Mythic Mailer in An American Dream: Difference between revisions

Adding links
m (Adding links)
(Adding links)
Line 129: Line 129:
According to Andrew Gordon, dreams "are not detached from the rest of our mental life, but on the contrary are psychical acts of the deepest significance, because they put us in touch with the shadow land of the unconscious"{{sfn|Gordon|1977|p=100}}. Carl Jung defines this common dream world as the collective unconscious, "a sphere of unconscious mythology whose primordial images are the common heritage of mankind"{{sfn|Jung|1989|p=664}}. When the dreams are filled with an imagery common to all human beings, they become archetypal. Thus, Jung's primordial images are called archetypes, each "a figure---be it a demon, a human being, or a process--that constantly recurs in the course of history and appears wherever creative fantasy is freely expressed"{{sfn|Jung|1989|p=665}}. Myth has pervaded literature since man could fantasize.
According to Andrew Gordon, dreams "are not detached from the rest of our mental life, but on the contrary are psychical acts of the deepest significance, because they put us in touch with the shadow land of the unconscious"{{sfn|Gordon|1977|p=100}}. Carl Jung defines this common dream world as the collective unconscious, "a sphere of unconscious mythology whose primordial images are the common heritage of mankind"{{sfn|Jung|1989|p=664}}. When the dreams are filled with an imagery common to all human beings, they become archetypal. Thus, Jung's primordial images are called archetypes, each "a figure---be it a demon, a human being, or a process--that constantly recurs in the course of history and appears wherever creative fantasy is freely expressed"{{sfn|Jung|1989|p=665}}. Myth has pervaded literature since man could fantasize.


No one knows exactly where myth originates. The aesthetic beauty of the ancient Greek and Roman myths attests to human beings' desire to create meaning and harmony in our existence. This need arises from our deepest emotions (Cassirer 24). Different degrees of emotion lead to multiple levels of myth. Chase categorizes them in three ways: folktales and folklore, legends, and "the myth proper, an explanation or dramatization of nature or society" (36). A modem myth would most easily incorporate this last category because the word "modern" implies a break from the past, whereas folktales and legends are often ties to the past.
No one knows exactly where myth originates. The aesthetic beauty of the ancient Greek and Roman myths attests to human beings' desire to create meaning and harmony in our existence. This need arises from our deepest emotions{{sfn|Cassier|1946|p=24}}. Different degrees of emotion lead to multiple levels of myth. Chase categorizes them in three ways: folktales and folklore, legends, and "the myth proper, an explanation or dramatization of nature or society"{{sfn|Chase|1949|p=36}}. A modem myth would most easily incorporate this last category because the word "modern" implies a break from the past, whereas folktales and legends are often ties to the past.


How does a modern myth develop? Joseph Campbell describes the evolution of myth:
How does a modern myth develop? Joseph Campbell describes the evolution of myth:
Line 135: Line 135:
<blockquote>The material of myth is the material of our life, the material of our body, and the material of our environment, and a living, vital mythology deals with these in terms that are appropriate to the nature of knowledge of the time.{{sfn|Campbell|1990|p=1}}</blockquote>
<blockquote>The material of myth is the material of our life, the material of our body, and the material of our environment, and a living, vital mythology deals with these in terms that are appropriate to the nature of knowledge of the time.{{sfn|Campbell|1990|p=1}}</blockquote>


''<u>An American Dream</u>'' is a dramatization of 20th-century New York City. This intensely urban conglomerate talks on mythic dimensions as the setting for Mailer's mythic dialectic: the existential strengths of good and evil. Chase addresses the need for mythic literature to encompass this dialectic: "the creative artist must recapture a certain magical quality, a richness of imagery, a deeper sense of primeval forces, a larger order of aesthetic experience" (110). In ''<u>An American Dream</u>'', Mailer develops a modern myth which incorporates all these elements. By placing Rojack in New York City, Mailer puts his hero in a well-known urban area. This setting creates an antithetical environment from which Rojack can flee towards the ultimate spatial end, the jungles of South America. Tony Tanner emphasizes Mailer's incorporation of metaphor in the settings:
''<u>An American Dream</u>'' is a dramatization of 20th-century New York City. This intensely urban conglomerate talks on mythic dimensions as the setting for Mailer's mythic dialectic: the existential strengths of good and evil. Chase addresses the need for mythic literature to encompass this dialectic: "the creative artist must recapture a certain magical quality, a richness of imagery, a deeper sense of primeval forces, a larger order of aesthetic experience"{{sfn|Chase|1949|p=110}}. In ''<u>An American Dream</u>'', Mailer develops a modern myth which incorporates all these elements.  


