.

Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity—of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.

Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T13:47:57Z

JBawlson: /* Introduction to Influence and Philosophy */ page number

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{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
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{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.
''page 351''

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100)—Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.

Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity—of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.

Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T13:46:53Z

JBawlson: added heading title

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{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.
''page 1''

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100)—Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.

Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity—of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.

Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

== Art, Anxiety, and Mortality ==

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T13:43:46Z

JBawlson: added heading title

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{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== Introduction to Influence and Philosophy ==
'''Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.
''page 1''

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100)—Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.

Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity—of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.

Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T13:42:57Z

JBawlson: added some bolded text

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

'''Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.
''page 1''

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100)—Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.

Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity—of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.

Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T13:40:49Z

JBawlson: added heading title

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

== '''Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. ==

But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.
''page 1''

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100)—Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.

Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity—of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.

Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T13:38:40Z

JBawlson: added heading title

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}
==
'''Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. ==
But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.
''page 1''

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100)—Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.

Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity—of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.

Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.
== The Illusion of the American Dream ==
Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T13:32:36Z

JBawlson: added heading title

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}
==
'''Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. ==
But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.
''page 1''

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.

== The Disturbing as Artistic Duty ==
Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100)—Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.

Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity—of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.

Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.

Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T13:24:52Z

JBawlson:

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}
==
'''Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. ==
But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.
''page 1''

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.

Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100)—Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.

Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity—of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.

Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.

Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-30T13:24:29Z

JBawlson: added some bolded text

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

'''Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation'''. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.
''page 1''

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.

Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100)—Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.

Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity—of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.

Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.

Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.

User talk:Grlucas

2025-04-21T03:33:50Z

JBawlson: /* Volume 4 */ new section

{{Talk header}}
[[/Archive 202504/]]

== Final edits ==
Hello, my article is complete: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Ernest_and_Norman_(Exit_Music)|Ernest and Norman (Exit Music)]]
:{{Reply to|Flowersbloom}} great, thank you. I made some corrections. Please be sure to sign your talk page posts. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:59, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

Good evening, Dr. Lucas. Below is the link to my edited article:
https://projectmailer.net/pm/User:ASpeed/sandbox
:{{Reply to|ASpeed}} great. Let me know when it’s finished and posted, and I’l have a look. It appears as if you still have a bit of work to do. Please be sure to sign your talk page posts. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:59, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

Good evening, @[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]]. I have completed most of my Remediation Articles, but I still show issues for the one named, "[[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman,_Papa,_and_the_Autoerotic_Construction_of_Woman|Norman, Papa, and the Autoerotic Construction of Woman]].

Based on the latest updates, [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Battles_for_Regard,_Writerly_and_Otherwise|Battles for Regard, Writerly and Otherwise]] looks good with exception of including a '''category'''.
:{{Reply to|ALedezma}} this one is good. I made some corrections before removing the banner, mostly in your sources. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:59, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

May you let me know if there is anything I can do on my end to resolve the issues with the first [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman,_Papa,_and_the_Autoerotic_Construction_of_Woman|article]]?

[[User:ALedezma|ALedezma]] ([[User talk:ALedezma|talk]]) 21:47, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|ALedezma}} looking very good, but some sources missing page numbers. Please see to those. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:59, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

:::Thank you @[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] . I will review those and respond when complete. [[User:ALedezma|ALedezma]] ([[User talk:ALedezma|talk]]) 22:47, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
::::@[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]]. Thank you for your feedback. A review of article additions was made for source pages. [[User:ALedezma|ALedezma]] ([[User talk:ALedezma|talk]]) 20:22, 11 April 2025 (EDT)
:::::{{Reply to| ALedezma}} ok, looking good. I made some corrections. There's one final thing to do: no footnotes should appear in the notes section; use {{tl|harvtxt}} instead; I did one to show you how to use the template. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 13:39, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
::::::@[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] Changes were done to footnote sources. Thank you! [[User:ALedezma|ALedezma]] ([[User talk:ALedezma|talk]]) 19:59, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

Dr. Lucas I finished my remediation article https://projectmailer.net/index.php?title=The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer%27s_The_Fight:_Hemingway,_Bullfighting,_and_the_Lovely_Metaphysics_of_Boxing&action=edit [[User:TWietstruk|TWietstruk]] ([[User talk:TWietstruk|talk]]) 19:44, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| TWietstruk}} good work so far, but there is more to do: placement of footnotes (eliminate spaces around them and punctuation always goes ''before'' the footnote.); proofread for typos; fix all red errors at the bottom (most of these are from errors in sourcing); works cited entries should be bulleted list and eliminate space between entries. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:05, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to|Grlucas}} Final edit and no errors with some help from @NRMMGA5108, @JKilchenmann. Please mark me as complete. On to help someone else with the things I've learned
https://projectmailer.net/index.php?title=The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer%27s_The_Fight:_Hemingway,_Bullfighting,_and_the_Lovely_Metaphysics_of_Boxing&action=edit [[User:TWietstruk|TWietstruk]] ([[User talk:TWietstruk|talk]]) 17:52, 13 April 2025 (EDT)

Dr. Lucas I have finished my assigned remediation article: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Jive-Ass_Aficionado:_Why_Are_We_in_Vietnam%3F_and_Hemingway%27s_Moral_Code#cite_note-FOOTNOTEHemingway2003-24
Username ADear.
:{{Reply to|ADear}} thank you. I have marked this as complete. Please be sure you sign your talk page posts correctly. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:05, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

Dr. Lucas, I have finished remediating my assigned article. Please review it at your earliest convenience. The link is here: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Norman_Mailer's_Mythmaking_in_An_American_Dream_and_“The_White_Negro”|Norman Mailer's Mythmaking in An American Dream and “The White Negro”]]—[[User:Erhernandez|Erhernandez]] ([[User talk:Erhernandez|talk]]) 08:52, 4 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|Erhernandez}} well done! A couple of things: never bury your talk page post. Put it at the bottom, preferably in its own section by clicking "Add topic" on the top-right. I removed your banner after making a few corrections. Please have a look over it and move on to the next thing. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:06, 5 April 2025 (EDT)

Dr. Lucas, I transferred and edited my article. Can you look at it and remove the banner? Here's the link: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Authorship_and_Alienation_in_Death_in_the_Afternoon_and_Advertisements_for_Myself|Authorship and Alienation in Death in the Afternoon and Advertisements for Myself]] ( [[User:APKnight25|APKnight25]] ([[User talk:APKnight25|talk]]) 13:02, 28 March 2025 (EDT) )
:{{Reply to| APKnight25}} looking good! A couple of things: never bury your talk page post. Put it at the bottom, preferably in its own section by clicking "Add topic" on the top-right. Next, eliminate all "fang" quotes in the article and add “real quotation marks.” Your sources should be a bulleted list. And there should be no space before a citation. You’re almost finished! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:21, 30 March 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation of "Reinventing the Wheel" Mailer Article for Review ==

Dr. Lucas,

My [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Reinventing_a_New_Wheel:_The_Films_of_Norman_Mailer|article]] is ready for review.

