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Mythic Mailer in An American Dream: Difference between revisions
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<blockquote>When meaningful, coherent, and illuminating parallels are discerned, the work may be interpreted in terms of the myth. Often what appears fragmentary or only partly disclosed in the work may be revealed as complete and explicit through the myth .... It is not an interior approach asserting that myth was present at the conception and execution of the work; it rather asserts that myth may be brought to the work at its reading.{{sfn|Blotner|1956|p=548}}</blockquote> | <blockquote>When meaningful, coherent, and illuminating parallels are discerned, the work may be interpreted in terms of the myth. Often what appears fragmentary or only partly disclosed in the work may be revealed as complete and explicit through the myth .... It is not an interior approach asserting that myth was present at the conception and execution of the work; it rather asserts that myth may be brought to the work at its reading.{{sfn|Blotner|1956|p=548}}</blockquote> | ||
I believe that bringing a mythic perspective to '' | I believe that bringing a mythic perspective to ''An American Dream'' is the best way to understand it because myth forms the structural and thematical core of the book. Myths often appear to have unrealistic plots and incredible characters because they deal with the universal and the extreme. In this paper I will attempt to demonstrate this mythic relationship in three ways. I will begin by establishing that myth and Mailer's particular cosmology underlie and inform the romantic nature of this novel. Next, I intend to discuss how the mythic elements Mailer uses in this work contribute to the evolving myth of America. In conclusion, I will show how the novel's particularly American hero, Stephen Rojack, and his ultimate feat--his walk upon the parapet, relate to specific ancient and modern myths. In addition, I will note that although Mailer does not use only one myth to tell his story (he borrows from many myths), his protagonist Stephen Rojack follows the basic quest-myth or monomyth as described by Joseph Campbell in ''The Hero With a Thousand Faces''. | ||
Before I begin, the mythic aspects of the plot should be noted. '' | Before I begin, the mythic aspects of the plot should be noted. ''An American Dream'' follows Rojack through a violence ridden thirty-two hours as he searches for a way back to internal and external harmony. The novel's action takes place during the roughly one day-and-a-half following Rojack's murder of his wife. Mailer makes Rojack a rather ironic hero at the start. He is a former WWII war hero who has become a man of some stature in his community. Through his accomplishments while attaining the status of congressman, professor, and television celebrity, Rojack has attained the materialistic success associated with the American dream. He has plenty of money, friends, and possessions. However, at a party, Rojack, age forty-four, suddenly comes face to face with his lack of authentic heroic status and the futility of his existence. Through the voice of the moon, he hears the call of the true voice of nature which leads to a higher existence, but an existence that demands his sacrifice of the trappings of the American dream as he has accepted it. To add to Rojack's difficulties and confusion, the voice of the moon is dualistic. At one point, its message appears to encourage his suicide (his own inner voice tells him that his life is a fraud); at another point, its words seem to promise him unlimited spiritual fulfillment. Rojack hearkens to this second call which beckons him towards a quest--the pursuit of an alternative American dream--the unlimited opportunity to live an Edenic existence which transcends the innate corruption of human nature. | ||
Rojack's wife Deborah is the first obstacle in his path. He realizes that his marriage to her has a Faustian taint. She is the Mephistopheles to his Faust. Sensing that her destruction is necessary for him to start down his new path, he strangles her for the same reasons the ancient heroes slew their dragons, then throws her body over the balcony in order to make it look like a suicide. Rojack describes her murder as opening the door to a new world for himself: "I had a view of what was on the other side of the door, and heaven was there".{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=31}} Challenges of mythic proportions begin immediately after the murder. Down on the street, Deborah's body has become partially wedged beneath the front tire of a gangster's car. The gangster, Eddie Ganucci, is wanted by the police. He has the opportunity to walk away in the confusion, but, superstitiously in fear of a curse, refuses to leave a dead woman's body. Both Ganucci and Rojack voluntarily go down to the police headquarters where they are individually questioned about their alleged crimes. | Rojack's wife Deborah is the first obstacle in his path. He realizes that his marriage to her has a Faustian taint. She is the Mephistopheles to his Faust. Sensing that her destruction is necessary for him to start down his new path, he strangles her for the same reasons the ancient heroes slew their dragons, then throws her body over the balcony in order to make it look like a suicide. Rojack describes her murder as opening the door to a new world for himself: "I had a view of what was on the other side of the door, and heaven was there".{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=31}} Challenges of mythic proportions begin immediately after the murder. Down on the street, Deborah's body has become partially wedged beneath the front tire of a gangster's car. The gangster, Eddie Ganucci, is wanted by the police. He has the opportunity to walk away in the confusion, but, superstitiously in fear of a curse, refuses to leave a dead woman's body. Both Ganucci and Rojack voluntarily go down to the police headquarters where they are individually questioned about their alleged crimes. | ||
