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: Difference between revisions
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Hemingway’s ''Across the River'' and ''Into the Trees'' correlates his experiences and memories of trauma to his fiction.}} offers in the narrative calculus of ARIT a study of change in relation to the experience of trauma as the focus of his fiction, instead of the exploration of the effects of trauma or the spatial experience of trauma. Hemingway writes that Richard Cantwell observes that “[h]e [Gran Maestro] and the Colonel both remembered the men who decided that they did not wish to die; not thinking that he who dies on Thursday does not have to die on Friday” {{sfn|Hemingway|1967|p=61}}. In this passage, the external observations of the men are characterized as coalescing with the internal impressions of the narrator. The narrative calculus unfolds as Hemingway appears to examine the alterations of the narrative presence via the figure of Cantwell and his experiences of trauma. The presentation and representation of trauma, as an abject awareness and state, represents a variable that enables a narrative evolution in the structure of ARIT. The narrative’s treatment of trauma, which gives voice to an experience that is abject, alters the presentation of person, space, and time in the narrative structure of the novel. | Hemingway’s ''Across the River'' and ''Into the Trees'' correlates his experiences and memories of trauma to his fiction.}} offers in the narrative calculus of ARIT a study of change in relation to the experience of trauma as the focus of his fiction, instead of the exploration of the effects of trauma or the spatial experience of trauma. Hemingway writes that Richard Cantwell observes that “[h]e [Gran Maestro] and the Colonel both remembered the men who decided that they did not wish to die; not thinking that he who dies on Thursday does not have to die on Friday” {{sfn|Hemingway|1967|p=61}}. In this passage, the external observations of the men are characterized as coalescing with the internal impressions of the narrator. The narrative calculus unfolds as Hemingway appears to examine the alterations of the narrative presence via the figure of Cantwell and his experiences of trauma. The presentation and representation of trauma, as an abject awareness and state, represents a variable that enables a narrative evolution in the structure of ARIT. The narrative’s treatment of trauma, which gives voice to an experience that is abject, alters the presentation of person, space, and time in the narrative structure of the novel. | ||
Mailer’s novel adopts narrative strata that also illustrates a questioning of the previous representation of objectivity and subjectivity in war narratives. John Limon observes that NAD displays four levels of narrative influence in the work’s content and structure. For Limon, Mailer’s work reflects the in fluence of World War I—in its modernist meanderings, World War II—in its witnessing, interrogation, and visioning of totalitarianism, Cold War—in the book’s ideology, and World War III—in its prediction and inchoate eschatology | Mailer’s novel adopts narrative strata that also illustrates a questioning of the previous representation of objectivity and subjectivity in war narratives. John Limon observes that NAD displays four levels of narrative influence in the work’s content and structure. For Limon, Mailer’s work reflects the in fluence of World War I—in its modernist meanderings, World War II—in its witnessing, interrogation, and visioning of totalitarianism, Cold War—in the book’s ideology, and World War III—in its prediction and inchoate eschatology {{sfn|Limon|1994|p=134}}.These four elements of influence on Mailer’s text contribute to an understanding of how the “Time Machine” sections operate in the structuring of the narrative. {{efn|The time machine sections notably display the influence of John Dos Passos on Mailer’s writing and textual construction.}} Similar to Hemingway’s treatment involving | ||
{{pg| 321 | 322}} | {{pg| 321 | 322}} | ||
narrative calculus in his ARIT Mailer, too, plays with a variety of narrative positions in his novel in relation to trauma in war. The shifts in person, place, and even in thought contribute to providing a narrative voice to a previously silenced voicing of the experience of trauma during war. Mailer’s novel opens with, “Nobody could sleep” and continues in the second paragraph with “[a] solider lies flat on his bunk, closes his eyes, and remains wide awake” | narrative calculus in his ARIT Mailer, too, plays with a variety of narrative positions in his novel in relation to trauma in war. The shifts in person, place, and even in thought contribute to providing a narrative voice to a previously silenced voicing of the experience of trauma during war. Mailer’s novel opens with, “Nobody could sleep” and continues in the second paragraph with “[a] solider lies flat on his bunk, closes his eyes, and remains wide awake” {{sfn|Mailer|1948|p=3}}. In this passage, the narrative voice assumes a point-of-view situation that operates without a traditional deployment of narrative subjectivity or objectivity. This altered point of view is illustrated in the focus presented through the experience of “nobody,” and then it is further engaged by the assumption of a narrative position relegated to war trauma—“a soldier” {{sfn|Mailer|1948|p=3}}. The opening passages of the novel illustrate a shifting point of view in the structure of the novel that moves beyond traditional subjective and objective narrative presentations of war trauma. | ||