Thank you!
[[User:TPoole|TPoole]] ([[User talk:TPoole|talk]]) 15:29, 29 March 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|TPoole}} great! Could you include a link to it? Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:07, 30 March 2025 (EDT)
::OK, I [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Reinventing a New Wheel: The Films of Norman Mailer|found it]]. Looking really good. Great work. There are some citation issues that need to be seen to. The two red categories at the bottom should not be there; they will go away when the citations errors are corrected. Eliminate any quotation mark "fangs" in the text and replace them with “real quotation marks.” Let me know if you need help. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:14, 30 March 2025 (EDT)
:::@Grlucas, what are the citation issues? Which ones need correcting? [[User:TPoole|TPoole]] ([[User talk:TPoole|talk]]) 17:31, 31 March 2025 (EDT)
::::{{Reply to| TPoole}} When you click your citations, they should jump to the works cited entry they correspond to. Several of yours do not, indicated by the red “Harv and Sfn no-target errors” at the bottom. You also have a "CS1 maint: Unrecognized language" error that will likely be cleared up when you fix the citation issues. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:55, 1 April 2025 (EDT)
:::::@Grlucas, I have tried correcting the sfn codes in my citations. I was able to get the 2 web citations to link correctly. But for some reason, I cannot get the Mailer 1967 film Wild 90 citation to link to the reference list. Please advise. [[User:TPoole|TPoole]] ([[User talk:TPoole|talk]]) 20:24, 4 April 2025 (EDT)
::::::{{Reply to| TPoole}} OK, all fixed and published. Thanks. Please move on to another remediation. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:46, 5 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation of: "Contradictory Syntheses: Norman Mailer’s Left Conservatism and the Problematic of 'Totalitarianism'" ==

Dr. Lucas

I finished the remediation of the following article:

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Contradictory_Syntheses:_Norman_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Left_Conservatism_and_the_Problematic_of_%E2%80%9CTotalitarianism%E2%80%9D

It is ready for your review. Thank you.
[[User:JKilchenmann|JKilchenmann]] ([[User talk:JKilchenmann|talk]]) 19:04, 30 March 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JKilchenmann}} looks great. I made some tweaks to the references and some throughout, like changing ' and " to real apostrophes and quotation marks. A bit more clean-up, but you might want to check over it again. I removed the under-construction banner. Well one. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 21:32, 30 March 2025 (EDT)

== Final Edit ==

Thank you for your comments on my remediation of
"[[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Authorship and Alienation in Death in the Afternoon and Advertisements for Myself|Authorship and Alienation in Death in the Afternoon and Advertisements for Myself.]]"

I've eliminated the "fang quotes" and changed them to “real quotation marks.” This was a very fascinating tip that taught me something new. It's something I've never noticed before but now always will.

I also put my sources in a bulleted list and removed the space before the citations. I think I'm all set now.
:{{Reply to|APKnight25}} great work! Please help other editors to complete the volume. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:34, 3 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for ''Firearms in the Works of Hemingway and Mailer'' ==

[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]]

Hi Dr. Lucas,

I believe I have done everything for the Remediation of my article. Please let me know if there is anything else I need to do.

I will also link the article below:

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Firearms_in_the_Works_of_Hemingway_and_Mailer

Thank you,
Caitlin Vinson
:{{Reply to|CVinson}} great work so far. Your references must use templates, please. Blockquotes must also be done correctly. No spaces or line breaks before or after the {{tl|pg}} template. Footnote placement is also off (punctuation goes before the footnote; no spaces before or after the footnote). I will add the abstract and url. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:30, 3 April 2025 (EDT)

:{{Reply to|Grlucas}} Hi Dr. Lucas, I believe there have been some updates made to the project. I believe I have also updated the works cited section to show correct templates. Please let me know if there is anything further that I need to do. Thank you, Caitlin.
::{{reply to| CVinson}} please sign your talk page posts correctly. Thanks. You still need to do some work on the sources. Use the <code>|author-mask=1</code> in your template for repeated author names. Also, you must eliminate the red “Harv and Sfn no-target errors” message at the bottom. No spaces or returns before or after the {{tl|pg}} call, as I already mentioned above. No parenthetical citations should be left, either; those should all be remediated to footnotes. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:50, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

:::{{Reply to|Grlucas}} I have updated the sources and updated the in-text citations. I am still having trouble with the "Harv and Sfn no-target errors." I have not been successful in fixing this error and have tried multiple ways to fix it. —[[User:CVinson|CVinson]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 8:18, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

::::{{Reply to|Grlucas}} Hi Dr. Lucas, I see that I still have a red X for my remediation assignment. Is there something else I am still missing? —[[User:CVinson|CVinson]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 11:35, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:::::{{reply to| CVinson}} sorry, I'm just getting back to it. There are quite a few punctuation errors. Some left out and others appear after the {{tl|sfn}}. I'm trying to correct those I see, but you should have a look, too. Page is designated as <code>p=</code> in {{tl|sfn}}, not <code>pg=</code>; and a span of pages needs <code>pp=</code>. Again, I have tried to correct these. I removed the banner, but please have another look through. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 13:01, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for ''Norman Mailer Today'' ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished up my remediation article [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Norman Mailer Today|Norman Mailer Today]], and it is ready for review. Please let me know if I missed something. Thank you! —[[User:Kamyers|Kamyers]] ([[User talk:Kamyers|talk]]) 18:20, 3 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|Kamyers}} Great work! Please help your fellow editors finish the volume, or pick something to work on in [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010|Volume 4]]. Thanks, and well done. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:00, 4 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation of “The Conception of Irreversibility: Hannah Arendt and Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephants’” ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished my remediation of Jennifer Yirinec's article: [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/The Conception of Irreversibility: Hannah Arendt and Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”|The Conception of Irreversibility: Hannah Arendt and Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.”]] Thank you for your assistance with the article. It is ready for its final review! [[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 10:24, 4 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|JHadaway}} a stellar job. Well done. I removed the banner, so you can move on to another article. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:12, 5 April 2025 (EDT)

== Tribute Remediations ==
Dr. Lucas, I have begun work on the tributes for volume 5. [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Grace Notes|Grace Notes]] by Stephen Borkowski is ready for its final review.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 12:58, 4 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|JHadaway}} Well done! Banner removed, url added. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:18, 5 April 2025 (EDT)

==Oohh Normie Final Edits==
Hi Dr. Lucas, I have finished my article: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/"Oohh_Normie_—_You're_Sooo_Hemingway":_Mailer_Memories_and_Encounters|Oohh Normie, You're Sooo Hemingway]]. Please let me know if there is anything I need to fix. [[User:Tbara4554|Tbara4554]] ([[User talk:Tbara4554|talk]]) 20:01, 5 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{reply to|Tbara4554}} thank you. I made some corrections and removed the banner. You might want to have another look over it. Please move on to something else. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:53, 6 April 2025 (EDT)

== Harlot's Ghost, Bildungsroman, Masculinity and Hemingway ==

Dr. Lucas,

The following article is ready for your review. Thanks.

