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The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/He Was a Fighter: Boxing in Norman Mailer’s Life and Work: Difference between revisions
The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/He Was a Fighter: Boxing in Norman Mailer’s Life and Work (view source)
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Penultimately, he faces Shago Martin, who in a scene of intimate violence redolent of sexual connection (“I got a whiff of his odor . . . a smell of full nearness, as if we’d been in bed for an hour.”{{sfn|Mailer|1965|p=182}}) teaches Rojack something about nobility and forgiveness and passes on to him the phallic power (as epitomized in Shago’s totemic umbrella) necessary for his climactic confrontation with Barney Oswald Kelly. | Penultimately, he faces Shago Martin, who in a scene of intimate violence redolent of sexual connection (“I got a whiff of his odor . . . a smell of full nearness, as if we’d been in bed for an hour.”{{sfn|Mailer|1965|p=182}}) teaches Rojack something about nobility and forgiveness and passes on to him the phallic power (as epitomized in Shago’s totemic umbrella) necessary for his climactic confrontation with Barney Oswald Kelly. | ||
In so far as each of these characters has allegorical as well as literal value in the novel, Rojack’s struggles with them may be seen as confrontations with the worst aspects of himself, which he must overcome and purge. On a larger scale, his progress is a peculiarly American one, a repudiation of the false American dream of meretricious corruption and an embracing of a new, true American Dream of authenticity of self. Rojack comes to represent what was best in the American character after WWII, what was shamelessly corrupted, and what Mailer suggests may be redeemed by courage, discipline, and a commitment to selfless heterosexual love. And he does this with the aid of representatives of marginalized groups: Shago and Cherry. | |||
''Tough Guys Don’t Dance'' is a lesser novel: a pale reflection, a distant echo of the masterful ''An American Dream''. But a few points are worth touching on. Again, Tim Madden has been an amateur boxer in his youth. He does fight and defeat Spider Nissen and Stoodie, the badness twins, with the aid of “Stunts,” his dog, who dies with Spider’s knife in his heart. But despite initial, ambiguous appearances, Tim does not hurt, does not kill women, or kill anyone for that matter. But Patty Lareine, his wife, does kill Jessica Pond. In fact, two women are murderers: Madeleine Falco also shoots her husband, the corrupt Chief of Police Alvin Regency. Significantly, Tim Madden refuses the tempting suggestion of Patty Lareine that he kill her then husband, Meeks Wardley Hilby III, and by the novel’s end is capable of compassionate tenderness toward the suicidal, homosexual Wardley. Further, Tim establishes an almost friendly relationship with Patty’s hostile, dangerous black lover, Bolo Green (a.k.a. “Mr. Black”). Most important, like Rojack at the conclusion of ''An American Dream'', Tim is shown to fight his true battle with himself and his own fears and weaknesses. | ''Tough Guys Don’t Dance'' is a lesser novel: a pale reflection, a distant echo of the masterful ''An American Dream''. But a few points are worth touching on. Again, Tim Madden has been an amateur boxer in his youth. He does fight and defeat Spider Nissen and Stoodie, the badness twins, with the aid of “Stunts,” his dog, who dies with Spider’s knife in his heart. But despite initial, ambiguous appearances, Tim does not hurt, does not kill women, or kill anyone for that matter. But Patty Lareine, his wife, does kill Jessica Pond. In fact, two women are murderers: Madeleine Falco also shoots her husband, the corrupt Chief of Police Alvin Regency. Significantly, Tim Madden refuses the tempting suggestion of Patty Lareine that he kill her then husband, Meeks Wardley Hilby III, and by the novel’s end is capable of compassionate tenderness toward the suicidal, homosexual Wardley. Further, Tim establishes an almost friendly relationship with Patty’s hostile, dangerous black lover, Bolo Green (a.k.a. “Mr. Black”). Most important, like Rojack at the conclusion of ''An American Dream'', Tim is shown to fight his true battle with himself and his own fears and weaknesses. | ||