== TRAUMATIC POINTS OF VIEW: NARRATIVE STRUCTURES AND WAR IN HEMINGWAY AND MAILER == | == TRAUMATIC POINTS OF VIEW: NARRATIVE STRUCTURES AND WAR IN HEMINGWAY AND MAILER == | ||
Hemingway’s and Mailer’s focus on capturing the traumas of modern war and experience engages and deploys a testimony of questioning and confusion related to the trauma of war. The experience of trauma, in war, often is illustrated in the fictional narratives of war as not simply the threatening of one’s life but the recognition of the threat by the mind as occurring “one moment too late” | Hemingway’s and Mailer’s focus on capturing the traumas of modern war and experience engages and deploys a testimony of questioning and confusion related to the trauma of war. The experience of trauma, in war, often is illustrated in the fictional narratives of war as not simply the threatening of one’s life but the recognition of the threat by the mind as occurring “one moment too late” {{sfn|Caruth|1996|p=62}}. The necessity and impossibility of truly grasping the threat to one’s life is repeatedly confronted by both the act of survival and the traumatic experience itself. Thus, in the fictional retellings of traumas in narratives, the attempt is made to capture both the timeliness and timelessness of the experience of trauma. However, conventional narrative structures often do not allow the space or place for the representation of these abject understandings or experiences. The inability of traditional narrative structures to embody and reflect the experience of trauma in a narrative relates to the structuring of these conventional narratives which follow the lines of narrative arithmetic, geometry, and algebra. | ||
Hemingway and Mailer adopt a different structuring of their narratives involving the trauma of war. Instead of trying to use the traditional elements of narrative to engage the experience in a narrative, these authors use trauma to engage the structuring of the narrative. James Dawes asserts in The Language of War that “war thus initiates a semantic crisis, a crisis of meaning | Hemingway and Mailer adopt a different structuring of their narratives involving the trauma of war. Instead of trying to use the traditional elements of narrative to engage the experience in a narrative, these authors use trauma to engage the structuring of the narrative. James Dawes asserts in The Language of War that “war thus initiates a semantic crisis, a crisis of meaning | ||
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{{pg| 322 | 323}} | {{pg| 322 | 323}} | ||
premised upon disbelief in language’s ability effectively to refer to and intervene in the material world” | premised upon disbelief in language’s ability effectively to refer to and intervene in the material world” {{sfn|Dawes|2002|p=131}}. Dawes’ assertion opens the exploratory vista regarding the relationship between trauma and narrative, for the experience of war not only illustrates a disbelief in language—as unit—in capturing the experience of trauma, but it also engages a disenchantment with the ability of narrative or story to refer to or intervene. Hemingway and Mailer adapt narrative and elements of the experience of trauma in a narrative calculus that both reflects and creates from trauma and the experience of trauma in order to address the effect of trauma on narrative presentations of the war. | ||
The notion underlying a narrative evolution to a more calculean movement occurring as a result of war trauma focuses on the effects of war trauma on narrative point of view—specifically on the objectivity and subjectivity—operating in their World War II narratives. Lyndsey Stonebridge suggests that the trauma of war affects the understanding of narrative point of view profoundly in the structuring of war fiction. Stonebridge asserts that | The notion underlying a narrative evolution to a more calculean movement occurring as a result of war trauma focuses on the effects of war trauma on narrative point of view—specifically on the objectivity and subjectivity—operating in their World War II narratives. Lyndsey Stonebridge suggests that the trauma of war affects the understanding of narrative point of view profoundly in the structuring of war fiction. Stonebridge asserts that | ||
<blockquote> the only thing accidental about the experience of fighting in the trenches in the first war was that one managed to survive at all; nonetheless it was shell-shock that confirmed that the trauma of war, similarly, could obliterate the time of the mind . . . What could be described as a traumatic temporality set the terms for much literary and cultural modernism for the first part of the th century—as well as what was to follow. Freud’s originality was to insist that trauma not only had an effect on the mind, but that it constituted what we think of as human subjectivity itself. | <blockquote> the only thing accidental about the experience of fighting in the trenches in the first war was that one managed to survive at all; nonetheless it was shell-shock that confirmed that the trauma of war, similarly, could obliterate the time of the mind . . . What could be described as a traumatic temporality set the terms for much literary and cultural modernism for the first part of the th century—as well as what was to follow. Freud’s originality was to insist that trauma not only had an effect on the mind, but that it constituted what we think of as human subjectivity itself. {{sfn|Stonebridge|2009|p=196}}</blockquote> | ||