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Harlot%27s_Ghost,_Bildungsroman,_Masculinity_and_Hemingway

[[User:JKilchenmann|JKilchenmann]] ([[User talk:JKilchenmann|talk]]) 21:22, 5 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JKilchenmann}} excellent. Thank you. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:39, 6 April 2025 (EDT)

== I am done with this ==

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Situating_Hemingway:_Mailer,_Style,_Ethics
:Received. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:29, 6 April 2025 (EDT)

== Final Review PM Article ==

Hi Dr. Lucas, [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Hemingway_to_Mailer_—_A_Delayed_Response_to_The_Deer_Park|here]] is my remediated article, ready for review![[User:Hobbitonya|Hobbitonya]] ([[User talk:Hobbitonya|talk]]) 12:21, 6 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Hobbitonya}} great work. I have removed the banner, so you are good to move on to something else. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:20, 7 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation Project ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}
I have finished my remedidation project and I am ready for it to be reviewed. '''Article link''': [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Piling_On:_Norman_Mailer’s_Utilization_of_Marilyn_Monroe#Works_Cited|Piling On: Norman Mailer's Utilization of Marilyn Monroe]

Thanks,

[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 13:04, 6 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} good work so far. Please remove wikilinks. Change ' and " to typographical apostrophes and quotation marks. And all red errors at the bottom of the page need to be taken care of. These are likely all from coding errors in your sources. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:24, 7 April 2025 (EDT)

{{reply to|Grlucas}}
I have removed the wikilinks, changed to the correct typographic style and updated my sources.
'''Article link''': [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Piling_On:_Norman_Mailer’s_Utilization_of_Marilyn_Monroe#Works_Cited|Piling On: Norman Mailer's Utilization of Marilyn Monroe] Thanks, [[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 21:55, 7 April 2025 (EDT)

[I forgot to fill out the summary box. I am adding my summary]
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} you're getting there! It looks great. You must eliminate all the red errors at the bottom. These appear when there are errors in your citations. Let me know if you need help. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:15, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

@{{reply to|Grlucas}} I have tried everything I can think of and I still have harv and sfn no-target errors and harv and sfn multiple-target errors and cs1 uses editors parameter. Do I not include the editor? [[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 16:03, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

{{reply to|Grlucas}} I have managed to get rid of two of the red target errors. I am still working on finding the harv sfn multiple target error. Thanks, [[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 20:37, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

{{reply to|Grlucas}} I have tried everything i can think of to remove the last red error flag. I had to turn it in. I don't know that else I can do in this situation. I was given citation that did not follow any of the given formats. [[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 21:45, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} all parenthetical citations must be remediated to {{tl|sfn}}; none of yours are. Get these done, then we can worry about the errors. (Some notes on sources: any generic <code><nowiki>{{citation}}</nowiki></code> will not be correct. I see you have a book review by Marshall that has no source (I tried to find the original and cannot; this is a weird citation; I'll continue to look for it). There's also one that looks like a film that should use the [[w:Template:Cite AV media|<code>Cite AV media</code> template]].) Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 13:16, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation Submission ==

Hello!
Here's my remediated article; [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/The_Devil's_Party:_Reading_and_Wreaking_Vengeance_in_The_Castle_in_the_Forest|The Devil's Party: Reading and Wreaking Vengeance in ''The Castle in the Forest'']].
Thanks! Please let me know if there's anything I can review or correct.
[[User:Maggiemrogers|Maggiemrogers]] ([[User talk:Maggiemrogers|talk]]) 13:23, 6 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Maggiemrogers}} nice work! Banner removed, so please move on to something else in the volume. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:39, 7 April 2025 (EDT)

== Vol. 4: Rumors of Grace article remediated ==

I believe I have completed remediation of ''[[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Rumors_of_Grace:_God-Language_in_Hemingway_and_Mailer|Rumors of Grace: God-Language in Hemingway and Mailer]]'', vol. 4. I was having last-minute trouble with sfn errors for sources without authors, but Justin Kilchenmann helped me out, so I think they are fixed.
:{{Reply to|Sherrilledwards}} You have done a remarkable job—a real Herculean effort! Footnotes should not go in any notes. See those I changed; the others should be changed in the same way. I have done some, but the others have to be fixed, I'm afraid. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:20, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to|Grlucas}}I believe I have completed these fixes, so the article is again ready for review. [[User:Sherrilledwards|Sherrilledwards]] ([[User talk:Sherrilledwards|talk]]) 15:49, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
:::{{Reply to| Sherrilledwards}} truly exceptional work—a model remediation! Marked as complete. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:30, 13 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation of "Inside Norman Mailer ==

Hi Dr. Lucas - I have finished remediating the article, [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Inside Norman Mailer|Inside Norman Mailer]]. Please let me know if I need to make any adjustments. Thank you! [[User:Chelsey.brantley|Chelsey.brantley]] ([[User talk:Chelsey.brantley|talk]]) 18:09, 7 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|Chelsey.brantley}} good work! Please help with another article from volume 4. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:36, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed: Norman Mailer: Playboy Magazine ==

I hope I am doing this is right. I have finished remediating my article about Norman Mailer and its in my designated sandbox [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Norman_Mailer:_Playboy_Magazine_Heavyweight here.]
If there are any last minute edits, let me know. I got the last of the errors removed yesterday. And I believe we are on the same page with leaving the in-line citations for ''Playboy'' to be as is, since the author didn't put them down in the works cited. [[User:NrmMGA5108|NrmMGA5108]] ([[User talk:NrmMGA5108|talk]]) 20:14, 7 April 2025 (EDT)Nina Mizner
:{{Reply to|NrmMGA5108}} looking good! So, the parenthetical citations still in the article, I'm assuming, are there because of those missing sources? Please check your page numbers; some seem to be off. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:04, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

:{{Reply to|Grlucas}} I found the page number error and its corrected, and yes all the parenthetical citations should be referencing issues of the ''playboy'' magazine, which were not listed in the works cited. --[[User:NrmMGA5108|NrmMGA5108]] ([[User talk:NrmMGA5108|talk]]) 20:54, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| NrmMGA5108}} it looks great. I removed the banner! Thank you. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 13:29, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed Remediation From Here to Eternity and The Naked and The Dead: Premier to Eternity? ==

Greeting Dr. Lucas,

I have made the adjustment that you mentioned.

I also made additional edits to my short footnotes and noticed that my citations did not link to my references - which has been fixed.

I have tested all of my citations, and they all work.

Here is my article by Alexander Hicks, ''From Here to Eternity and The Naked and The Dead: Premier to Eternity?''

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/From_Here_to_Eternity_and_The_Naked_and_the_Dead:_Premiere_to_Eternity%3F

Have a great day.
:{{Reply to| THarrell}} Please always sign your talk page posts. Several “quoted items” in the article appear as ‘quoted items’; these must be corrected, please. No spaces or returns should surround {{tl|pg}} calls. Multiple page numbers should look like this <code><nowiki>{{sfn|Moretti|1996|pp=11-14}}</nowiki></code>; note the double <code>pp</code>. There seem to be many typos. I corrected some for you, but you must see to the rest. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:16, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

:{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Greetings,

Are these the only additional corrections that need to be made? This is different from what you mentioned before.

