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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: Difference between revisions

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One of the interesting techniques Mailer uses in exploring the lives of the men fighting on the island is a device he calls “The Time Machine,” which takes the reader to events in the men’s lives before their service. While ''Time'' off handedly labeled these simply “flashbacks” and likened them to John Dos Passos’ use of realistic snapshots in the U.S.A. trilogy, Mailer’s portraits are not toss-off pieces, but instead provide information central to the overall tone and interpretation of the novel.{{sfn|War|1948|}}
One of the interesting techniques Mailer uses in exploring the lives of the men fighting on the island is a device he calls “The Time Machine,” which takes the reader to events in the men’s lives before their service. While ''Time'' off handedly labeled these simply “flashbacks” and likened them to John Dos Passos’ use of realistic snapshots in the U.S.A. trilogy, Mailer’s portraits are not toss-off pieces, but instead provide information central to the overall tone and interpretation of the novel.{{sfn|War|1948|}}


In the ten stories that comprise “The Time Machine,” Mailer offers the
In the ten stories that comprise The Time Machine, Mailer offers the
reader details regarding each subject’s life before the Army, essentially establishing a link between the person’s past and present. Many of them reveal
reader details regarding each subject’s life before the Army, essentially establishing a link between the person’s past and present. Many of them reveal the men at their most base—actors operating within the gritty drama of life. From this viewpoint, The Time Machine pieces point toward Mailer’s predecessors in American naturalism, such as Theodore Dreiser and Frank Norris. However, there is a nostalgic strain that runs through them as well. The combination of realism and nostalgia displays the young author’s skill in storytelling and purposely crafting an impression for the reader, as if hinting toward a nostalgic past within the naturalistic framework is a way of lessening the violence and disparity in these sections.
the men at their most base—actors operating within the gritty drama of life. From this viewpoint, “The Time Machine” pieces point toward Mailer’s predecessors in American naturalism, such as Theodore Dreiser and Frank Norris. However, there is a nostalgic strain that runs through them as well. The combination of realism and nostalgia displays the young author’s skill in storytelling and purposely crafting an impression for the reader, as if hinting toward a nostalgic past within the naturalistic framework is a way of lessening the violence and disparity in these sections.


For example, Mailer shows Red Valsen’s duality, almost lovingly describing him as having “an expression of concentrated contempt” and “tired eyes, a rather painful blue . . . quiet.”{{sfn|Mailer|1948|p=222}} With deft writing, Mailer also creates the suffocating Montana mines of the man’s youth, as well as the open road
For example, Mailer shows Red Valsen’s duality, almost lovingly describing him as having “an expression of concentrated contempt” and “tired eyes, a rather painful blue . . . quiet.”{{sfn|Mailer|1948|p=222}} With deft writing, Mailer also creates the suffocating Montana mines of the man’s youth, as well as the open road
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as a tool to elicit a specific feeling from the reader. His style—the “silver cornfields”—acts as an additional character as the reader travels through Valsen’s remembered past.
as a tool to elicit a specific feeling from the reader. His style—the “silver cornfields”—acts as an additional character as the reader travels through Valsen’s remembered past.


Mailer certainly understood the realist aspects of “The Time Machine” essays and ''The Naked and the Dead'' as a whole. But to consider them nothing more than simple reportage, or “massive amounts of research, seemingly assembled rather than written . . . in a crude unexpanded note form,” as Nigel Leigh describes them, is a terrible injustice to the part they play in clarifying
Mailer certainly understood the realist aspects of The Time Machine essays and ''The Naked and the Dead'' as a whole. But to consider them nothing more than simple reportage, or “massive amounts of research, seemingly assembled rather than written . . . in a crude unexpanded note form,” as Nigel Leigh describes them, is a terrible injustice to the part they play in clarifying
each man’s past and adding context to the group’s role in the attack on
each man’s past and adding context to the group’s role in the attack on
Anopopei.{{sfn|Leigh|1987|p=427}} Three years after publishing the novel, Mailer told ''The New York Times'' that he respected, but felt hamstrung, by “that terrible word naturalism.”{{sfn|Breit|1951|p=20}} Obviously, for the author, there was more at stake with The Time Machine pieces than simply pushing a political or ideological agenda.
Anopopei.{{sfn|Leigh|1987|p=427}} Three years after publishing the novel, Mailer told ''The New York Times'' that he respected, but felt hamstrung, by “that terrible word naturalism.”{{sfn|Breit|1951|p=20}} Obviously, for the author, there was more at stake with The Time Machine pieces than simply pushing a political or ideological agenda.
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Given that ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'' and ''The Naked and the Dead'' were published a mere eight years apart, the use of nostalgia within the narratives and as a literary technique speaks to the role of nostalgia in that era dominated by war, its consequences, and its immediate aftermath. As Sprengler notes, the interpretation of nostalgia had gone through a transformation in the early years of the twentieth century “within modernity because of industrialization, technological modernization and urbanization.”{{sfn|Sprengler|2009|p=16}} Leigh, for example, then views  
Given that ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'' and ''The Naked and the Dead'' were published a mere eight years apart, the use of nostalgia within the narratives and as a literary technique speaks to the role of nostalgia in that era dominated by war, its consequences, and its immediate aftermath. As Sprengler notes, the interpretation of nostalgia had gone through a transformation in the early years of the twentieth century “within modernity because of industrialization, technological modernization and urbanization.”{{sfn|Sprengler|2009|p=16}} Leigh, for example, then views  
“The Time Machine” sections of Mailer’s novel as fixing the characters “unalterably to their environments . . . to a reality that is shown to be static and unchanging.”{{sfn|Leigh|1987|p=427}} Looking into the past, then, for some
The Time Machine sections of Mailer’s novel as fixing the characters “unalterably to their environments . . . to a reality that is shown to be static and unchanging.”{{sfn|Leigh|1987|p=427}} Looking into the past, then, for some
guidance or grounding within the current environment would provide solace for people going through tremendous change, whether it is for the authors, the characters they create, or for their readers.
guidance or grounding within the current environment would provide solace for people going through tremendous change, whether it is for the authors, the characters they create, or for their readers.


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