Jump to content

The Mailer Review/Volume 8, 2014/Teaching Controversy: Mailer in the College Classroom: Difference between revisions

The Mailer Review/Volume 8, 2014/Teaching Controversy: Mailer in the College Classroom (view source)

Revision as of 09:40, 11 October 2020

183 bytes added ,  11 October 2020
Fixed ref issues. Added dc.
(Created page.)
 
(Fixed ref issues. Added dc.)
 
(5 intermediate revisions by one other user not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
{{DISPLAYTITLE:<span style="font-size:22px;">{{BASEPAGENAME}}/</span>{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}
{{MR08}}
{{MR08}}
{{byline|last=Braun|first=Heather|abstract=Norman Mailer worked to change definitions of obscenity in his writing and the brash controversies of his writing makes him an especially compelling figure for the college classroom. Teaching provocative works by Mailer encourages students to see how controversies change over time and how their authors are celebrated and censored, often in direct response to these changes. One reason that Mailer works well in a college classroom is that he challenges his readers to move beyond rigid definitions of the moral and aesthetic. Mailer demands from his readers a marked distance and suspension of judgment in order to see what surface vulgarity can often obscure. This necessary distancing encourages students to make their own decisions about the relevance (or irrelevance) of obscenity charges to a text as a whole.|note=A version of this paper was presented at the Norman Mailer Society Conference in Sarasota, Florida, October 25–28, 2013.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr14mai1}}
{{byline|last=Braun|first=Heather|abstract=Norman Mailer worked to change definitions of obscenity in his writing and the brash controversies of his writing makes him an especially compelling figure for the college classroom. Teaching provocative works by Mailer encourages students to see how controversies change over time and how their authors are celebrated and censored, often in direct response to these changes. One reason that Mailer works well in a college classroom is that he challenges his readers to move beyond rigid definitions of the moral and aesthetic. Mailer demands from his readers a marked distance and suspension of judgment in order to see what surface vulgarity can often obscure. This necessary distancing encourages students to make their own decisions about the relevance (or irrelevance) of obscenity charges to a text as a whole.|note=A version of this paper was presented at the Norman Mailer Society Conference in Sarasota, Florida, October 25–28, 2013.|url=https://prmlr.us/mr14brau}}


Provocative. Shocking. Pornographic. These words have been used frequently to describe Norman Mailer’s extraordinary life and work. But these words began to appear trite and tedious as Mailer’s shock value declined in the 1960s and 1970s. “Even Mailer cannot be obscene any longer,” remarked Louis Menand. “Everyone has heard it all.”{{sfn|Menand|2002|p=154}} Yet despite our supposed disenchantment with vulgarity, Mailer worked to change definitions of obscenity in his writing and his life. Menand, in his 2013 ''New Yorker'' piece, “The Norman Invasion,” reminds us that Mailer “hated books that prettified the stuff of ordinary life and speech.”{{sfn|Menand|2013|p=88}} He was also a vocal opponent of the obscenity trials involving works like D. H. Lawrence’s ''Lady Chatterley’s Lover'' (1928) and Henry Miller’s ''Tropic of Cancer'' (1934).{{sfn|Menand|2013|p=88}} Yet the very fact that Mailer’s contentious personality cannot be parceled out from the brash controversies of his writing makes him an especially compelling figure for the college classroom: teaching provocative works like Mailer’s encourages students to see how controversies change over time and how their authors are celebrated and censored, often in direct response to these changes.
{{dc|dc=P|rovocative. Shocking. Pornographic.}} These words have been used frequently to describe Norman Mailer’s extraordinary life and work. But these words began to appear trite and tedious as Mailer’s shock value declined in the 1960s and 1970s. “Even Mailer cannot be obscene any longer,” remarked Louis Menand. “Everyone has heard it all.”{{sfn|Menand|2002|p=154}} Yet despite our supposed disenchantment with vulgarity, Mailer worked to change definitions of obscenity in his writing and his life. Menand, in his 2013 ''New Yorker'' piece, “The Norman Invasion,” reminds us that Mailer “hated books that prettified the stuff of ordinary life and speech.”{{sfn|Menand|2013|p=88}} He was also a vocal opponent of the obscenity trials involving works like D. H. Lawrence’s ''Lady Chatterley’s Lover'' (1928) and Henry Miller’s ''Tropic of Cancer'' (1934).{{sfn|Menand|2013|p=88}} Yet the very fact that Mailer’s contentious personality cannot be parceled out from the brash controversies of his writing makes him an especially compelling figure for the college classroom: teaching provocative works like Mailer’s encourages students to see how controversies change over time and how their authors are celebrated and censored, often in direct response to these changes.