I just want to be sure that I have hit everything.

Also can you verify what other typos you are seeing, I have ran through this twice.

If something is spelt a certain way, for example "Soljer", I have left it that way. Since it is mentioned like that in the article.
—[[User:THarrell|THarrell]] ([[User talk:THarrell|talk]]) 06:49, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

:{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Greetings,

I have gone through and fixed all of the short footnotes.

I have gone line by line with a ruler to look at any typos, and fixed the words that I found that had a dash in them/needed to be lowercased.

I have also fixed the quotations.

—[[User:THarrell|THarrell]] ([[User talk:THarrell|talk]]) 12:31, 9 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| THarrell}} much better. Periods go inside quotations marks; I think I fixed these, but please check. Also, there are no spaces before footnotes; again, I did a find/replace, but you should check. Also, check that all titles of novels are italicized (if it's italicized in the PDF, then it has to be italicized in the remediation, including abbreviations, like ''Naked''); I fixed a couple. Also, no extra spaces; there should only be a single blank space between paragraphs. There are quite a few little details that needed (need?) fixing. I removed the banner, but please check my work. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 12:41, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for “Footnote to Death in the Afternoon” ==

Greetings Dr. Lucus,

My article is ready for your review. Thank you.

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Mailer%E2%80%99s_%E2%80%9CFootnote_to_Death_in_the_Afternoon%E2%80%9D)
:{{Reply to| KForeman}} it's coming along. Please ''always'' sign your talk page posts. Right up top, there are errors. Please use the real {{tl|pg}}, like all the other articles. Citations need to be fixed. All parenthetical citations must be converted. You still have quite a bit of work to do. All red sections need to be seen to and corrected. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:20, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
@Grlucs, per your suggestions, I've made the corrections. Please review. I look forward to your feedback. Thank you.
:{{Reply to| KForeman}} looking better. All parenthetical page numbers should be removed and added to the {{tl|sfn}}. Check your page numbers in {{tl|pg}}. Footnotes should have no spaces around them; periods and commas go ''inside'' quotation marks and before the footnotes. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:28, 19 April 2025 (EDT)

=Remediation of "Cluster Seeds and the Mailer Legacy"=
Hello, Dr. Lucas. I have completed the remediation of [https://projectmailer.net/index.php?title=The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Cluster_Seeds_and_the_Mailer_Legacy&oldid=18200| my article], and it is ready for your review. Thank you!—[[User:ADavis|ADavis]] ([[User talk:ADavis|talk]]) 11:32, 8 April 2025 (EDT)@ADavis
:{{Reply to| ADavis}} got it. I think I check it yesterday and removed the banner then. Please move on to another piece. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediating Article: Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing Volume 4. ==

Hello Dr. Lucas,

I have completed remediating my article. Here is the link [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing|The Mailer Review: Volume 4: Mailer, Hemingway, Boxing (2010)]] [[User:JBrown|JBrown]] ([[User talk:JBrown|talk]]) 13:01, 8 April 2025 (EDT)JBrown
:{{Reply to|JBrown}} a good start, but all parenthetical citations need to be footnotes. Also, check your headers. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for ''Norris Church Mailer'' ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished up remediating the article [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Norris Church Mailer|Norris Church Mailer]], and it is ready for review. Please let me know if I missed something. Thank you! —[[User:Kamyers|Kamyers]] ([[User talk:Kamyers|talk]]) 13:42, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{reply to|Kamyers}} awesome work! Thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)

== Final Edits Completed and Ready for Review ==

Dr. Lucas, I have completed my assigned remediation article: [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Looking_at_the_Past:_Nostalgia_as_Technique_in_The_Naked_and_the_Dead_and_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls|Looking at the Past: Nostalgia as Technique in The Naked and the Dead and For Whom the Bell Tolls]]. Please review at your convenience. I enjoyed working on this assignment. I look forward to your suggestions and feedback. All the best, Danielle (DBond007)
:{{Reply to| DBond007}} ok, good work. Please remove all the external links. Links to Wikipedia are not necessary, but if used, they need to be done correctly. There should be no spaces before {{tl|sfn}}. May sure all your ' and " are actually typographical apostrophes and quotation marks. Remove any superfluous spaces and line breaks; these mess up the formatting. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 17:29, 8 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}} Thank you. I will get started on these revisions immediately. Thanks for the feedback and your time. :)[[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 11:30, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}} I have completed all the requested revisions and ready for review round 2. Thank you again![[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 12:10, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:::{{Reply to|DBond007}} looking better! There are still items to be seen to, like titles on novels and magazines need to appear like they do in the original: if it's italicized in the PDF, it must be italicized on the web. I added the epigram for you and corrected that pesky citation. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:41, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}}I have completed edits. I went through and took out quotes around The Time Machine, except for one instance that the author uses them. All my other titles seem to correspond to the original article. Please let me know if I missed something. Thank you for the epigram and the pesky citation correction. Best, [[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 15:25, 17 April 2025 (EDT)
:::{{Reply to|DBond007}} received, and good work. I had to clean up the sources a bit, so you might want to have a look. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:42, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| Grlucas}}I went back and reviewed some of the other articles marked complete to compare and look for remaining revisions. I made one change on Works Cited and also added the page numbers to correspond to the pdf. Let's try this again. Again, I *believe I am finished with this article. Best,[[User:DBond007|DBond007]] ([[User talk:DBond007|talk]]) 10:36, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

Hopefully this works!. I'm not sure how to reply to other threads, but I was scrolling through the PDF and noticed the publisher is Iowa Pres? Just curious if it's supposed to be Iowa Press? [[User:Wverna|Wverna]] ([[User talk:Wverna|talk]]) 22:33, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Wverna}} I'm not sure what you're talking about. Perhaps if you included a link to the article? See [[w:Help:Talk pages|Talk page guidelines]] if you don't know how to use them. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:33, 19 April 2025 (EDT)
Just kidding, I responded to the wrong "Bell Tolls' article. I was referring to this one: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Tolls_of_War:_Mailerian_Sub-Texts_in_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls sorry about that! [[User:Wverna|Wverna]] ([[User talk:Wverna|talk]]) 17:49, 19 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed the remediation assignment ==

Good evening Dr. Lucas,

I hope I am doing this right. Here is the link for my completed Remediation articles: [http://The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Encounters_with_Mailer Encounters with Mailer].

&

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Effects_of_Trauma_on_the_Narrative_Structures_of_Across_the_River_and_Into_the_Trees_and_The_Naked_and_the_Dead

I look forward to reading your feedback.

