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INTRODUCTION: FROM REVOLUTION TO RECONSTRUCTION
Norman Mailer is very concerned with the American “identity,” not just with the shape and soul of the country as a whole, but also with the individual identity of “the” American. He searches for the characteristics he thinks of as essential to the real American identity. One of the most central and long lasting myths in American society is that of the “American Dream,” the idea that anyone, anywhere, is capable of becoming successful.
In his 1965 novel, An American Dream, Mailer deconstructs the outlived interpretation of this all-American phenomenon and, at the same time, constructs his own, new and much more individual and existentially-rooted vision. He gives his own idiosyncratic view on the American “soul” and thus creates his own American myth.
This process from deconstruction to construction is narrated in the protagonist’s metaphorical quest for personal redemption. I argue that the different pieces of the puzzle are held together by the topos of myth. The characteristics of what is generally regarded as mythical will be used to underline and substantiate the argument in an attempt to make Mailer’s vision on the American identity more accessible. Not only the hero-genesis of Mailer’s protagonist in Dream can be explained on the basis of mythology, but Mailer’s claim for a new “American Dream” is underlined by the topos of mythology. For general background information about myth and how myth operates in American society, I shall refer to Richard Slotkin’s theory outlined in his book Regeneration through Violence.
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On a primary level the protagonist of the novel, Stephen Richards Rojack, is depicted as a mythical hero in the classical tradition, facing personal ordeals in the search for salvation. The series of confrontations the hero encounters on his odyssey serves as key elements for the interpretation of the protagonist in Mailer’s novel. On a secondary level, I shall scrutinize the writer’s deconstruction of the canonical version of the American Dream, where he is pointing at the most important elements of critique. At the same time, I shall analyze the new, existential American Dream as constructed in the novel.
These different levels will be discussed in turn and in relation to each other. At the same time, I will analyze how the vision apparent in Dream originates in Mailer’s earlier essay “The White Negro.” Mailer’s search for an apt view of the American identity was already present in this 1957 essay, as Mailer tries to distil the essence of what was needed to thrive in American society into a comprehensible existential philosophy. In Dream, Mailer applies his findings of “White Negro,” but, at the same time, adds more creative nuance.
ROJACK AS A HERO IN THE LEGACY OF THE HIPSTERS
In Regeneration, Slotkin delineated three basic elements necessary for myth. In order to be considered a myth, a narrative needs to comprise of a hero, a mythological world and a narrative that elaborates the relationship between the hero and the world he lives in. Moreover, Slotkin discusses several types of mythological forms present in mythology. These different forms are to be understood as different possible ways in which a writer can narrate the relationship between the hero of the myth and the world in which the myth is situated. Therefore these forms are to be considered different possible instantiations of the third basic element of myth, the narrative. In Slotkin’s opinion the heroic quest “is the most important archetype in American cultural mythology”:
The quest involves a departure of the hero from his common-day world to seek the power of the gods in the underworld, the eternal kingdom of death and dreams from which all men emerge; his motive is provided by the threat of some natural or human calamity which will overtake his people unless the power of the gods can be borrowed or the gods themselves be recon-
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ciled with the people. The quest is also an initiation into a higher level of existence. . . .[1]
In his definition Slotkin provides four characteristics for the heroic quest: the escape from everyday life, the threat in life that is the source for the action, the subsequent confrontation with the gods of the underworld, and the resultant higher level of existence. In addition to the three basic elements for myth, these four characteristics for the heroic quest are apparent in Dream.
Mailer’s mythmaking is centered on one of these characteristics, namely Rojack as a mythological hero. The image of a hero embarking on a mythological quest enables Mailer to construct and deconstruct the “Dream” at the same time, parallel with the journey and evolution of the protagonist. However, Rojack is not the first instance of this kind of figure in Mailer. The characteristics attributed to the protagonist in Dream seem derived from the writer’s famous 1957 essay. In “White Negro,” Mailer provided the outline of the philosophy of the Hipsters, a generation of young ambitious men with a strong sense for individualism and rebellion who where inspired by American black culture. In the philosophy of Hip great emphasis is on the importance of courage, violence, and victory in order to break free from the impediments present in society. As Mailer maintains in Advertisements for Myself,
The unstated essence of Hip . . . quivers with the knowledge that new kinds of victories increase one’s power for new kinds of perception, and defeats . . . attack the body and imprison one’s energy until one is jailed in the prison air of other people’s habits, other people’s defeats, boredom, quiet desperation, and muted icy self-destroying rage.[2]
In Dream the same pattern of regeneration and creation through violence in confrontation, which is key in the evolution of the Hipster. At the same time, other Hip-features emerge and accumulate in the protagonist’s process of hero-genesis in the unravelling of the plot.
In order to understand the reading of Dream as a heroic quest, we must understand the importance attributed to the series of confrontations in the novel. The momentum of violence and victory in the novel are crucial in the depiction and emergence of Mailer’s main character. At the same, the
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hero-genesis of Rojack is supported by Slotkin’s theoretical framework about American mythology. In order to substantiate the thesis of Dream as a heroic quest in the American mythological tradition, the four different characteristics of Slotkin’s definition will be discussed in turn and in relation with the essay “The White Negro.”
BREAKING THE BONDS
According to the philosophy of Hip that Mailer outlines in “White Negro,” the need for divergence is generated out of the dichotomy between conformity and rebellion. Rebellion is viewed as the solution to withstand and overcome the deadening pressure present in society that forces every single one to become part of the nameless mass of comfortably numb people who live according to the rules of the totalitarian state. As a result, the greatest danger besieging society in Mailer’s perspective is “slow death by conformity with every creative and rebellious instinct stifled” (339). The reason for this numbing of society lies in the aftermath of the Second World War. The legacy of the war implanted society with the constant fear of “instant death by atomic war” and “death by deus ex machina” (339, 338). As a result, “[a] stench of fear has come out of every pore of American life,” draining the last drop of dynamism and forcing society to a frightened standstill (338). This dead stop in American society is reinforced by the rule of the upper class. The high society regime has absolute power over the nation and deprives the individual of his will to stand out as an individual. The Hipster is the only one in society who dares to turn away from the safe bosom of the totalitarian state, reluctant to die the “slow death by conformity.” Therefore the Hipster consciously chooses the path of rebellion.
The same dichotomy between conformity and rebellion is present in the novel. Initially, Rojack is part of the mass of comfortably numb people. Notwithstanding the fact that he is considered a successful man who lives the American Dream, he feels depressed. Rojack is tied down by his high-society marriage to Deborah, “the bitch goddess.” Everything in Rojack’s life is controlled by the influential Kelly family. Rojack has no free will left and is decided for. Or as Rojack himself puts it in the novel: “Deborah had gotten her hooks into me, eight years ago she had clinched the hooks and they had given birth to other hooks” (Mailer, American 9). Rojack’s possibilities coincide with those of the Hipster—either he dies the death of conformity or he acts violently in order to break free. This juxtaposition between courage
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- ↑ Slotkin 1972, p. 10.
- ↑ Mailer 1959, p. 339.