One reason Mailer works well in a college classroom is that he challenges his readers to move beyond rigid definitions of the moral and aesthetic. Mailer demands from his readers a marked distance and suspension of judgment in order to see what surface vulgarity can often obscure. This necessary distancing encourages students to make their own decisions about the relevance (or irrelevance) of obscenity charges to a text as a whole. For example, each time I teach a banned book or controversial text, I begin by asking students to show me specific words or passages that could be regarded as offensive, immoral, or pornographic. This strategy can be tricky because I certainly do not want to invite personal reactions about such potential offenses. Then, I ask that for the remainder of the discussion, we ''not'' use words including their top favorites: immoral, creepy, and disgusting. It is at this time that I encourage them to turn instead to possible subtexts. Such distance helps them to see how we, as readers, are all complicit in the controversies surrounding texts: we are at once listener and judge. Finally, I ask students to locate what they believe to be the most important controversies, to describe them, and then to look beyond them in order to consider what is happening beneath the superficial and explicit. They often need some prodding, and many students prefer to stick with biography, historical facts, and the comfortably unambiguous. But eventually, they tire of obscenity for its own sake and become curious about the themes and devices that are often suppressed by what is more immediately crude or flagrant.
One reason Mailer works well in a college classroom is that he challenges his readers to move beyond rigid definitions of the moral and aesthetic. Mailer demands from his readers a marked distance and suspension of judgment in order to see what surface vulgarity can often obscure. This necessary distancing encourages students to make their own decisions about the relevance (or irrelevance) of obscenity charges to a text as a whole. For example, each time I teach a banned book or controversial text, I begin by asking students to show me specific words or passages that could be regarded as offensive, immoral, or pornographic. This strategy can be tricky because I certainly do not want to invite personal reactions about such potential offenses. Then, I ask that for the remainder of the discussion, we ''not'' use words including their top favorites: immoral, creepy, and disgusting. It is at this time that I encourage them to turn instead to possible subtexts. Such distance helps them to see how we, as readers, are all complicit in the controversies surrounding texts: we are at once listener and judge. Finally, I ask students to locate what they believe to be the most important controversies, to describe them, and then to look beyond them in order to consider what is happening beneath the superficial and explicit. They often need some prodding, and many students prefer to stick with biography, historical facts, and the comfortably unambiguous. But eventually, they tire of obscenity for its own sake and become curious about the themes and devices that are often suppressed by what is more immediately crude or flagrant.
Line 14: Line 15:
Bullfighting diction and imagery pervade this story, even bleeding into the bedroom and its “blood red wall.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=489}} This choked violence is restrained throughout most of the text as O’Shaugnessy wavers between arrogance and self-doubt, sleeping and waking. He perceives uneasily that Denise is about to enter “the time of her Time,” when someone else will successfully fill the role of conquistador. Delay would inevitably leave him “cuckolded in spirit.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=494}} Here, O’Shaugnessy’s confidence begins to waver: he believes himself to be losing control in the bedroom, where he once claimed to have reigned unchallenged. His ex-Catholic guilt emerges after he climaxes prematurely and refers to Denise as “the he to my silly she.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=499}} Yet he still attempts to keep private or “in camera” the shifting dynamic of power between them, never admitting his own show or his conquistador daydream. It is perhaps this fantasy of conquest that allows him to remain centered on his own victory rather than acknowledge what he must defeat within before he can achieve it.
Bullfighting diction and imagery pervade this story, even bleeding into the bedroom and its “blood red wall.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=489}} This choked violence is restrained throughout most of the text as O’Shaugnessy wavers between arrogance and self-doubt, sleeping and waking. He perceives uneasily that Denise is about to enter “the time of her Time,” when someone else will successfully fill the role of conquistador. Delay would inevitably leave him “cuckolded in spirit.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=494}} Here, O’Shaugnessy’s confidence begins to waver: he believes himself to be losing control in the bedroom, where he once claimed to have reigned unchallenged. His ex-Catholic guilt emerges after he climaxes prematurely and refers to Denise as “the he to my silly she.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=499}} Yet he still attempts to keep private or “in camera” the shifting dynamic of power between them, never admitting his own show or his conquistador daydream. It is perhaps this fantasy of conquest that allows him to remain centered on his own victory rather than acknowledge what he must defeat within before he can achieve it.