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After Rojack impregnates Cherry, he engages in the ritualistic aspect of this mythic plot by journeying uptown to visit Deborah's father, Barney Kelly. His trip echoes that of the few mythic heroes who descended into the shadowland of Hades. While he is with Kelly, who describes himself as a "solicitor for the Devil", {{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=236}} Rojack realizes that, in atonement for Deborah's murder, he must walk the parapet on Kelly's balcony thirty floors above the city. This ritualistic act expresses Rojack's dilemma over the existential nature of good and evil. He completes one circuit of the parapet and jumps down to safety as Kelly reaches to knock him off. Intuitively, he knows that he needs to walk the parapet again for Cherry's sake, yet he does not. Consequently, he returns to Harlem to discover her dead and with her their future child. His failure to completely fulfill the demands of the ritual echoes the failure of the Grail heroes, especially that of Parzival. Alone, Rojack heads for the proverbial West. The book ends as he leaves first for Las Vegas, and then down into the primitive depths of South America where the aboriginal American dream may still exist. | After Rojack impregnates Cherry, he engages in the ritualistic aspect of this mythic plot by journeying uptown to visit Deborah's father, Barney Kelly. His trip echoes that of the few mythic heroes who descended into the shadowland of Hades. While he is with Kelly, who describes himself as a "solicitor for the Devil", {{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=236}} Rojack realizes that, in atonement for Deborah's murder, he must walk the parapet on Kelly's balcony thirty floors above the city. This ritualistic act expresses Rojack's dilemma over the existential nature of good and evil. He completes one circuit of the parapet and jumps down to safety as Kelly reaches to knock him off. Intuitively, he knows that he needs to walk the parapet again for Cherry's sake, yet he does not. Consequently, he returns to Harlem to discover her dead and with her their future child. His failure to completely fulfill the demands of the ritual echoes the failure of the Grail heroes, especially that of Parzival. Alone, Rojack heads for the proverbial West. The book ends as he leaves first for Las Vegas, and then down into the primitive depths of South America where the aboriginal American dream may still exist. | ||
Mailer describes Rojack's journey in both fantastic and realistic terms. Critics have argued strenuously which is which. It is important while studying '' | Mailer describes Rojack's journey in both fantastic and realistic terms. Critics have argued strenuously which is which. It is important while studying ''An American Dream'' to remember that Mailer is primarily writing a myth. Myth is the unifying principle underlying the romantic aspects of this novel. In this section of my paper I will show how both romance and realism contribute to the myth. | ||
Ironically, most critics who are unhappy with the book mention its lack of realism. In some ways, Mailer uses the mythic aspects of '' | Ironically, most critics who are unhappy with the book mention its lack of realism. In some ways, Mailer uses the mythic aspects of ''An American Dream'' to explore his own concept of reality. Mailer basically thinks in mythic terms; he is a mythic realist.{{sfn|Adams|1975|p=211}} When asked about the basis of reality in this particular novel, Mailer replied: | ||
<blockquote>There wasn't a single phenomenon in that book that I consider dream-like or fanciful or fantastical. To me, it was a realistic book, but a realistic book at that place where extraordinary things are happening. I believe the experience of extraordinary people in extraordinary situations is not like our ordinary realistic experience at all.{{sfn|Adams|1975|p=211-212}} </blockquote> | <blockquote>There wasn't a single phenomenon in that book that I consider dream-like or fanciful or fantastical. To me, it was a realistic book, but a realistic book at that place where extraordinary things are happening. I believe the experience of extraordinary people in extraordinary situations is not like our ordinary realistic experience at all.{{sfn|Adams|1975|p=211-212}} </blockquote> | ||
To Mailer, intensifying the realistic action deepens the mythic dimension of his work. However, myth does not function easily in realistic genres. Ernst Cassirer writes that myth itself is "incoherent, capricious, irrational".{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=18}} Laura Adams states that "one of the mistakes many critics made in first reviewing it ['' | To Mailer, intensifying the realistic action deepens the mythic dimension of his work. However, myth does not function easily in realistic genres. Ernst Cassirer writes that myth itself is "incoherent, capricious, irrational".{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=18}} Laura Adams states that "one of the mistakes many critics made in first reviewing it [''An American Dream''] was to take it too literally".{{sfn|Adams|1975|p=210}} Merrill agrees with Adams: "to read ''An American Dream'' as a realistic novel is to misread it altogether".{{sfn|Merrill|1978|p=69}} Such critics misunderstand how myth structures the book and deepens its universality. | ||
Mailer puts mythic form into his novel in order to add universal significance to Rojack's quest. In both primitive and advanced societies, myth has addressed the human need to acquire a sense of meaning from a seemingly formless and chaotic existence. Joseph Campbell describes the inherent purpose of myth: "Getting into harmony and tune with the universe and staying there is the principal function of mythology".{{sfn|Campbell|1990|p=1-2}} Campbell's conception of getting in tune with the universe is not a scientific and rational process; thus myth necessarily appeals to our non-rational side. Mailer has long been concerned with the overly rational, scientific aspect of American culture. In some ways, '' | Mailer puts mythic form into his novel in order to add universal significance to Rojack's quest. In both primitive and advanced societies, myth has addressed the human need to acquire a sense of meaning from a seemingly formless and chaotic existence. Joseph Campbell describes the inherent purpose of myth: "Getting into harmony and tune with the universe and staying there is the principal function of mythology".{{sfn|Campbell|1990|p=1-2}} Campbell's conception of getting in tune with the universe is not a scientific and rational process; thus myth necessarily appeals to our non-rational side. Mailer has long been concerned with the overly rational, scientific aspect of American culture. In some ways, ''An American Dream'' is a mythic weapon Mailer uses in his personal battle with our overly technological society. This use of his novel echoes Rojack's use of myth as a weapon against the evils of his society. | ||