<blockquote>Although the novel takes place in contemporary America, through the use of metaphor it opens on to every kind of presocial reality--the Jungle, the forest, the desert, the swamp, the ocean-bed. This metaphorical activity in the writing is so insistent that it provides a dimension of experience as real as that provided by the very detailed documentation of settings and scenes in contemporary New York. (358)</blockquote>
By placing Rojack in New York City, Mailer puts his hero in a well-known urban area. This setting creates an antithetical environment from which Rojack can flee towards the ultimate spatial end, the jungles of South America. Tony Tanner emphasizes Mailer's incorporation of metaphor in the settings:


The setting in which Rojack conducts his battle delineates the quality of his materialistic life, successful by contemporary New York City standards. New York City is often considered by New Yorkers, at least, ( and Mailer is one) to contain the essence of America. In ''<u>An American Dream</u>'', this essence is corrupt, so that Rojack is forced to flee the city and head West just as the pilgrims fled west from the stifling decadence of old Europe to the promise of the new land, America. In this country, New England has come to represent the old world. When Rojack heads West, he is seeking spiritual renewal in the innocence of our youngest region in terms of European settlement of the continent. In Missouri, a state from which 19th-century pilgrimages often started, he visits an old friend, a doctor, who invites him to observe an autopsy. The corpse is rotten and the gangrenous odor overwhelms Rojack. His description of the smell ominously echoes the rotten health of the country. The man had been suffering from cancer, to Rojack a disease synonymous with evil, but he had died from a secondary infection:
<blockquote>Although the novel takes place in contemporary America, through the use of metaphor it opens on to every kind of presocial reality--the Jungle, the forest, the desert, the swamp, the ocean-bed. This metaphorical activity in the writing is so insistent that it provides a dimension of experience as real as that provided by the very detailed documentation of settings and scenes in contemporary New York.{{sfn|Tanner|1971|p=358}}</blockquote>
 
The setting in which Rojack conducts his battle delineates the quality of his materialistic life, successful by contemporary New York City standards. New York City is often considered by New Yorkers, at least,(and Mailer is one) to contain the essence of America. In ''<u>An American Dream</u>'', this essence is corrupt, so that Rojack is forced to flee the city and head West just as the pilgrims fled west from the stifling decadence of old Europe to the promise of the new land, America. In this country, New England has come to represent the old world. When Rojack heads West, he is seeking spiritual renewal in the innocence of our youngest region in terms of European settlement of the continent. In Missouri, a state from which 19th-century pilgrimages often started, he visits an old friend, a doctor, who invites him to observe an autopsy. The corpse is rotten and the gangrenous odor overwhelms Rojack. His description of the smell ominously echoes the rotten health of the country. The man had been suffering from cancer, to Rojack a disease synonymous with evil, but he had died from a secondary infection:


<blockquote>the smell which steamed up from the incision was so extreme it called for the bite of one's jaws not to retch up out of one's own cavity. I remember I breathed it into the top of the lung, and drew not further. Pinched it off at the windpipe. . . . my friend apologized for the smell . . . . I must not judge from this what a body is like, he went on to say, because healthy bodies have a decent odor in death ... (265-266)</blockquote>
<blockquote>the smell which steamed up from the incision was so extreme it called for the bite of one's jaws not to retch up out of one's own cavity. I remember I breathed it into the top of the lung, and drew not further. Pinched it off at the windpipe. . . . my friend apologized for the smell . . . . I must not judge from this what a body is like, he went on to say, because healthy bodies have a decent odor in death ... (265-266)</blockquote>
424

edits