In the end, Denise takes away the illusion of conquest for good when she provides the story’s first and last external appraisal of its protagonist. As Denise is heading out the door, she turns to tell O’Shaugnessy about her psychiatrist’s assessment—not of her but of him: “He told me your whole life is a lie, and you do nothing but run away from the homosexual that is you.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=503}} With this single sentence, the power dynamic of the story shifts permanently to Denise as O’Shaugnessy admires her triumph as the true and merciless bullfighter “hero”—not heroine—of this tale: “And like a real killer, she did not look back, and was out the door before I could rise to tell her that she was the hero fit for me.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=503}} It is significant, too, that this final judgment is given to Denise via a psychiatrist, a profession about which Mailer expressed a great deal of ambivalence. Mailer was a follower of psychiatrist Robert Lindner, who made a clear connection between rebellion and masculinity. In his 1952 book, ''Prescription for Rebellion'', Lindner explains how psychology encouraged “the breeding of a weak race of men who will live and die in slavery.” Rebellion was an “antidote” to such weakness and enslavement.<ref name="menand">Quoted in {{harvtxt|Manand|2013|p=89}}.</ref> In this way, Denise serves as the psychiatrist who allows O’Shaugnessy to stay true to his instinct while retaining his masculinity.
In the end, Denise takes away the illusion of conquest for good when she provides the story’s first and last external appraisal of its protagonist. As Denise is heading out the door, she turns to tell O’Shaugnessy about her psychiatrist’s assessment—not of her but of him: “He told me your whole life is a lie, and you do nothing but run away from the homosexual that is you.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=503}} With this single sentence, the power dynamic of the story shifts permanently to Denise as O’Shaugnessy admires her triumph as the true and merciless bullfighter “hero”—not heroine—of this tale: “And like a real killer, she did not look back, and was out the door before I could rise to tell her that she was the hero fit for me.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=503}} It is significant, too, that this final judgment is given to Denise via a psychiatrist, a profession about which Mailer expressed a great deal of ambivalence. Mailer was a follower of psychiatrist Robert Lindner, who made a clear connection between rebellion and masculinity. In his 1952 book, ''Prescription for Rebellion'', Lindner explains how psychology encouraged “the breeding of a weak race of men who will live and die in slavery.” Rebellion was an “antidote” to such weakness and enslavement.<ref name="menand">Quoted in {{harvtxt|Menand|2013|p=89}}.</ref> In this way, Denise serves as the psychiatrist who allows O’Shaugnessy to stay true to his instinct while retaining his masculinity.