The most astute critics realize that Mailer is writing his myth in the tradition of the 19th-century American romantics, who were also concerned with the mixed blessings of scientific advancement. John Aldridge discusses '' | The most astute critics realize that Mailer is writing his myth in the tradition of the 19th-century American romantics, who were also concerned with the mixed blessings of scientific advancement. John Aldridge discusses ''An American Dream'' as working in | ||
<blockquote>the tradition of the prose romance, in which fantasy and fact, witchcraft and melodrama, myth, allegory, and realism combine to produce what Richard Chase has called "a profound poetry of disorder."{{sfn|Aldidge|1966|p=161}}</blockquote> | <blockquote>the tradition of the prose romance, in which fantasy and fact, witchcraft and melodrama, myth, allegory, and realism combine to produce what Richard Chase has called "a profound poetry of disorder."{{sfn|Aldidge|1966|p=161}}</blockquote> | ||
Mailer's characters are believable, although their actions are not always compatible with realism. However, Mailer believes that the characters in '' | Mailer's characters are believable, although their actions are not always compatible with realism. However, Mailer believes that the characters in ''An American Dream'' are credible and that his plot is plausible. It is Mailer's melding of realism and romance that fuels the critical controversy. Ultimately, it is not the realistic Mailer, who produced The Naked and the Dead or The Executioner's Song, who is writing ''An American Dream'', but the romantic Mailer, echoing the romantics of the American Renaissance. Using elements of this genre, Mailer feels free to indulge himself by developing his own cosmology while giving his mythic work a particularly 20th-century flavor. Aldridge insists: | ||
<blockquote>The book's antecedents were not the novels of Henry James or Jane Austen but the romances of Cooper, Melville, and Hawthorne, and one of Mailer's contributions was to rehabilitate the form of the romance and adapt it to the literary needs of the immediate present.{{sfn|Aldidge|1966|p=161}}</blockquote> | <blockquote>The book's antecedents were not the novels of Henry James or Jane Austen but the romances of Cooper, Melville, and Hawthorne, and one of Mailer's contributions was to rehabilitate the form of the romance and adapt it to the literary needs of the immediate present.{{sfn|Aldidge|1966|p=161}}</blockquote> | ||
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<blockquote>When a writer calls his work a Romance, it need hardly be observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its fashion and material, which he would not have felt himself entitled to assume had he professed to be writing a Novel. The latter form of composition is presumed to aim at a very minute fidelity, not merely to the possible, but to the probable and ordinary course of man's experience. The former--while, as a work of art, it must rigidly subject itself to laws, and while it sins unpardonably so far as it may swerve aside from the truth of the human heart--has fairly a right to present that truth under circumstances, to a great extent, of the writer's own choosing or creation.{{sfn|Hawethorne|1961|p=vii}}</blockquote> | <blockquote>When a writer calls his work a Romance, it need hardly be observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its fashion and material, which he would not have felt himself entitled to assume had he professed to be writing a Novel. The latter form of composition is presumed to aim at a very minute fidelity, not merely to the possible, but to the probable and ordinary course of man's experience. The former--while, as a work of art, it must rigidly subject itself to laws, and while it sins unpardonably so far as it may swerve aside from the truth of the human heart--has fairly a right to present that truth under circumstances, to a great extent, of the writer's own choosing or creation.{{sfn|Hawethorne|1961|p=vii}}</blockquote> | ||
Mailer presents his mythic truths by using elements of romance supported by mythic structure. The mythic truths of the work--getting in tune with the universe and listening to one's inner voice--support the mythic structure of Rojack's quest (although Mailer truncates this form when Rojack fails to return from South America). Romance, in its looseness and freedom, is more like classical myth than the novel, which pretends to be real, although Mailer puts elements of both into '' | Mailer presents his mythic truths by using elements of romance supported by mythic structure. The mythic truths of the work--getting in tune with the universe and listening to one's inner voice--support the mythic structure of Rojack's quest (although Mailer truncates this form when Rojack fails to return from South America). Romance, in its looseness and freedom, is more like classical myth than the novel, which pretends to be real, although Mailer puts elements of both into ''An American Dream''. | ||
One of the improbable elements of romance Mailer uses is Rojack's arsenal. In his battle, the hero Rojack does not use a real bow and arrow as weapons; he uses "psychic darts." When he is sitting in the bar listening to Cherry sing, he discusses his weapons: | One of the improbable elements of romance Mailer uses is Rojack's arsenal. In his battle, the hero Rojack does not use a real bow and arrow as weapons; he uses "psychic darts." When he is sitting in the bar listening to Cherry sing, he discusses his weapons: | ||
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Rojack's battles occur on physical plains also. He strangles Deborah and beats up Cherry's former boyfriend. The mythic hero's spiritual unity must be accomplished through exertion of both powers. He is one of a long list of such heroes who have sought union with the cosmos through adventure. From Ovid's Orpheus through Wolfram Von Eschenbach's Parzival to George Lucas's Luke Skywalker, these heroes have ventured towards their goals. Threats from dragons, women, gods, or their own failed courage have imperiled their lives, and, thus, their transcendent pursuit of a higher consciousness. They must learn to trust in themselves in order to accomplish their quests. Only in their dreams do the subconscious voices become clear and are they able to tune into themselves in order to return to their mythic roots, their wellspring. | Rojack's battles occur on physical plains also. He strangles Deborah and beats up Cherry's former boyfriend. The mythic hero's spiritual unity must be accomplished through exertion of both powers. He is one of a long list of such heroes who have sought union with the cosmos through adventure. From Ovid's Orpheus through Wolfram Von Eschenbach's Parzival to George Lucas's Luke Skywalker, these heroes have ventured towards their goals. Threats from dragons, women, gods, or their own failed courage have imperiled their lives, and, thus, their transcendent pursuit of a higher consciousness. They must learn to trust in themselves in order to accomplish their quests. Only in their dreams do the subconscious voices become clear and are they able to tune into themselves in order to return to their mythic roots, their wellspring. | ||
