The Mailer Review/Volume 13, 2019/“Her Problems Were Everyone’s Problems”: Self and Gender in The Deer Park: Difference between revisions

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If Dorothea’s life is one of misery and happiness, loss and gain, Elena shares much with her, but is quite different from her, as well. She was born into an unhappy family. Her father is “a bully” and so is her mother. Neither of them treats her really well. The mother coddles Elena but scolds her as
If Dorothea’s life is one of misery and happiness, loss and gain, Elena shares much with her, but is quite different from her, as well. She was born into an unhappy family. Her father is “a bully” and so is her mother. Neither of them treats her really well. The mother coddles Elena but scolds her as
well, “made much of her and ignored her, given her ambitions and chased them away.”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=104}} The father does not like Elena because “she was the youngest and she had come much too late .”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=104}} Although she has a big family consisting of brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, cousins, and grandparents, she does not feel that it is a happy one because “fist fights started” whenever there is a family party. In addition, the father is “a dandy” and “could not be alone with a woman without trying to make love to her,” and the mother is “a flirt,” always greedy and jealous (). Born into such a family, Elena suffers significantly and experiences more misery than any other girl her age. When she is a child, more often than not, she “would cry silently while the mother and father yelled insults at one another” and therefore she has to spend her childhood “listening to their jealous quarrels.”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=104,105}} She has her first love affair when she is in her teens, with Collie Munshin. She lives with him for three years but fails to develop her relationship with him into marriage. She loves him but receives no love in return. In her eyes, Collie is “a hypocrite” because he claims himself to be “a good liberal” who does not believe in a double standard but rather in the equality between man and woman, white and black, and the rich and the poor, but he looks down upon Elena for no other reason than that “she’s obviously from a poor background.”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=49}} Unlike what he claims himself to be, Collie has “always been full of prejudices about women” and “wanted girls with some class and distinction to them.”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=49}} It is no wonder that three years of living with Elena is not long enough for him to develop a bit of love for her. Although he believes that “Elena is a person who hates everything that is small in herself” and is “consumed by the passion to become a bigger person than she is” and therefore is “the sort of girl who would love a husband and kids”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=50}}, he sees her as just “a beautiful, warm, simple child”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=48}}; that is to say, he never sees her as his equal. Being innocent, Elena spends three years being cheated on by Collie. Although she is Collie’s mistress, she has never been treated as such by him. To Collie, Elena is not a “beautiful, warm, simple” young woman who has given herself wholly to him but a possession he can exchange with others when he becomes fatigued with the relationship, which is the reason why Collie transfers Elena to Charley Eitel. Leaving Collie and coming to Eitel, Elena seems to have freed herself from imprisonment, just as the narrator says, “she reminded me of an animal, ready for flight.”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=71}}
well, “made much of her and ignored her, given her ambitions and chased them away.”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=104}} The father does not like Elena because “she was the youngest and she had come much too late .”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=104}} Although she has a big family consisting of brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, cousins, and grandparents, she does not feel that it is a happy one because “fist fights started” whenever there is a family party. In addition, the father is “a dandy” and “could not be alone with a woman without trying to make love to her,” and the mother is “a flirt,” always greedy and jealous.{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=104}} Born into such a family, Elena suffers significantly and experiences more misery than any other girl her age. When she is a child, more often than not, she “would cry silently while the mother and father yelled insults at one another” and therefore she has to spend her childhood “listening to their jealous quarrels.”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=104,105}} She has her first love affair when she is in her teens, with Collie Munshin. She lives with him for three years but fails to develop her relationship with him into marriage. She loves him but receives no love in return. In her eyes, Collie is “a hypocrite” because he claims himself to be “a good liberal” who does not believe in a double standard but rather in the equality between man and woman, white and black, and the rich and the poor, but he looks down upon Elena for no other reason than that “she’s obviously from a poor background.”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=49}} Unlike what he claims himself to be, Collie has “always been full of prejudices about women” and “wanted girls with some class and distinction to them.”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=49}} It is no wonder that three years of living with Elena is not long enough for him to develop a bit of love for her. Although he believes that “Elena is a person who hates everything that is small in herself” and is “consumed by the passion to become a bigger person than she is” and therefore is “the sort of girl who would love a husband and kids”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=50}}, he sees her as just “a beautiful, warm, simple child”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=48}}; that is to say, he never sees her as his equal. Being innocent, Elena spends three years being cheated on by Collie. Although she is Collie’s mistress, she has never been treated as such by him. To Collie, Elena is not a “beautiful, warm, simple” young woman who has given herself wholly to him but a possession he can exchange with others when he becomes fatigued with the relationship, which is the reason why Collie transfers Elena to Charley Eitel. Leaving Collie and coming to Eitel, Elena seems to have freed herself from imprisonment, just as the narrator says, “she reminded me of an animal, ready for flight.”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=71}}


Indeed, living with Eitel, Elena feels quite different than when she is with Collie. Eitel is a man of over forty. He has “a big reputation as a film director” but is “better known in other ways” because he experiences more than one marriage and is believed to be “the cause of more than one divorce.”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=24}} He has had three failed marriages and more than one love affair before he meets Elena. His first wife “worked in a bookstore to support him”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=26}}, but as his own career grows, he begins to forget what she has done and sacrificed for him because “he wanted a woman who was more attractive, more intelligent, more his equal” and even “wanted more than one woman”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=27}}. Quarrels between them become more and more routine and, as a result, they end up divorced. His second wife is an actress from the social register. From her, he “picked up what he wanted and paid for it of course”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=28}}. Like his first wife, his second wife ends her relationship with him in a divorce. After divorce, Eitel is commissioned into the Army in Europe and, when he comes back from the war, he becomes extremely notorious because “there was a year or two when he was supposed to have slept with half the good-looking women in the capital, and it was a rare week which did not have his name in one gossip column or another.”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=28}} His third wife is a woman named Lulu Meyers. She is beautiful and young and therefore “he hardly believed she needed him.”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=29}} Knowing that his marriage with her “could never last”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=31}}, he soon falls into an affair with a Romanian actress, which lasts just one year. Although he has never been faithful to any woman that he has ever been with, he believes that he is truly loyal to his Romanian woman, as he states:
Indeed, living with Eitel, Elena feels quite different than when she is with Collie. Eitel is a man of over forty. He has “a big reputation as a film director” but is “better known in other ways” because he experiences more than one marriage and is believed to be “the cause of more than one divorce.”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=24}} He has had three failed marriages and more than one love affair before he meets Elena. His first wife “worked in a bookstore to support him”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=26}}, but as his own career grows, he begins to forget what she has done and sacrificed for him because “he wanted a woman who was more attractive, more intelligent, more his equal” and even “wanted more than one woman”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=27}}. Quarrels between them become more and more routine and, as a result, they end up divorced. His second wife is an actress from the social register. From her, he “picked up what he wanted and paid for it of course”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=28}}. Like his first wife, his second wife ends her relationship with him in a divorce. After divorce, Eitel is commissioned into the Army in Europe and, when he comes back from the war, he becomes extremely notorious because “there was a year or two when he was supposed to have slept with half the good-looking women in the capital, and it was a rare week which did not have his name in one gossip column or another.”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=28}} His third wife is a woman named Lulu Meyers. She is beautiful and young and therefore “he hardly believed she needed him.”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=29}} Knowing that his marriage with her “could never last”{{sfn|Radford|1975|p=31}}, he soon falls into an affair with a Romanian actress, which lasts just one year. Although he has never been faithful to any woman that he has ever been with, he believes that he is truly loyal to his Romanian woman, as he states:
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