So what drives Mailer’s protagonist to admire this female psychiatrist’s diagnosis? First, it is crucial that the diagnosis is delivered by a bitter and retreating Denise, a figure who, in this new light, bears striking similarities to the man O’Shaugnessy wishes he could be. This moment also exposes the protagonist’s unconscious, which the reader has been quietly interpreting alongside Denise throughout the story. Her final declaration is so all-consuming that it requires O’Shaugnessy to surrender power immediately in order to recognize the truth behind it. Mailer’s essay “The Homosexual Villain,” which appeared in ''Advertisements for Myself'' along with “A Time of Her Time,” explores the straight male’s obsession with homosexuality, even on its most unconscious level. Mailer concludes “there is probably no sensitive heterosexual alive who is not preoccupied with his latent homosexuality.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959a|p=226}}{{efn|One year  later, Mailer would, by most popular accounts, stab his wife, Adele Morales, for the very same accusation that Denise makes in the end of this story. Clearly, Mailer did not emulate his hero
So what drives Mailer’s protagonist to admire this female psychiatrist’s diagnosis? First, it is crucial that the diagnosis is delivered by a bitter and retreating Denise, a figure who, in this new light, bears striking similarities to the man O’Shaugnessy wishes he could be. This moment also exposes the protagonist’s unconscious, which the reader has been quietly interpreting alongside Denise throughout the story. Her final declaration is so all-consuming that it requires O’Shaugnessy to surrender power immediately in order to recognize the truth behind it. Mailer’s essay “The Homosexual Villain,” which appeared in ''Advertisements for Myself'' along with “A Time of Her Time,” explores the straight male’s obsession with homosexuality, even on its most unconscious level. Mailer concludes “there is probably no sensitive heterosexual alive who is not preoccupied with his latent homosexuality.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959a|p=226}}{{efn|One year  later, Mailer would, by most popular accounts, stab his wife, Adele Morales, for the very same accusation that Denise makes in the end of this story. Clearly, Mailer did not emulate his hero but rather acts in a way more fitting to what we might have expected from O’Shaugnessy. It is therefore not surprising that Mailer became a pseudo-literary character after the scandalous incident.}} But does O’Shaugnessy’s failure to rebel against Denise actually imply consent or simply admiration? It is unclear whether Mailer’s hero is here acknowledging his instinctual desires or giving his acquiescence to their social categorization. Rather, it is a moment that exposes all forms of sexual repression as dangerously deceptive modes of imprisonment.{{efn|For a discussion of approaching Mailer’s masculine language in the classroom, see {{harvtxt|Osborne|1991}}.}}
but rather acts in a way more fitting to what we might have expected from O’Shaugnessy. It is therefore not surprising that Mailer became a pseudo-literary character after the scandalous incident.}} But does O’Shaugnessy’s failure to rebel against Denise actually imply consent or simply admiration? It is unclear whether Mailer’s hero is here acknowledging his instinctual desires or giving his acquiescence to their social categorization. Rather, it is a moment that exposes all forms of sexual repression as dangerously deceptive modes of imprisonment.{{efn|For a discussion of approaching Mailer’s masculine language in the classroom, see {{harvtxt|Osborne|1991}}.}}


With these details in mind, how might Mailer’s fiction play out in a college classroom? First, I would encourage my students to keep in mind both literary and biographical details as we look more closely at the language Mailer uses to set up unspoken tensions between his characters. For example, O’Shaughnessy naively assumes that by bringing Denise “up and over the cliff” to orgasm, he will somehow conquer previously unconquered female terrain.{{efn|Wilhelm Reich, one of Mailer’s influences, argues in ''The Function of the Orgasm'' that sexual climax was “the essence of the character, which came out and was expressed in the orgasm.”<ref name="menand" /> This explains one reason why the orgasm may feature so prominently throughout the story. Also, two years before the publication of “The Time of Her Time,” Mailer explored the intersections of orgasm and the unconscious in his essay “The White Negro.” (''Dissent'' 1957).}} Christopher Hitchens refers to this very “heroic struggle” of “The Time of Her Time” in his ''Slate'' tribute to Mailer the day after his death in 2007. He begins this tribute by confessing to “admiring Mailer’s audacity even as [he] slightly whistled at his promiscuity”:
With these details in mind, how might Mailer’s fiction play out in a college classroom? First, I would encourage my students to keep in mind both literary and biographical details as we look more closely at the language Mailer uses to set up unspoken tensions between his characters. For example, O’Shaughnessy naively assumes that by bringing Denise “up and over the cliff” to orgasm, he will somehow conquer previously unconquered female terrain.{{efn|Wilhelm Reich, one of Mailer’s influences, argues in ''The Function of the Orgasm'' that sexual climax was “the essence of the character, which came out and was expressed in the orgasm.”<ref name="menand" /> This explains one reason why the orgasm may feature so prominently throughout the story. Also, two years before the publication of “The Time of Her Time,” Mailer explored the intersections of orgasm and the unconscious in his essay “The White Negro.” (''Dissent'' 1957).}} Christopher Hitchens refers to this very “heroic struggle” of “The Time of Her Time” in his ''Slate'' tribute to Mailer the day after his death in 2007. He begins this tribute by confessing to “admiring Mailer’s audacity even as [he] slightly whistled at his promiscuity”:
Line 40: Line 40:


==Works Cited==
==Works Cited==
{{refbegin|40em}}
{{refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}
* {{cite web |url=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2007/11/remembering-norman-mailer-the-pint-size-jewish-fireplug.html |title=Remembering the Pint-Size Jewish Fireplug |last=Hithens |first=Christopher |date=November 11, 2007 |website=Slate |publisher= |access-date=2019-05-25 |quote= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite web |url=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2007/11/remembering-norman-mailer-the-pint-size-jewish-fireplug.html |title=Remembering the Pint-Size Jewish Fireplug |last=Hitchens |first=Christopher |date=November 11, 2007 |website=Slate |publisher= |access-date=2019-05-25 |quote= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite news |last=Kincaid |first=James |date=October 17, 2008 |title=''Lolita'' at 50 |url= |work=The Chronicle Review |page=B18 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite news |last=Kincaid |first=James |date=October 17, 2008 |title=''Lolita'' at 50 |url= |work=The Chronicle Review |page=B18 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Lidner |first=Robert |date=1952 |title=Prescription for Rebellion |url= |location=New York |publisher=Rinehart |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Lindner |first=Robert |date=1952 |title=Prescription for Rebellion |url= |location=New York |publisher=Rinehart |pages= |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1959b |chapter=Hip, Hell, and the Navigator |title=Advertisements for Myself |url= |location=Cambridge |publisher=Harvard University Press |pages=376–386 |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1959b |chapter=Hip, Hell, and the Navigator |title=Advertisements for Myself |url= |location=Cambridge |publisher=Harvard University Press |pages=376–386 |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1959a |chapter=The Homosexual Villain |title=Advertisements for Myself |url= |location=Cambridge |publisher=Harvard University Press |pages=222–227 |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |authormask=1 |date=1959a |chapter=The Homosexual Villain |title=Advertisements for Myself |url= |location=Cambridge |publisher=Harvard University Press |pages=222–227 |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
Line 50: Line 50:
* {{cite magazine |last=Menand |first=Louis |authormask=1 |date=October 21, 2013 |title=The Norman Invasion: The Crazy Career of Norman Mailer |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/10/21/the-norman-invasion |magazine=The New Yorker |pages=86–95 |access-date=2019-05-25 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite magazine |last=Menand |first=Louis |authormask=1 |date=October 21, 2013 |title=The Norman Invasion: The Crazy Career of Norman Mailer |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/10/21/the-norman-invasion |magazine=The New Yorker |pages=86–95 |access-date=2019-05-25 |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Nabokov |first=Vladimir |date=1991 |title=The Annotated Lolita |editor-last=Appel |editor-first=Alfred |url= |location=New York |publisher=Vintage |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Nabokov |first=Vladimir |date=1991 |title=The Annotated Lolita |editor-last=Appel |editor-first=Alfred |url= |location=New York |publisher=Vintage |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Nabokov |first=Vladimir |authormask=1 |chapter=On a Book Entitled ''Lolita'' |date=1991 |title=The Annotated Lolita |editor-last=Appel |editor-first=Alfred |url= |location=New York |publisher=Vintage |pages=311–317 |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite book |last=Nabokov |first=Vladimir |author-mask=1 |chapter=On a Book Entitled ''Lolita'' |date=1991a |title=The Annotated Lolita |editor-last=Appel |editor-first=Alfred |url= |location=New York |publisher=Vintage |pages=311–317 |isbn= |author-link= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Osborne |first=Susan |date=Spring 1991 |title=Revision/Re-Vision: A Feminist Writing Class |url= |journal=Rhetoric Review |volume=9 |issue=2 |pages=258–273 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
* {{cite journal |last=Osborne |first=Susan |date=Spring 1991 |title=Revision/Re-Vision: A Feminist Writing Class |url= |journal=Rhetoric Review |volume=9 |issue=2 |pages=258–273 |access-date= |ref=harv }}
{{refend}}
{{refend}}


{{Review|state=expanded}}
{{Review|state=expanded}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Teaching Controversy: Mailer in the College Classroom}}
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]
[[Category:Articles (MR)]]
Retrieved from "https://projectmailer.net/pm/Special:MobileDiff/8665...12009"