Stories that concern mythic heroes on quests battling psychic darts, dragons, devils, and talking moons set themselves up for incredulous critics. Many of the critics who argue that '' | Stories that concern mythic heroes on quests battling psychic darts, dragons, devils, and talking moons set themselves up for incredulous critics. Many of the critics who argue that ''An American Dream'' is not a realistic novel believe that it is an allegory. Myth is often intertwined with allegory. According to Frye, all myths incorporate some allegory because in our attempt to explain myth, we allegorize.{{sfn|Frye|1957|p=341}} However, allegory is a direct comparison which dominates the structure of the work and is intentionally moralistic. Frye maintains: "Genuine allegory is a structural element in literature: it has to be there, and cannot be added by critical interpretation alone".{{sfn|Frye|1957|p=54}} | ||
Both myth and allegory employ metaphor. Allegory itself is often defined as an extended metaphor.{{sfn|Holman|1980|p=10}} Metaphor is used extensively throughout Mailer's work. Stanley Gutman emphasizes that "Mailer's essential medium is metaphor".{{sfn|Gutman|1975|p=129}} One consequence of this aspect of Mailer's work, especially in '' | Both myth and allegory employ metaphor. Allegory itself is often defined as an extended metaphor.{{sfn|Holman|1980|p=10}} Metaphor is used extensively throughout Mailer's work. Stanley Gutman emphasizes that "Mailer's essential medium is metaphor".{{sfn|Gutman|1975|p=129}} One consequence of this aspect of Mailer's work, especially in ''An American Dream'', is that it could be incorrectly or incompletely interpreted as an allegory. Some scholars, such as Adams and Robert Begiebing, believe that the novel is an allegory, filled with complex yet reductive metaphors. Myth is naturally metaphorical, but Mailer is not trying to be purely metaphorical, and especially not purely allegorical. In an interview with Adams, he denies that such was his motive or his technique: "I don't believe a metaphorical novel has any right to exist until it exists on its ground floor. You know I never start with my characters as symbols".{{sfn|Adams|1975|p=210}} Instead, Mailer intensifies his realistic plot to develop the mythic aspect of his narrative, and thus, the metaphorical strength of his characters. The characters are not allegorical personifications, but Mailer's idea of real human beings engaged in a very real battle between good and evil. In extraordinary situations one is forced to delve deep within himself, calling forth a stronger, more aware person in the process. In Mailer's private cosmology, it is universally important for each individual to emerge from the crucible of the subconscious for the better. | ||
A look at Mailer's cosmology helps to explain the basic thematic patterns of his work, especially the mythic patterns in '' | A look at Mailer's cosmology helps to explain the basic thematic patterns of his work, especially the mythic patterns in ''An American Dream''. Mailer is often considered as having a personality which dominates and overshadows his writing or as "bursting with a passion too big for his pen".{{sfn|Aldridge|1965}} His own personal quest transcends didacticism and emerges in the dialectic in his work. Although Mailer's philosophy seems intertwined with the mythology in ''An American Dream'', we must be careful not to confuse the two. Chase discusses this potential problem: | ||
<blockquote>[I]t is bad strategy to try to make dogma out of myth, for the same reason that it is bad strategy to make philosophy out of myth ... Myth is only art. And we do not think of studying art primarily as dogma or philosophy.{{sfn|Chase|1949|p=109-110}}</blockquote> | <blockquote>[I]t is bad strategy to try to make dogma out of myth, for the same reason that it is bad strategy to make philosophy out of myth ... Myth is only art. And we do not think of studying art primarily as dogma or philosophy.{{sfn|Chase|1949|p=109-110}}</blockquote> | ||
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The most important part of Mailer's cosmology is the awareness that there is a choice, that the choice has an effect, and that we must choose the best we can. | The most important part of Mailer's cosmology is the awareness that there is a choice, that the choice has an effect, and that we must choose the best we can. | ||
Lennon further discusses Mailer's beliefs about the importance of choice. There is "an extraordinary emphasis on man's free will, his ability to rough-hew not only bis own destiny but to affect God's as well".{{sfn|Lennon|1986|p=147}} The existential nature of the choices tends towards the absurd and can lead to inaction. But, the resultant void would ensure the Devil's ultimate victory. In '' | Lennon further discusses Mailer's beliefs about the importance of choice. There is "an extraordinary emphasis on man's free will, his ability to rough-hew not only bis own destiny but to affect God's as well".{{sfn|Lennon|1986|p=147}} The existential nature of the choices tends towards the absurd and can lead to inaction. But, the resultant void would ensure the Devil's ultimate victory. In ''An American Dream'', Mailer uses the mythic quest to raise awareness and to develop this existential dialectic. "Why write," Mailer asks in an interview with Lennon, "if you are not going to change consciousness?".{{sfn|Lennon|1986|transctips=3}} Lennon summarizes Mailer's private mythology on choice: | ||
<blockquote>Choice for Mailer is the forward edge of the quest, existential because it is a foray of unknown strategic value in the war between God and the Devil, yet absolutely necessary because the alternative is entropy.{{sfn|Lennon|1986|149}}</blockquote> | <blockquote>Choice for Mailer is the forward edge of the quest, existential because it is a foray of unknown strategic value in the war between God and the Devil, yet absolutely necessary because the alternative is entropy.{{sfn|Lennon|1986|149}}</blockquote> | ||