All the best,

Patrick Riley
:{{Reply to|Priley1984}} thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:40, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation Project Submission: An Expected Encounter in an Unexpected Place ==

Link:

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer:_An_Expected_Encounter_in_an_Unexpected_Place

Winnie Verna
:{{Reply to|Wverna}} received, thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:51, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== E.Mosley ==

Good evening, @Grlucas. I have completed my Remediation Articles[[https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/On_Reading_Mailer_Too_Young]]. The article I had was " On Reading Mailer Too Young Volume 4, 2010
:{{Reply to| Essence903m}} thank you. I had to fix and clean-up quite a bit. Your saves also do not include summaries. When you move on to your next article, please be more careful and follow the instructions. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:12, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== Kynndra Watson ==

Good Evening, @grlucas. i have completed my Remediation articles: Volume 5: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Making_Masculinity_and_Unmaking_Jewishness:_Norman_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Voice_in_Wild_90_and_Beyond_the_Law and Volume 4: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Mailer,_Hemingway,_and_the_%E2%80%9CReds%E2%80%9D.

Thank you.
:{{Reply to| KWatson}} thank you, and this is a good start, but there are still many items that need to be cleaned up, like footnote indications (They go after punctuation), citation errors (all the red errors at the bottom need to be seen to), extra spaces and ALL CAPS need to be removed. Please see other completed articles for models. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:18, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== Tribute Remediation ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/What Would Be the Fun of That?|"What Would Be the Fun of That?"]] by Peter Alson.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 09:33, 9 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JHadaway}} awesome! Thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:21, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== “Remembering Norris Church” Tribute Remediation ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Remembering Norris Church|“Remembering Norris Church”]] by John Bowers.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 16:17, 9 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JHadaway}} and again, excellent! Thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:22, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== “The Norris I Knew” Tribute Remediation ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/The Norris I Knew|“The Norris I Knew”]] by Christopher Busa.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 09:04, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JHadaway}} rockin’! 👍🏼 —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:24, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== "Norris Mailer" Tribute Remediation ==
Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Norris Mailer|"Norris Mailer"]] by Nancy Collins.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 09:35, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JHadaway}} thanks again. You’re tearing it up. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:32, 10 April 2025 (EDT)

== "Rise Above It" Tribute Remediation ==

Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Rise Above It|"Rise Above It"]] by David Ebershoff—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 11:12, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|JHadaway}} excellent. Many thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:15, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed Additional Articles ==

Hello, Dr. Lucas. I have remediated [https://projectmailer.net/index.php?title=The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Tributes_to_Norris_Church_Mailer/A_View_Through_the_Prism&oldid=18744|"A View Through the Prism"], [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Tributes_to_Norris_Church_Mailer/Lip_Liner|"Lip Liner"], and [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/The_Living_Room_Show#|"The Living Room Show"] in Volume 5. They are ready for your review. Thank you!—[[User:ADavis|ADavis]] ([[User talk:ADavis|talk]]) 12:31, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|ADavis}} great work. Thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:26, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Submission notification sent 29 March ==

@grlucas

Dr. Lucas - I sent a Talk Page notification that I had completed the page I remediated on 29 March. The table indicates I haven't done anything yet. I sent it from the Talk Page from the article site. I don't see a response from that notification, but I had received one from you earlier in the process.
I don't understand what happened.

[[User:LogansPop22|LogansPop22]] ([[User talk:LogansPop22|talk]]) 14:54, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{reply to|LogansPop22}} sorry if I missed that. [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Hemingway and Women at the Front: Blowing Bridges in The Fifth Column, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Other Works|this article]], right? It's looking great, though all the parenthetical citations must be converted to footnotes using {{tl|sfn}} and some of the author names in your notes should use {{tl|harvtxt}}. I added the "citations" section for you. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 07:39, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Making Masculinity and Unmaking Jewishness: Norman Mailer’s Voice in Wild 90 and Beyond the Law ==

@Grlucas, I have made some additional edits to this [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Making_Masculinity_and_Unmaking_Jewishness:_Norman_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Voice_in_Wild_90_and_Beyond_the_Law article] in Volume 5 by correcting most of the citations. There are 2 that still do not work, but I think that is because the sources are incomplete.

[[User:TPoole|TPoole]] ([[User talk:TPoole|talk]]) 21:16, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| TPoole}} Looking really good, and this is a complicated one. A couple of things: no spaces or line breaks before or after {{tl|pg}}; I removed the spaces before {{tl|sfn}}, but you might want to check them; there are some typos, like missing spaces before some parentheses; no footnotes should appear in the notes section: use {{tl|harvtxt}} instead. And all the red errors at the bottom need to be cleared up. Great work so far! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:00, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== Red Error-Gone ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}I have deleted all the sfn's and the red error is gone. I don't know why I didn't think about this days ago.

[[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Piling_On:_Norman_Mailer’s_Utilization_of_Marilyn_Monroe|Gladstein-Monroe]]

[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 23:07, 10 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|MerAtticus}} getting closer. A few things: you should use <code>|author-mask=1</code> for repeated author names in your works cited; all parenthetical citations need to be replaced with footnotes using {{tl|sfn}}; must punctuation in your sources need to be removed as the templates do that for you; and you need to use {{tl|harvtxt}} for citations in your endnotes. Also, letters and films have their own templates. I did a couple of these for you as examples. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:14, 12 April 2025 (EDT)

== "Remembering Norris" Tribute Remediation ==

Dr. Lucas, I have finished [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tributes to Norris Church Mailer/Remembering Norris|"Remembering Norris"]] by Margo Howard.—[[User:JHadaway|JHadaway]] ([[User talk:JHadaway|talk]]) 09:20, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JHadaway}} excellent! Thank you. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:35, 13 April 2025 (EDT)

== Norman Mailer: From Orgone Accumulator to Cancer Protection for Schizophrenics ==

Dr. Lucas,

The following article is ready for your review:
https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer:_From_Orgone_Accumulator_to_Cancer_Protection_for_Schizophrenics

I was unable to find the correct format for the first works cited entry under Mailer. It is a reprint of a magazine article. Thank you. [[User:JKilchenmann|JKilchenmann]] ([[User talk:JKilchenmann|talk]]) 16:28, 12 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| JKilchenmann}} you are a master remediator! Thank you for going above and beyond. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:44, 13 April 2025 (EDT)

==Tolls of War: Mailerian Sub-Texts in For Whom the Bell Tolls, Trust & Sparring with Norman==
Dr. Lucas, these were some of the smaller ones, so I went ahead and knocked them out. They are ready for review: [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Sparring with Norman|Sparring with Norman]], [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Trust|Trust]], and [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Tolls of War: Mailerian Sub-Texts in For Whom the Bell Tolls|Tolls of War: Mailerian Sub-Texts in For Whom the Bell Tolls]]. —[[User:Kamyers|Kamyers]] ([[User talk:Kamyers|talk]]) 10:27, 13 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Kamyers}} all excellent—above and beyond! Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:56, 13 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation for ''Death, Art, and the Disturbing: Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing'' ==

Hi everyone,
I am currently helping with the article, [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Death,_Art,_and_the_Disturbing:_Hemingway_and_Mailer_and_the_Art_of_Writing Death, Art, and the Disturbing: Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing]. It still has a good bit to go, if anyone wants to help out.
—[[User:CVinson|CVinson]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 5:17 PM, 13 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to|CVinson}} thanks! I added the author info. I'm not sure many will see your request; you might want to post it on the forum. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 14:56, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to|Grlucas}} Thank you for adding the author information and I have posted the request in the forum. Thank you! —[[User:CVinson|CVinson]] ([[User talk:CVinson|talk]]) 6:53 PM, 14 April 2025 (EDT)

