Mythic Mailer in An American Dream: Difference between revisions

With this emptiness, Rojack begins his quest for renewal--the pursuit of knowledge and the giving of love--by going to see Deborah. In the mythic character archetypes of "male-female polarity"--"hero-devil-god and woman-destroyer-preserver"{{sfn|Friedman|1975|p=309}}--Deborah is a destroyer. She attempts to occupy his newly voided center and, Rojack, in his mystically heightened state, senses her malevolence. In the struggle that occurs during their meeting, Rojack describes her action: she tried to find my root and mangle me"{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=30}}. Her desire is to destroy his creativity and selfhood. When he realizes this he kills her. His rational mind tries to stop him, but the inner voice, the voice that responded to the moon, pushes him on. "I could feel a series of orders whip like tracers of light from my head to my arm, I was ready to obey, I was trying to stop"{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=30}}. But he does not stop. He describes himself as "floating. I was as far into myself as I had ever been and universes wheeled in a dream" {{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=31}}. Murder is often necessary in myth because the destruction of evil and the growth of good are the most important things to be depicted. However, Rojack's murder of his wife, Deborah, understandably troubles readers. In defense of Rojack's action, Tanner insists that "When he [Rojack] murders Deborah, he is breaking free not just from a destructive woman, but from the picture of reality imposed by her world" {{sfn|Tanner|1971|p=359}}. Begiebing describes Deborah in explicitly mythic images. He defends Mailer against the accusations of sexism in this book:

Was Deborah so evil that her murder was not a act of greater evil on the part of Rojack? Or was Deborah a victim of evil and Rojack's act less than heroic--indeed, pathological? Deborah's father, Barney Kelly, describes Deborah's conception. While having sex with Deborah's mother, he claims: '"I took a dive deep down into a vow, I said in my mind; "Satan, if it takes your pitchfork up my gut, let me blast a child into this bitch! ""(240). Deborah's birth was a result of that satanic vow. Cursed from the beginning, Deborah, at age fifteen, again falls victim to her satanic father. He enters an incestuous relationship with her. Kelly describes his initial lust for her: "I felt an awful desire to go to her room: my teeth were literally grinding, my belly was a pit of snakes. It was as if the Devil had come into the room at that instant and was all over me ..." (250). Because the story is narrated only through Rojack's perspective, we never really know how complicitious Deborah actually was. But we do know that her conception and upbringing contributed to whatever degree she was evil. Shortly after he kills Deborah, Rojack himself discusses his own confusion over the essence of Deborah's nature and his own:

<blockquote>She was evil, I would decide, and then think next that goodness could come on a visit to evil only in the disguise of evil: yes, evil would know that goodness had come only by the power of its force. I might be the one who was therefore evil, and Deborah was trapped with me. Or was I blind? (32)</blockquote>

When Rojack enters that phase of life that sparks his heroic quest, he has been smothered by his own materialistic success and enveloped by his relationship with Deborah. A successful marriage is based on love. Rojack feels that their marriage was held together by hooks: "After Deborah had gotten her hooks into me, eight years ago she had clinched the hooks and they had given birth to other hooks. Living with her I was murderous; attempting to separate, suicide came into me" (9). As the first step towards his goal, he must kill the dragon--Deborah--menacing his path. Lennon elaborates on the possible justification of such an egocentric action:

<blockquote>If society stifles an individual, smothers him in conformity, then be cannot act in any moral way. Stultified by the homogenization of technological society, man's first impulse should be to escape--escape first, assertion of self first, change first--then morality, then self-discipline, then harmony, community, love. (149-150)</blockquote>

This freedom to act as an individual is a uniquely Western, and, more emphatically, American idea. Joseph Campbell discusses the difference between the Eastern mythologies and those of Europe. In the European myths, the emphasis was on an individual's own "potentiality" (212), while in the East, the emphasis was on the individual's role as part of the social order. In the European tradition, the individual, like Mailer with Rojack, must act outside the prevailing social mores in order to attain heroic status. Campbell writes: "Now there's the individual experience--refuting the values of the whole system" (213). By murdering Deborah, Rojack disregards contemporary social morality and substitutes his personal vision or values. He accepts responsibility for himself, thus taking the path to freedom.