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Maxwell Geismar argues that "The American Dream has been our ruling myth, as a culture and in the literature which both reveals and helps to shape our culture".{{sfn|Geismar|1970|p=45}} However, according to Robert Heilman, the word "dream" itself has many connotations. There is the dream which is an end in itself; the dream that is analogous to idea; the dream as vision; the dream as illusion; and the dream as obligation.{{sfn|Heilman|p=4-5}} He concludes that the American dream is a vision with a dualistic nature.{{sfn|Heilman|p=9}} The dual aspects of the American dream include the idealistic ability to leave the corruption of the old world behind, combined with the limitless, democratic rise to "material or political or spiritual" success.{{sfn|Heilman|p=8}} | Maxwell Geismar argues that "The American Dream has been our ruling myth, as a culture and in the literature which both reveals and helps to shape our culture".{{sfn|Geismar|1970|p=45}} However, according to Robert Heilman, the word "dream" itself has many connotations. There is the dream which is an end in itself; the dream that is analogous to idea; the dream as vision; the dream as illusion; and the dream as obligation.{{sfn|Heilman|p=4-5}} He concludes that the American dream is a vision with a dualistic nature.{{sfn|Heilman|p=9}} The dual aspects of the American dream include the idealistic ability to leave the corruption of the old world behind, combined with the limitless, democratic rise to "material or political or spiritual" success.{{sfn|Heilman|p=8}} | ||
This utopian aspect of the American dream, the belief that "Weakness and flaws are construed to be outside in circumstances, not within; in the world around, in other people, not in the human nature that one shares",{{sfn|Heilman|p=9}} has driven Rojack to his attainment of the materialistic American dream. At forty-four he discovers that this dream is, in reality, a nightmare, a spiritual wasteland. The corruption within the human spirit has led him up this false trail and left him without a center. At the time of his epiphany he says: "I was nothing but open raw depths at that instant alone on the balcony".{{sfn|Heilman|p=11}} In order to succeed at the real American dream--to find spiritual fulfillment in a free atmosphere--he must plunge down within himself into those open depths, the realm of his subconscious which speaks most clearly in the dream. '' | This utopian aspect of the American dream, the belief that "Weakness and flaws are construed to be outside in circumstances, not within; in the world around, in other people, not in the human nature that one shares",{{sfn|Heilman|p=9}} has driven Rojack to his attainment of the materialistic American dream. At forty-four he discovers that this dream is, in reality, a nightmare, a spiritual wasteland. The corruption within the human spirit has led him up this false trail and left him without a center. At the time of his epiphany he says: "I was nothing but open raw depths at that instant alone on the balcony".{{sfn|Heilman|p=11}} In order to succeed at the real American dream--to find spiritual fulfillment in a free atmosphere--he must plunge down within himself into those open depths, the realm of his subconscious which speaks most clearly in the dream. ''An American Dream'' concerns this juxtaposition: this sense of the corrupt American values system and the personal, humanistic dream synonymous with the freedom to pursue inner fulfillment. Inner fulfillment is accomplished through the unification of the subconscious and conscious selves. Only through this spiritual delving into the dreamworld of the subconscious will Rojack find the courage and knowledge necessary to aspire to the edenic American dream. | ||
New York City, considered by many to contain the essence of America, is the paradise lost, the urban wasteland in the novel. Rojack is the hero who recognizes its disguised corruption and sets out to conquer it through a personal quest of self-redemption. He is the American Adam who sees the battleground, recognizes the venom of the Kellys and their consorts, knows that cosmic paradise is far off and assumes responsibility for the battle to attain it. Mailer's hero believes in the "possibility of redemption, resurrection, recreation out of the mature wisdom gained in Adam's fall".{{sfn|Madden|1970|p=xii}} Philip Bufithis states it another way: "He has been launched into the world by a power greater than himself, and it is his purpose to help actualize that power through the exertions of his own creative will".{{sfn|Bufithis|1978|p=68}}) Like the great mythic heroes before him, Rojack is prepared to delve deeply within himself to find the strength to do battle with cosmic powers. | New York City, considered by many to contain the essence of America, is the paradise lost, the urban wasteland in the novel. Rojack is the hero who recognizes its disguised corruption and sets out to conquer it through a personal quest of self-redemption. He is the American Adam who sees the battleground, recognizes the venom of the Kellys and their consorts, knows that cosmic paradise is far off and assumes responsibility for the battle to attain it. Mailer's hero believes in the "possibility of redemption, resurrection, recreation out of the mature wisdom gained in Adam's fall".{{sfn|Madden|1970|p=xii}} Philip Bufithis states it another way: "He has been launched into the world by a power greater than himself, and it is his purpose to help actualize that power through the exertions of his own creative will".{{sfn|Bufithis|1978|p=68}}) Like the great mythic heroes before him, Rojack is prepared to delve deeply within himself to find the strength to do battle with cosmic powers. | ||
Rojack is particularly American in his pursuits. This country was settled by people who had dreams of personal autonomy and fulfillment and would push further West, often destroying whoever got in their way, whether it was native Indians, Asian laborers, or black slaves. This violence manifested the original sin brought over from Europe, an unrelenting pursuit of material success--the false American dream---which turned this country into a nightmare for many. Rojack is a realistic epitome of this nightmarish success story. In order to begin his pursuit of spiritual success, he commits murder. Ironically, this act again perpetuates the original, inherent evil of mankind in his new journey just as the pioneers brought with them their flawed human natures as well as their noble dreams to settle this land. Deborah's murder haunts Rojack's parapet ritual and results in its partial failure just as the violence in American prevents the country from attaining its potential spiritual success. Mailer's love and concern for his country are evident in most of his work, but they are especially dominant in '' | Rojack