== Mimi and Mercer ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}
I have corrected the Mimi Gladstein [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Piling On: Norman Mailer’s Utilization of Marilyn Monroe]] and removed all the red errors. I also have finishe the Erin Mercer article [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Automatons and the Atomic Abyss: The Naked and the Dead]], except the ''The Naked and the Dead'' in the display title. An error occured.
[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 19:26, 13 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} good work. There should be no footnotes in the endnotes, please. Since this is the only thing to correct, I have removed the banner, but please let me know when you made that final correction. Thanks! (I will respond about your second article shortly.) —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 14:59, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} your second article looks good. Could you use the [[w:Template:Cite interview|Template:Cite interview]] for interviews. I did one for you. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 16:33, 14 April 2025 (EDT)

== Through the Lens of the Beatniks Remediation ==

Hello, Dr. Lucas! I've completed the remediation of [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Through_the_Lens_of_the_Beatniks:_Norman_Mailer_and_Modern_American_Man’s_Quest_for_Self-Realization#CITEREFNaked1992|Through the Lens of the Beatniks]]. I wasn't able to get the letter citations exactly how I thought they should be. If there's anything I'm missing, please let me know! Thanks! [[User:Maggiemrogers|Maggiemrogers]] ([[User talk:Maggiemrogers|talk]]) 10:09, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Maggiemrogers}} got it! It looks great. I made some format changes, but you did a great job! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 15:58, 14 April 2025 (EDT)

== Finish Mimi ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}

I have made the final edit to Mimi and removed the footnotes from the endnotes. [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Piling_On:_Norman_Mailer’s_Utilization_of_Marilyn_Monroe]] [[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 15:50, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} you removed all the citations. Only '''footnotes''' need to be removed, but citations need to stay. I did the first note for you (now erased, but you can see it in the history) so you could see how it was done. You can also see [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Rumors of Grace: God-Language in Hemingway and Mailer|this one]]. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 16:52, 14 April 2025 (EDT)

== Completed? All You Need is Glove ==

Hi Dr. Lucas, I believe the book review, [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/All_You_Need_is_Glove|All You Need is Glove]] is done and ready for review! [[User:Hobbitonya|Hobbitonya]] ([[User talk:Hobbitonya|talk]]) 19:10, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Hobbitonya}} awesome work! Banner removed, and many thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:08, 16 April 2025 (EDT)

== Harv and Sfn no-target ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}
I changed the citations in the article to interview and I tried a few things to get rid of the Harv and Sfn no-target with little luck. [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Automatons_and_the_Atomic_Abyss:_The_Naked_and_the_Dead]]
[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 21:04, 14 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} this was because your interviews had no dates. Most are from Lennon's book, published in 1988. I added the dates to the citations, but the sfn footnotes need to be fixed to correspond with those. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:24, 16 April 2025 (EDT)
::{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} OK, between your fixes and my little tweaks, this one is finished! Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:50, 17 April 2025 (EDT)

== Erros fixed ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}
I have fixed all citation errors in both articles and added the harvtxt. Atomic Abyss still has the Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls error.
[[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Automatons_and_the_Atomic_Abyss:_The_Naked_and_the_Dead]]
:{{Reply to|MerAtticus}} see above. These still need fixing. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:35, 16 April 2025 (EDT)

[[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Piling_On:_Norman_Mailer’s_Utilization_of_Marilyn_Monroe]]
:{{Reply to|MerAtticus}} this one looks great! Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:35, 16 April 2025 (EDT)

[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 08:23, 15 April 2025 (EDT)

== completed: Advertisements for Others ==

Thanks to some classmates helping with the finishing touches, my second article should be ready. [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Advertisements_for_Others:_The_Blurbs_of_Norman_Mailer|Advertisements for Others.]]
--[[User:NrmMGA5108|NrmMGA5108]] ([[User talk:NrmMGA5108|talk]]) 19:24, 17 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{reply to| NrmMGA5108}} received, and thank you! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 08:15, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

== Two Poems Vol 4 Ready? ==

Hi Dr. Lucas! I think these two poems are ready for review: [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/The Boxer in the Park|The Boxer in the Park]] and Norman Mailer and [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norman_Mailer_and_Ernest_Hemingway_Do_Not_Box_in_Heaven|Ernest Hemingway Do Not Box in Heaven]]. The second on says the display title is wrong, but again, I don't know what I am missing there. Thank you![[User:Hobbitonya|Hobbitonya]] ([[User talk:Hobbitonya|talk]]) 09:05, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| Hobbitonya}} excellent! Thank you. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:56, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

== A Dialogue Essay on Mailer and Hemingway ==

Hey,

I see that [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/A Dialogue Essay on Mailer and Hemingway|A Dialogue Essay on Mailer and Hemingway]] is missing text. Can you email me a copy or link it as a reply, so I can remediate this article. [[User:APKnight25|APKnight25]] ([[User talk:APKnight25|talk]]) 09:44, 18 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| APKnight25}} you may download both volumes’ PDFs on the [https://forum.grlucas.net/t/project-mailer-assignments-remediation-project/88/3?u=grlucas forum]. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:40, 18 April 2025 (EDT)

== Almost complete ==

@grlucas
I've made a ton of progress.
The only thing I have left is going through all of the links to do away with harvtxt and sfn target error and an error for extra text in the author section. I fixed the error about using an "en" dash between years.
I'll still be working on it until tomorrow night, but please take a look: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Hemingway_and_Women_at_the_Front:_Blowing_Bridges_in_The_Fifth_Column,_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls,_and_Other_Works

@grlucas
I’ve gotten rid of the second of three error messages. Still looking for the harvtxt sfn target error.
[[User:LogansPop22|LogansPop22]] ([[User talk:LogansPop22|talk]]) 14:45, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

@grlucas
I’ve gone through every citation. Did the YEARa and YEARb designations. Made sure there weren’t extra spaces or missing {, |, or anything else.
I’ve corrected everything I can find after extensive proofreading. I still have the harvtxt and sfn no target error.
Here it is: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Hemingway_and_Women_at_the_Front:_Blowing_Bridges_in_The_Fifth_Column,_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls,_and_Other_Works
[[User:LogansPop22|LogansPop22]] ([[User talk:LogansPop22|talk]]) 19:50, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

== Articles complete ==

@grlucas
I have also made a lot of progress with my articles and luckily received a last minute assit from a few of my class mates. I beleive both volumes to be complete: Vol 4: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Mailer,_Hemingway,_and_the_%E2%80%9CReds%E2%80%9D (Which I believe has already been submitted) and Volume 5: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Making_Masculinity_and_Unmaking_Jewishness:_Norman_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Voice_in_Wild_90_and_Beyond_the_Law (I just received the final error correction from a fellow student.

