Mythic Mailer in An American Dream: Difference between revisions

When our hero Rojack begins to feel the disquieting effects of the consciousness of new awareness, he initiates his quest. In a quest-myth, the apparent goal might be to slay a dragon or kill the minotaur; the overarching goal is, as Campbell describes it, "[g]etting into harmony and tune with the universe and staying there" (1). Rojack's journey on the parapet echoes the myth of Parzival and the Holy Grail. Parzival's quest is to find the Grail and become its keeper. The Grail stands for a unity of self with the universe. Mailer is concerned with this lack of unity, man's separation from nature. Tanner correlates this concern with Rojack's walk upon the parapet:

<blockquote>If a man becomes aware of those dimensions of nature and super-nature from which he feels that the rest of society has resolutely closed itself off, where does that leave him standing? By analogy we might say on an edge as precarious as the parapet round a balcony. (359)</blockquote>

In pursuit of a sense of wholeness, Rojack performs the ritualistic walk on the parapet which gives him the strength to journey onward despite failure. He gains the courage to descend again into the often nightmarish world of the subconscious where anything is possible, morality is intensely subjective, and the "conquering heroic self awakes" (Frye 684). This heroic self must acquire a new consciousness, which Begiebing calls "the heroic consciousness" (1). Begiebing elaborates on his definition:

<blockquote>In general, the consciousness Mailer and his heroes seek would integrate conscious and unconscious life, awaken metaphorical vision, and regenerate the resources of divine energy in human beings. (1)</blockquote>

How Rojack seeks to acquire this heroic consciousness controls the action in the book. The action culminates in Rojack's walk upon the parapet. His attempt to walk the parapet, buffeted by nature and lured, or taunted, by the moon, takes on the appearance of ritual in the mythic aspects of the novel. Rojack feels that his successful walk upon the parapet, high above the city, is somehow essential to his life. Cassirer's scholarship on ritual and myth contributes to our understanding of the importance of Rojack's walk on the parapet. The ritual in a society explains and precedes the evolution of the myth and is as important as the myth itself. Cassirer states: "in order to understand myth we must begin with the study of rites" (24). Seen along one dimension, the walk on the parapet is an open clue from Mailer that this novel has mythic aspects. More importantly, the walk on the parapet is the climax of the book. The courage to complete the ritual is the courage to confront one's own existence. Frye writes: "in human life a ritual seems to be something of a voluntary effort (hence the magical element in it) to recapture a lost rapport with the natural cycle" (682). Continually, when Rojack is on the parapet, he feels the force of nature, both positive and negative. The moon, a mythic symbol of nature's cyclical rhythm, appears to give him strength. Rojack's courage is faltering, when he hears an inner voice:

<blockquote>But something else said, "Look at the moon, look up at the moon." A silvery whale, it slipped up from the clouds and was clear, coming to surface in a midnight sea, and I felt its pale call, princess of the dead, I would never be free of her, and then the most quiet of the voices saying, "You murdered. So you are in her cage. Now, earn your release. Go around the parapet again," and this thought was so clear that I kept going ... each step I took, something good was coming in, I could do this, I knew I could do it now. (259)</blockquote>