is particularly American in his pursuits. This country was settled by people who had dreams of personal autonomy and fulfillment and would push further West, often destroying whoever got in their way, whether it was native Indians, Asian laborers, or black slaves. This violence manifested the original sin brought over from Europe, an unrelenting pursuit of material success--the false American dream---which turned this country into a nightmare for many. Rojack is a realistic epitome of this nightmarish success story. In order to begin his pursuit of spiritual success, he commits murder. Ironically, this act again perpetuates the original, inherent evil of mankind in his new journey just as the pioneers brought with them their flawed human natures as well as their noble dreams to settle this land. Deborah's murder haunts Rojack's parapet ritual and results in its partial failure just as the violence in American prevents the country from attaining its potential spiritual success. Mailer's love and concern for his country are evident in most of his work, but they are especially dominant in ''An American Dream''. | ||
The specific American dream to which Mailer refers in the title of his book is ambiguous, although it certainly suggests mythic significance. The relationship between dreams and myth is important to note. Dreams and myth have long been interactive. Kenelm Burridge describes this relationship: | The specific American dream to which Mailer refers in the title of his book is ambiguous, although it certainly suggests mythic significance. The relationship between dreams and myth is important to note. Dreams and myth have long been interactive. Kenelm Burridge describes this relationship: | ||
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<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> | ||
'' | ''An American Dream'' 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 ''An American Dream>'', 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: | 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: | ||
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<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> | <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 '' | 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 ''An American Dream'', 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 ...{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=165-266}}</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 ...{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=165-266}}</blockquote> | ||
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It is outside, under the light of the moon, that Rojack first sees Cherry. This setting and the locale of their lovemaking, far away from Rojack's normal world, are significant to the rebirth myths. The moon has long been a symbol of women's fertility. The bar where Rojack discovers Cherry singing is "the rear of a large basement loft",{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=93}} a setting appropriate to Cherry's stature as creative love in the story. To enter the basement Rojack must descend, just as he must dive within himself for growth. Creativity comes from the soul, from deep within human nature. Rebirth is creative. Phoebus Apollo is a mythic figure who is reborn each day as the sun rises. Rojack arrives at this club at dawn, the time of day when Phoebus is preparing for the rebirth of the sun, or himself, as he readies his chariot to draw the sun across the sky. Rojack emphasizes his rebirth while listening to Cherry sing: "Well, if Deborah's dying had given me a new life, I must be all of eight hours old by now".{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=93}} This sense of rebirth again dominates as Rojack descends to the "lower" east side to Cherry's apartment where they make love. This descent again echoes the image of going down, plunging into the subconscious where Rojack experiences his spiritual rebirth through creative love. | It is outside, under the light of the moon, that Rojack first sees Cherry. This setting and the locale of their lovemaking, far away from Rojack's normal world, are significant to the rebirth myths. The moon has long been a symbol of women's fertility. The bar where Rojack discovers Cherry singing is "the rear of a large basement loft",{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=93}} a setting appropriate to Cherry's stature as creative love in the story. To enter the basement Rojack must descend, just as he must dive within himself for growth. Creativity comes from the soul, from deep within human nature. Rebirth is creative. Phoebus Apollo is a mythic figure who is reborn each day as the sun rises. Rojack arrives at this club at dawn, the time of day when Phoebus is preparing for the rebirth of the sun, or himself, as he readies his chariot to draw the sun across the sky. Rojack emphasizes his rebirth while listening to Cherry sing: "Well, if Deborah's dying had given me a new life, I must be all of eight hours old by now".{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=93}} This sense of rebirth again dominates as Rojack descends to the "lower" east side to Cherry's apartment where they make love. This descent again echoes the image of going down, plunging into the subconscious where Rojack experiences his spiritual rebirth through creative love. | ||
Rojack describes Cherry's tenement as full of unfiltered smells and sounds, not isolated by the artificial protection wealth ensures. Similarly, their lovemaking is unprotected by birth control devices. Mailer's novels have always overflowed with his particular brand of sexuality, and '' | Rojack describes Cherry's tenement as full of unfiltered smells and sounds, not isolated by the artificial protection wealth ensures. Similarly, their lovemaking is unprotected by birth control devices. Mailer's novels have always overflowed with his particular brand of sexuality, and ''An American Dream'' is no exception. Whether the sexual act is potentially impregnating or sodomistic, loving or violent, has great bearing on its meaning in relation to the theme of this novel. Tanner discusses Mailer's use of sexuality in ''An American Dream'': | ||
<blockquote>For just as one kind of intercourse is procreative, and the other kind quite the reverse, so Rojack cannot be sure whether he has broken through to some of the true mysteries of creativity after the sterile world of politics; or whether he has unwittingly aligned himself with the Satanic forces of waste.{{sfn|Tanner|1971|p=360}}</blockquote> | <blockquote>For just as one kind of intercourse is procreative, and the other kind quite the reverse, so Rojack cannot be sure whether he has broken through to some of the true mysteries of creativity after the sterile world of politics; or whether he has unwittingly aligned himself with the Satanic forces of waste.{{sfn|Tanner|1971|p=360}}</blockquote> | ||
