User:NrmMGA5108/sandbox: Difference between revisions

In order to maintain a sense of coherence within the narrator’s stream- of-consciousness, Mailer consistently returns to the icy road metaphor, making the short piece allegorical in nature. For the narrator, the dangers of driving on “a night as terrible as this—with sleet on the cusp of freezing” become inextricably linked with the dangers of monogamy (197, Dec. 1988). Toward the end of the story, the narrator “suddenly” realizes what he had been missing in his marriage: “a wife who could allow you to live not only with herself but with ten other women she could remind you of” (198, Dec. 1988). Mailer abruptly ends the piece with the narrator remembering his pledge of honesty to his wife. The narrator’s unknown plight must have left ''Playboy'' readers questioning the validity of taking a vow, as well as the

tumultuous affair with a married woman, so his sexuality is not ambiguous. And he is an intellectual, deeply entrenched in his research about the first serial documented serial killer. However, the focus of Durtal’s research is a man who “cannot speak of the thoughts I have when young boys pass before [his] eyes” (354). De Rais moves beyond the fifteenth-century acceptance of fornicating with young boys and begins to abduct, rape, and brutally murder them. Once dead, de Rais uses their bodies in unheard of ways for sexual pleasure. De Rais’ acts of necrophilia and pedophilia seem wildly extreme when compared to the tameness of gazing at a carefully posed centerfold. But the erotic nature of “Trial” and Mailer’s return to this century-old French novel about Satan in medieval Europe represent deviations from the literary selections of ‘’Playboy’’ that may leave readers questioning things. Why would editors pay for and publish fiction that undermines its stated heterosexual objectives? Mailer’s tripartite role as novelist, journalist, and historian explains the fascination with the historical content, but the story’s form and style are extremely peculiar. Why a screen treatment? Why the use of the second person point of view? The original protagonist was a thinly veiled caricature of the original author, so what kind of layer does a new author offer? The panoply of unanswered questions, especially why ‘’Playboy’’ would award it an annual prize when it has received scant criticism, proves that ‘’Playboy’’ editors were willing to publish fiction based on an author’s cultural status. The “Trial” and ‘’Ancient Evenings’’ might have undermined ‘’Playboy’’’s grand narrative of heterosexuality, but because they were written by Norman Mailer, editors, like Kretchmer, wanted to include them.

Besides Mailer’s work, ‘’Playboy’’’s relationship with literature is exceedingly complex. Recognized for publishing the century’s greatest writers, ‘’Playboy’’ introduced its readers to serious literature, fiction that most would likely have never have been read if it were not sandwiched between pictorials or garish cartoons. Produced as a guidebook for young, urban men, it is surprising that much of ‘’Playboy’’’s fiction destabilizes its grand narrative. Most of ‘’Playboy’’’s 1960s fiction could be classified as Gothic romance, which often includes narratives of traditional marriage. English and American Literature Gothic scholar Marilyn Michaud analyzes why ‘’Playboy’’’s early fiction “paradoxically” encouraged readers to become husbands. She questions “What does Gothic romance fiction teach the aspiring playboy? How does an aesthetically middle-brow publication with images of wholesome, semi-clad young women sit comfortably beside tales of horror and distress?” Exposing

the magazine’s internal contradictions, Michaud argues it is “not surprising” to find traditional narratives in ‘’Playboy’’ “given the gender politics and the national anxiety over masculinity in the postwar period.” Michaud concludes that the gothic stories, while seemingly paradoxical to Hefner’s agenda, reflect postwar culture because they focus on marriage and family. According to Michaud, teaching bachelors to be heroic rescuers of distraught females will teach them to be good husbands.

Therefore, it seems plausible that while ‘’Playboy’’ editors sought to publish approachable, entertaining fiction with masculine heroes, they would also publish works based on reputations or cultural myths regardless of the story’s content. In his ‘’Playboy’’ interview, Mailer endorses this cultural concept when he says that “if Hemingway had been a pimply-faced kid instead of the man he was, his books wouldn’t have had the audience they commanded” (84, Jan. 1968). For Mailer, Hemingway had a “clear image” because the work and the man “bore a certain resemblance to each other” (84, Jan. 1968). Mailer goes on to say that this clear image is often necessary: “Americans like answers, not enigmas” (84, Jan. 1968). During his life, Hemingway used his solid, masculine persona to boost book sales and ‘’Playboy’’ still uses that same sales model. And while Mailer confesses his “public personality probably hurts his sales” because it is much “more surrealistic” than Hemingway’s, ‘’Playboy’’ editors continued to rely on him as a contributor (84, Jan. 1968).