I also started working on this Vol 4 article once I got back into the system: https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Style,_Politics,_and_Hemingway%27s_Spanish_Civil_War_Dispatches in my sandbox https://projectmailer.net/pm/User:KWatson/sandbox but another user has already completed it.

Please review my articles and advise what else is needed from me. Thank you [[User:KWatson|KWatson]] ([[User talk:KWatson|talk]]) 15:37, 19 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| KWatson}} OK, I already checked the [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Mailer, Hemingway, and the “Reds”|Peppard article]]. For [[The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Making Masculinity and Unmaking Jewishness: Norman Mailer’s Voice in Wild 90 and Beyond the Law|the Cohen]], the notes are still not quite right. Citations must be logically inserted. Instead of <blockquote>Mary V. Dearborn writes that Mailer picked up Yiddish at home from his parents, “enough so that many years later, in Germany, he was able to ask for directions in this language and be understood.” {{harvtxt|Dearborn|1999|p=14}}</blockquote> it should be <blockquote>Mary V. {{harvtxt|Dearborn|1999|p=14}} writes that Mailer picked up Yiddish at home from his parents, “enough so that many years later, in Germany, he was able to ask for directions in this language and be understood.” </blockquote> See the difference? Please be meticulous on these. Thanks. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 09:57, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

== Additional edits ==

Hello! I reformatted all in text citations, did some editing, and added page numbers to [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing|Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing]]- could you please take a look at the updated page and see if there's anything additional that it needs?

I was also wondering: on this page, I had also recieved confirmation from you that my [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/The American Civil War in The Naked and the Dead and Across the River and Into the Trees|originally assigned article]] was complete, and the banner could be removed. However, it is still showing as an X on the page, and I am unable to find the comment from you! Could you please clarify if anything needs to be fixed? Thanks so much!
[[User:KaraCroissant|KaraCroissant]] ([[User talk:KaraCroissant|talk]]) 16:25, 19 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| KaraCroissant}} good! I was making quite a few corrections on “[[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing|Mailer, Hemingway, and Boxing]],” but I stopped, figuring you might want to finish it. Put footnotes directly after the quotations, not all at the end of sentences. No spaces or line breaks before or after {{tl|pg}}. Use <code>|author-mask=1</code> with repeated author names in works cited entries, titles of books must be italicized like they are in the original text, etc. Thanks. After a few fixes, I removed the banner for the [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/The American Civil War in The Naked and the Dead and Across the River and Into the Trees|Meredith article]]. Well done. —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:20, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

== Civil War..Dispatched. ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}}

I believe the Hemingway's Spanish Civil War is complete except the harvtext were not working. [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Style,_Politics,_and_Hemingway's_Spanish_Civil_War_Dispatches]]
[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 17:37, 19 April 2025 (EDT)
:{{Reply to| MerAtticus}} I made many small corrections. Please view them in the history and continue in the same way. This one just needs a bit more attention. Thanks! —[[User:Grlucas|Grlucas]] ([[User talk:Grlucas|talk]]) 10:33, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

== Remediation, Vol. 4 & 5 ==

For your review,

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Norris_Church_Mailer:_An_Artist_from_Arkansas

https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Imagining_Evil:_The_Sardonic_Narrator_of_Mailer%E2%80%99s_Last_Novel (Wasn't sure whether or not to add the dinkus)

[[User:Wverna|Wverna]] ([[User talk:Wverna|talk]]) 11:15, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

== Hemingway ==

{{reply to|Grlucas}} I revised early this morning and I have gone back through it this afternoon. Hopefully it looks okay. Any ciations in the notes at this point is beyond my understanding of the topic. [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/Style,_Politics,_and_Hemingway's_Spanish_Civil_War_Dispatches]]

[[User:MerAtticus|MerAtticus]] ([[User talk:MerAtticus|talk]]) 14:11, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

== Combat ==
Hello
For your review [https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/What_Norman_Mailer_Taught_Me_about_Combat|What Norman Mailer Taught Me about Combat].
Completed by me and @Flowersbloom
[[User:Tbara4554|Tbara4554]] ([[User talk:Tbara4554|talk]]) 18:45, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

== Article Completed ==

Hi Dr. Lucas - I have finished the article [[The_Mailer_Review/Volume_4,_2010/“A_Noble_Pursuit”:_The_Armies_of_the_Night_as_Outside_Agitator|“A Noble Pursuit”: The Armies of the Night as Outside Agitator]]. Please let me know if any changes are needed. Thanks!--[[User:Chelsey.brantley|Chelsey.brantley]] ([[User talk:Chelsey.brantley|talk]]) 19:13, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

== A Dialogue Essay on Mailer and Hemingway ==

I believe I have finished remediating this [[The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/A Dialogue Essay on Mailer and Hemingway|article]]. [[User:APKnight25|APKnight25]] ([[User talk:APKnight25|talk]]) 22:44, 20 April 2025 (EDT)

== Volume 4 ==

https://projectmailer.net/pm/User:JBawlson/sandbox
Hi Dr. Lucas! I've finished remediating my article.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-20T15:27:07Z

JBawlson:

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.
''page 1''

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.

Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100)—Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.

Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity—of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.

Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.

Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

Mailer once said he couldn’t reach people like Hemingway. But his novel An American Dream proves otherwise. He takes Hemingway’s existential vision and reshapes it for a new age—one of media, masks, and moral chaos.

By Hemingway’s own standards, Mailer succeeds. He uses the tools of the past to create something personal, painful, and new. In doing so, he earns the title of “great artist” and becomes a guide for his own lost generation.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-20T15:25:40Z

JBawlson:

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.
''page 1''

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.

Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100)—Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.

Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity—of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.

Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.

Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

After the act, Rojack sees “heaven.” He describes emotional waves—hatred, illness, nausea—leaving his body. What’s left is clarity. Just like Hemingway’s “moment of truth,” Mailer stages a moment of transcendence.

This isn’t an endorsement of violence. It’s existential metaphor: the old self must die for the new self to emerge. That’s the price of freedom.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-20T15:25:02Z

JBawlson:

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.
''page 1''

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.

Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100)—Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.

Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity—of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.

Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.

Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

In a surreal twist, Rojack compares Deborah’s rage to that of a charging bull. Their confrontation becomes a psychological bullfight. He becomes the matador. She, the threat to his very selfhood.

The scene mimics Hemingway’s bullring: raw, brutal, spiritual. When Rojack “kills” Deborah, it’s not just murder—it’s a symbolic break from illusion. His liberation is disturbing, but intentional.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-20T15:24:29Z

JBawlson:

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.
''page 1''

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.

Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100)—Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.

Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity—of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.

Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.

Deborah isn’t just a woman—she’s a symbol of status, power, and inauthenticity. She’s the American Dream incarnate: seductive, powerful, destructive. To be free, Rojack must escape her. But she’s not letting go.

Their dynamic becomes a war—not just of people, but of philosophies. It’s not just man versus woman. It’s self versus system.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-20T15:23:58Z

JBawlson:

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{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.
''page 1''

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.

Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100)—Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.

Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity—of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.

Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

Rojack’s confession is raw: his parts don’t add up to a whole. Without Deborah, his wife and his societal anchor, he’s just another face in the crowd. But with her, he’s compromised.

This paradox drives him toward existential crisis. To live truthfully, he must break free from what sustains his public life. As Hemingway said of art: every part, if true, reflects the whole.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-20T15:23:30Z

JBawlson:

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.
''page 1''

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.

Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100)—Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.

Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity—of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.

Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.

Rojack concludes that death, dread, and even magic are the real motivators of life. His study turns into something larger: an attempt to make sense of existence through mortality.

Here, Sanders draws a clear line from Kierkegaard’s fear of living “in vanity” to Rojack’s fear that he has wasted his life pretending. If death makes us feel, then art helps us respond.

User:JBawlson/sandbox

2025-04-20T15:22:41Z

JBawlson:

{{user sandbox|plain=yes}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/{{''Death,Art, and the Disturbing'':Hemingway and Mailer and the Art of Writing }}}}
{{MR04}}
{{Working}} 
{{BYLINE|last=SANDERS|first=Jaime L.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr04sanders|abstract|mailer has been...uniform edition.|This paper served me...to participate.}}

Norman Mailer once said he didn’t have the kind of talent that Ernest Hemingway had—the kind that could reach a nation. But his work reveals otherwise. Though Mailer often downplayed Hemingway’s influence, a deeper look shows just how profoundly Hemingway shaped Mailer’s philosophy of writing and life. Both authors didn’t just write; they wanted their words to disturb, to awaken, and to transform the reader’s understanding of life, death, and art.
''page 1''

For Hemingway, great writing meant telling “honestly the things I have found true” (Death in the Afternoon 2). Mailer echoed this ethos, writing “to the limit of one’s honesty” and even scraping off a little dishonesty to get to what he called a “point of purity” (“The Hazards and Sources of Writing” 399). For both authors, honesty wasn’t just a stylistic preference—it was a moral imperative.

This demand for truth meant writing about all aspects of life: the beautiful, the brutal, and the downright disturbing. Hemingway put it bluntly: “If it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it” (Baker 153). Mailer agreed, emphasizing that a writer’s role is to disturb—not through shock value, but by exposing the raw roots of human experience (Foster 40).

Why did Hemingway and Mailer fixate on death, war, and violence? Because, to them, life includes darkness—and ignoring it would be dishonest. Mailer argued that life, if seen clearly, is disturbing. Hemingway wanted his readers to experience life “as it really is,” not as society prettifies it. Both believed literature’s job was to break through illusions and expand readers’ perceptions.

Sanders’ article beautifully aligns both writers with existentialism. Their writing isn’t just about storytelling; it’s about facing death and choosing meaning. Hemingway found his artistic center in the bullfight—where mortality and immortality collided. Mailer found his in the psychological space of violent death, as explored in An American Dream.

Existentialists argue that death can reveal how to live. Facing it forces individuals to live more authentically. For Hemingway and Mailer, this confrontation was essential to becoming an artist and a human being. The writer’s job was not just to reflect the world but to clarify it to reveal life’s wholeness and urge the reader to live deliberately.

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway compares the artist to the matador—daily confronting death to create meaning. Mailer takes this metaphor into a darker, modernized setting in An American Dream, where protagonist Rojack studies executions, battles suicidal thoughts, and struggles for personal authenticity.

Their characters don’t just witness death—they internalize it, wrestle with it, and use it to forge a self. Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, becomes a symbolic figure of resistance against cultural conformity and spiritual deadness.

Both authors saw literature as a weapon against cultural stagnation. Hemingway urged readers to break free from what they were taught to feel and create their own standards (Death 5, 10). Mailer put it succinctly: literature should “clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (Cannibals and Christians 98).

This is not a passive project. It’s revolutionary. Mailer’s brand of existentialism, infused with American grit and spirituality, aimed to shake readers into greater awareness. Hemingway did the same, albeit with a more stoic subtlety.

Although critics often misunderstood Hemingway and Mailer’s obsession with death, their work was never about glorifying violence—it was about confronting reality. They rejected the comforts of illusion and asked readers to do the same.

Mailer may have felt he couldn’t match Hemingway’s reach, but Sanders argues—and rightly so that An American Dream proves otherwise. In fact, by Hemingway’s own definition of a great artist one who takes what has been known and “goes beyond to make something of his own” (Death 100)—Mailer earned his place as a guide and prophet for his generation.

For existential thinkers, death is not the end—it's a mirror. Hemingway and Mailer use this mirror to inspire art. Death urges individuals to examine life as a whole, not just as fleeting moments. That "whole" gives life meaning, and it’s what both authors chase in their writing.

Hemingway’s bullfight captures this unity—of life, death, and immortality. Mailer, meanwhile, looks for it in personal and cultural violence. In both cases, death becomes the key to authenticity.

True artistry, Hemingway believed, involves stating the “real thing” purely enough that it endures forever. This blend of the eternal and the immediate defines his mission. Mailer mirrors this, understanding that art must express something lasting—even if it emerges from a specific, time-bound experience.

Their existentialism isn’t abstract. It’s felt in every line, every scene, every confrontation with death. The artist becomes the author not just of work, but of life.

Mailer called it the “existential state” of the novelist. To write truthfully, a writer must risk annihilation—of reputation, ability, or even sanity. Hemingway knew this well. His matador faced death in the ring; the artist faces it on the page.

Each book is a test: Can I still write? Do I still matter? In that anxiety lives the chance for greatness.

Hemingway and Mailer weren’t just concerned with aesthetics—they were cultural critics. Their works challenge the norms of capitalist America, where identity is shaped by profit and conformity. They expose a society that deadens creativity and encourages self-deception.

Their answer? Create an art that wakes people up. Show life as it really is, even if it disturbs.

Critics accused Hemingway and Mailer of glamorizing death. In truth, their use of violence was deeply philosophical. They believed the cultural obsession with superficial success killed individuality.

Mailer’s Rojack, like Hemingway’s matador, must face death to break from the lie. Their works confront readers with uncomfortable truths: the death of authenticity, of imagination, of self.

Mailer doesn’t just borrow ideas—he channels Hemingway’s spirit directly into his novel An American Dream. The character Rojack, haunted by death and shaped by war, walks a path strikingly similar to Hemingway’s own.

Even Rojack’s wounds recall Hemingway’s wartime injury. But unlike Hemingway’s characters, Rojack’s injury is existential as much as physical. He’s split between performance and truth, public life and private emptiness.

Rojack isn’t just a man—he’s a mask. He’s a war hero, a politician, a husband. But behind each role is a void. The war haunts him, not with glory, but with guilt. One look in the eyes of a man he killed convinces him: death isn’t emptiness. It’s truth.

That truth drives him to reject his public identity and search for something real—something earned, not assigned.

Where Hemingway turned to the bullring, Rojack chooses the execution chamber. Both settings allow them to explore death not as concept, but as experience. What does it mean to witness a life end? How does that change the one who watches?

Rojack’s psychological and spiritual descent parallels Hemingway’s bullfighters—brushing close to mortality to find meaning.