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The other woman in the book with whom Rojack has sex is Ruta, Deborah's German maid. Sex with Ruta has the opposite purpose and result. After he murders Deborah, he is shattered by the violence of his actions and engages in what Bufithis calls a "demonic bout of sodomy" with Ruta.{{sfn|Bufithis|1978|p=65}} Rojack is torn by "conflict between creative and destructive power".{{sfn|Bufithis|1978|p=66}} He alternately has intercourse with her and sodomizes her. Rojack relates: "So that was how I finally made love to her, a minute for one, a minute for the other, a raid on the Devil and a trip back to the Lord".{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=45}} At first, Ruta struggles with Rojack, but Rojack continues his act of buggary. Suddenly he senses that Ruta is a Nazi. When he accuses her of it, she confesses, while begging him not to stop his sexual assault. Rojack's continuation of his assault on Ruta echoes his assault on the Nazi soldiers which made him a war hero. Rojack seems to be wanting to aspire to heroic stature of a different kind in his sexual conquest of a Nazi. | The other woman in the book with whom Rojack has sex is Ruta, Deborah's German maid. Sex with Ruta has the opposite purpose and result. After he murders Deborah, he is shattered by the violence of his actions and engages in what Bufithis calls a "demonic bout of sodomy" with Ruta.{{sfn|Bufithis|1978|p=65}} Rojack is torn by "conflict between creative and destructive power".{{sfn|Bufithis|1978|p=66}} He alternately has intercourse with her and sodomizes her. Rojack relates: "So that was how I finally made love to her, a minute for one, a minute for the other, a raid on the Devil and a trip back to the Lord".{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=45}} At first, Ruta struggles with Rojack, but Rojack continues his act of buggary. Suddenly he senses that Ruta is a Nazi. When he accuses her of it, she confesses, while begging him not to stop his sexual assault. Rojack's continuation of his assault on Ruta echoes his assault on the Nazi soldiers which made him a war hero. Rojack seems to be wanting to aspire to heroic stature of a different kind in his sexual conquest of a Nazi. | ||
Leigh explains the sex in '' | Leigh explains the sex in ''An American Dream'' in mythic terms: "In''An American Dream'' orgiastic sex plunges Rojack into epistemological and ontological depths and communion with the mysterious forces to which the individual is exposed".{{sfn|Leigh|1990|p=105}} Sexuality for Mailer has always featured heavily weighted mystic overtones. The possibility for procreativity influences the degree of goodness inherent in the sexual act. The more likely the act is to be procreative, the more moral it is. The women in the novel provide three different ways for Rojack to succeed in his quest. Leigh describes them best: | ||
<blockquote>Killing Deborah cancels Rojack's social contract with the "dream" world of capitalist success, status and priviledge. Buggering Ruta is a technique for absorbing her vast reservoir of energy, cunning and guile into his own body. Genital release with Cherry represents the perfect harmonious coupling.{{sfn|Leigh|1990|p=105}}</blockquote> | <blockquote>Killing Deborah cancels Rojack's social contract with the "dream" world of capitalist success, status and priviledge. Buggering Ruta is a technique for absorbing her vast reservoir of energy, cunning and guile into his own body. Genital release with Cherry represents the perfect harmonious coupling.{{sfn|Leigh|1990|p=105}}</blockquote> | ||
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However, Orpheus cannot resist one quick look backward to check on her, and as he watches, she disappears, forever this time, back into the void. Rojack tries to muster the courage to walk the parapet again, an act he intuitively knows is essential to Cherry's well being. But like Orpheus, he will fail and, as a result, lose Cherry forever. Just as the voice in Star Wars comes clearly to Luke, so the voice seems emphatic to Rojack. "The message came clear, 'Walk the parapet,' it said. 'Walk the parapet or Cherry is dead.' But I had more fear for myself than for Cherry. I did not want to walk that parapet".{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=255}} Rojack succeeds in walking the parapet once, but succumbs to the temptation to verbally attack Kelly and so forgets to walk it the second time. "'The first trip was done for you," said the voice, "but the second was for Cherry'".{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=261}} The true hero, like Mailer's embattled god, is imperfect and sometimes fails. Campbell describes another mythic hero who sometimes failed: "Parzival fails in the Grail adventure,[sic) he fails because he's doing what he's been told to do instead of what his heart tells him to do".{{sfn|Campbell|1990|p=214}} Our fates are intertwined. Cherry dies when Rojack cannot sustain the courage to walk the parapet once more. His personal quest is only partially successful because he ignores his inner voice--the voice in his dream, the voice of his subconscious--and thus he does not complete the ritualistic demands of the myth. | However, Orpheus cannot resist one quick look backward to check on her, and as he watches, she disappears, forever this time, back into the void. Rojack tries to muster the courage to walk the parapet again, an act he intuitively knows is essential to Cherry's well being. But like Orpheus, he will fail and, as a result, lose Cherry forever. Just as the voice in Star Wars comes clearly to Luke, so the voice seems emphatic to Rojack. "The message came clear, 'Walk the parapet,' it said. 'Walk the parapet or Cherry is dead.' But I had more fear for myself than for Cherry. I did not want to walk that parapet".{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=255}} Rojack succeeds in walking the parapet once, but succumbs to the temptation to verbally attack Kelly and so forgets to walk it the second time. "'The first trip was done for you," said the voice, "but the second was for Cherry'".{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=261}} The true hero, like Mailer's embattled god, is imperfect and sometimes fails. Campbell describes another mythic hero who sometimes failed: "Parzival fails in the Grail adventure,[sic) he fails because he's doing what he's been told to do instead of what his heart tells him to do".{{sfn|Campbell|1990|p=214}} Our fates are intertwined. Cherry dies when Rojack cannot sustain the courage to walk the parapet once more. His personal quest is only partially successful because he ignores his inner voice--the voice in his dream, the voice of his subconscious--and thus he does not complete the ritualistic demands of the myth. | ||