In this movement, the traumas of war do not simply ravage the participants physically, but the individuals who experience war trauma are traumatized more deeply by the idea, echoing Stonebridge that “the trauma of the war” undoes their “deepest fantasies of themselves as peacetime masculine subjects” | In this movement, the traumas of war do not simply ravage the participants physically, but the individuals who experience war trauma are traumatized more deeply by the idea, echoing Stonebridge that “the trauma of the war” undoes their “deepest fantasies of themselves as peacetime masculine subjects” {{sfn|Stonebridge|2009|p=197}}. Stonebridge’s argument focuses on the notion—introduced and engaged in the burgeoning psychoanalytic community surrounding the world wars— that the traumas of war do not only affect the bodies of the | ||
{{pg| 323 | 324}} | {{pg| 323 | 324}} | ||
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The undoing of the fantasy of subjectivity in relation to the experience of war trauma also relates to the evolution of (prior) narrative structures. The awareness that the trauma of war alters the understanding of subjectivity and objectivity and thus engages the necessary shifts that appear in the construction of narratives following the experience of trauma and war. Mailer’s narrative structure intimates this narrative shifting in both content and in construction in NAD. In one of the many “Time Machine” sections focusing on General Cummings, the narrative content and structure of the chapter reflects and creates from a narrative space of the undoing of subjectivity and objectivity as a result of the traumas of war. Mailer notes of Cummings that | The undoing of the fantasy of subjectivity in relation to the experience of war trauma also relates to the evolution of (prior) narrative structures. The awareness that the trauma of war alters the understanding of subjectivity and objectivity and thus engages the necessary shifts that appear in the construction of narratives following the experience of trauma and war. Mailer’s narrative structure intimates this narrative shifting in both content and in construction in NAD. In one of the many “Time Machine” sections focusing on General Cummings, the narrative content and structure of the chapter reflects and creates from a narrative space of the undoing of subjectivity and objectivity as a result of the traumas of war. Mailer notes of Cummings that | ||
<blockquote> He is always learning things, understanding already that his mind must work on many levels. There is the thing he thinks of as the truth, the objective situation which his mind must unravel; there is the “deep layer,” as he calls it, the mattress resting on the cloud, and he does not care to plumb for the legs; there is, and it is very important, the level where he must do and say things for their effect upon the men with whom he lives and works. | <blockquote> He is always learning things, understanding already that his mind must work on many levels. There is the thing he thinks of as the truth, the objective situation which his mind must unravel; there is the “deep layer,” as he calls it, the mattress resting on the cloud, and he does not care to plumb for the legs; there is, and it is very important, the level where he must do and say things for their effect upon the men with whom he lives and works. {{sfn|Mailer|1948|p=411}} </blockquote> | ||
In this passage, the content of the narrative reflects the experience of the trauma of war—following traditional narrative paradigms of arithmetic and geometry. However, the structure of the narrative creates from the experience of trauma—engaging the narrative exploration illustrated by the changed understanding of space, time, and place occurring in reaction to trauma experienced. In this calculean movement in the novel, Mailer’s narrative focuses on representing the many aspects of the experience of trauma—not only the limited subjective or objective presentations but also the abjective experience of trauma. | In this passage, the content of the narrative reflects the experience of the trauma of war—following traditional narrative paradigms of arithmetic and geometry. However, the structure of the narrative creates from the experience of trauma—engaging the narrative exploration illustrated by the changed understanding of space, time, and place occurring in reaction to trauma experienced. In this calculean movement in the novel, Mailer’s narrative focuses on representing the many aspects of the experience of trauma—not only the limited subjective or objective presentations but also the abjective experience of trauma. | ||