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{{quote|disturbing if it is indeed seen—may serve as a gadfly to complacency, institution, and the dead weight of public taste. (qtd. in Foster 40)}}
{{quote|disturbing if it is indeed seen—may serve as a gadfly to complacency, institution, and the dead weight of public taste. (qtd. in Foster 40)}}


Mailer’s admission that he tries to capture the“disturbing”by“going to the root of what is written about”and capturing life“as it really is”(Hemingway, “Letter to John”)—which“is always disturbing if it is indeed seen”—not only echoes Hemingway’s philosophy of portraying“the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful”(qtd. in Baker ), but Mailer’s focus on broadening readers’perceptions through art also recalls Hemingway’s focus on teaching his readers how to see the “danger,” “cruelty,” and the emotional experience of “life and death”in the bullfight as mere“parts”of the“whole” of the art of Spanish bullfighting (Hemingway, Death –). For both Hemingway and Mailer, writing honestly not only assists in the creation of the emotional experience the writer hopes to capture or convey in his/her writing, honest writing can also alter readers’ perceptions, “serve as a gadfly to complacency, institution, and . . . public taste,” and thus bring readers to a heightened awareness of self and world (qtd. in Foster ). Here we find what is at the core of Mailer and Hemingway’s artistic purposes: to shake us, wake us up, make us think, and make us change.
Mailer’s admission that he tries to capture the“disturbing”by“going to the root of what is written about”and capturing life“as it really is”(Hemingway, “Letter to John” 354)—which“is always disturbing if it is indeed seen”—not only echoes Hemingway’s philosophy of portraying“the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful”(qtd. in Baker 153), but Mailer’s focus on broadening readers’perceptions through art also recalls Hemingway’s focus on teaching his readers how to see the “danger,” “cruelty,” and the emotional experience of “life and death”in the bullfight as mere“parts”of the“whole” of the art of Spanish bullfighting (Hemingway, Death –). For both Hemingway and Mailer, writing honestly not only assists in the creation of the emotional experience the writer hopes to capture or convey in his/her writing, honest writing can also alter readers’ perceptions, “serve as a gadfly to complacency, institution, and . . . public taste,” and thus bring readers to a heightened awareness of self and world (qtd. in Foster ). Here we find what is at the core of Mailer and Hemingway’s artistic purposes: to shake us, wake us up, make us think, and make us change.
According to both Hemingway and Mailer, their focus on the disturbing aspects of life—including war, death, violence, murder, suicide, and animalistic brutality—stands at the core of both authors’philosophies of writing and of their artistic goals as writers. They strive to shake readers out of their normal ways of seeing, feeling, thinking, and being. In fact, they strive to get to the core, “the root,”“the purity,”“the real thing,” and present the “disturbing” (qtd. in Foster) and real in order to capture the “motion and fact”(Hemingway, Death ) that creates the emotion, bring readers to experience the thing for themselves,and thus bring readers to see life,themselves, and their worlds more “clearly” and as a “whole” (–).
According to both Hemingway and Mailer, their focus on the disturbing aspects of life—including war, death, violence, murder, suicide, and animalistic brutality—stands at the core of both authors’philosophies of writing and of their artistic goals as writers. They strive to shake readers out of their normal ways of seeing, feeling, thinking, and being. In fact, they strive to get to the core, “the root,”“the purity,”“the real thing,” and present the “disturbing” (qtd. in Foster) and real in order to capture the “motion and fact”(Hemingway, Death ) that creates the emotion, bring readers to experience the thing for themselves,and thus bring readers to see life,themselves, and their worlds more “clearly” and as a “whole” (–).
Writers, as Hemingway and Mailer suggest, have a responsibility to their art, their“working morale,”and their readers to try to get to the core of experience and show readers how to see self, world, life, and even art more clearly, honestly, and truly—without illusions (Mailer, “Hazards” ). In fact,in the opening pages of Death in the Afternoon,Hemingway urges readers to rely on their own “experience and observation,” to “only feel those things they actually feel and not the things they think they should feel” (, ), to feel “what you really felt, rather than what you were supposed to feel, and had been taught to feel” (), to create their own standards—both moral and aesthetic—and come to see the bullfight (and correlatively life, death, and art) more“clearly”and as a“whole”(, –). Significantly, Hemingway’s focus on the writer’s purpose as clarifying Americans’vision of self and world is Mailer’s stated artistic purpose as well.In Cannibals and Christians, Mailer succinctly states this Hemingwayesque philosophy in his claim that the highest purpose of literature is“to clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (). Mailer writes,
Writers, as Hemingway and Mailer suggest, have a responsibility to their art, their“working morale,”and their readers to try to get to the core of experience and show readers how to see self, world, life, and even art more clearly, honestly, and truly—without illusions (Mailer, “Hazards” ). In fact,in the opening pages of Death in the Afternoon,Hemingway urges readers to rely on their own “experience and observation,” to “only feel those things they actually feel and not the things they think they should feel” (, ), to feel “what you really felt, rather than what you were supposed to feel, and had been taught to feel” (), to create their own standards—both moral and aesthetic—and come to see the bullfight (and correlatively life, death, and art) more“clearly”and as a“whole”(, –). Significantly, Hemingway’s focus on the writer’s purpose as clarifying Americans’vision of self and world is Mailer’s stated artistic purpose as well.In Cannibals and Christians, Mailer succinctly states this Hemingwayesque philosophy in his claim that the highest purpose of literature is“to clarify a nation’s vision of itself” (). Mailer writes,
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