Allan J. Wagenheim has noted the similarities between the Orpheus myth and '' | Allan J. Wagenheim has noted the similarities between the Orpheus myth and ''An American Dream''. He describes the elevator ride to the top floor of the Waldorf as a recurrent echo of the descent into Hades.{{sfn|Wagenheim|1968|p=61}} The comparison is blatant, despite the ironic reversal of direction. As Rojack pauses on his way to Kelly's apartment, he is paralyzed by pain. He describes the pain as causing a hallucination that "left me staring at the lobby of the Waldorf. But for a moment I had died and was in the antechamber of Hell".{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=206}} More images of hell surface as Rojack journeys in the elevator. He feels "the air burning from the shaft, 11 where "fire had consumed the oxygen," and "the absolute of evil" was present.{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=208}} Later, Rojack's description of Kelly's apartment contains obvious mythic allusions to animism, nymphs and serpents. The room held a screen of "a tapestry of women in Elizabethan dress talking to a deer while a squire was in the act of encountering a nude maid who grew out of the trunk of a tree," a "harpsichord giving off the high patina of a snake," "ormolu cupids," and "Golden mermaids".{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=234}} Mailer is setting us up for a mythic encounter between Rojack and Kelly. | ||
In Barney Kelly, Mailer attempts to show us absolute evil which encourages and stimulates the potential evil in those around him. When Kelly greets Rojack who, in the past thirty-some hours has been through that subconscious crucible, he greets him with a hug, like an equal. Rojack describes his embrace as containing "some deep authority of feeling".{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=216}} The satanic Kelly recognizes and salutes the newly won strength in Rojack. However, Kelly's mistress in this hell, Bess, whose name when pronounced sounds suspiciously like the hiss of a snake, warns Rojack that "'Barney's up to mangling you tonight"'.{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=222}} The father's desires echo those of his dead daughter--a wish to destroy Rojack's manhood and creativity. When Kelly's actions draw Rojack away from the parapet, his evil is encouraging the inherent evil--not listening to one's inner voice, that mystical Godhead--within us. Rojack begins a violent assault on Kelly, but stops himself as he realizes that destroying Kelly, unlike destroying Deborah, is not part of his personal quest. | In Barney Kelly, Mailer attempts to show us absolute evil which encourages and stimulates the potential evil in those around him. When Kelly greets Rojack who, in the past thirty-some hours has been through that subconscious crucible, he greets him with a hug, like an equal. Rojack describes his embrace as containing "some deep authority of feeling".{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=216}} The satanic Kelly recognizes and salutes the newly won strength in Rojack. However, Kelly's mistress in this hell, Bess, whose name when pronounced sounds suspiciously like the hiss of a snake, warns Rojack that "'Barney's up to mangling you tonight"'.{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=222}} The father's desires echo those of his dead daughter--a wish to destroy Rojack's manhood and creativity. When Kelly's actions draw Rojack away from the parapet, his evil is encouraging the inherent evil--not listening to one's inner voice, that mystical Godhead--within us. Rojack begins a violent assault on Kelly, but stops himself as he realizes that destroying Kelly, unlike destroying Deborah, is not part of his personal quest. | ||
After leaving Kelly, Rojack continues his quest. Like the eternal American cowboy he heads West, delving deeper into himself, knowing that "the only true journey, of knowledge is from the depth of one being to the heart of another".{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=11}} In search of this knowledge, his Grail, he ventures South into the primitive origins of America. Like other heroes in myth--Wolfram's Parzival, Ovid's Orpheus, and Lucas's Luke Skywalker-Mailer's Rojack has dealt with the necessity of violence, the lure of sexuality, the importance of ritual, and the despair of failure. Failure is rife in the desert of New York City. Campbell describes the reason: "it's the problem of the Waste Land--people living life inauthentically, living not their life but the life that's put on them by society". {{sfn|Campbell|1964-65|p=251}} Rojack's tenacity and courage endure as he continues his journey towards authenticity. Bufithis places the mythic center of the novel squarely on Rojack's shoulders: "the cosmos can improve if Rojack acts bravely. Such is the mythical meaning Mailer attributes to Rojack".{{sfn|Bufithis|1978|p=68}} In '' | After leaving Kelly, Rojack continues his quest. Like the eternal American cowboy he heads West, delving deeper into himself, knowing that "the only true journey, of knowledge is from the depth of one being to the heart of another".{{sfn|Mailer|1964-65|p=11}} In search of this knowledge, his Grail, he ventures South into the primitive origins of America. Like other heroes in myth--Wolfram's Parzival, Ovid's Orpheus, and Lucas's Luke Skywalker-Mailer's Rojack has dealt with the necessity of violence, the lure of sexuality, the importance of ritual, and the despair of failure. Failure is rife in the desert of New York City. Campbell describes the reason: "it's the problem of the Waste Land--people living life inauthentically, living not their life but the life that's put on them by society". {{sfn|Campbell|1964-65|p=251}} Rojack's tenacity and courage endure as he continues his journey towards authenticity. Bufithis places the mythic center of the novel squarely on Rojack's shoulders: "the cosmos can improve if Rojack acts bravely. Such is the mythical meaning Mailer attributes to Rojack".{{sfn|Bufithis|1978|p=68}} In ''An American Dream'', Mailer, through Rojack, has reached new mythical heights. | ||
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