The Structured Vision of Norman Mailer/4. An American Dream: Difference between revisions

The eight-volume supra-novel of which ''The Deer Park'' was to have been the first volume was conceived as a comprehensive statement on every facet of American society. ''An American Dream'' touches on most elements of society within one volume, compactly but not simplisti­cally. Although the scope of this novel would seem to imply that Mailer has discarded the careful mechanical limitations of subject matter and setting which we have observed in the earlier novels, certain elements of structure are employed which are reminiscent of the classical unities. The entire action takes place within a twenty-four hour period, in Manhattan, and much pertinent action is related in retrospective flashbacks. The central character and narrator, Stephen Richards Rojack, moves constantly through the city, facing one confrontation after another; and though he is not chained to one spot, the nature of these repeated conflicts as they complicate and clarify the position of the protagonist, are parallel to those experi­enced in ''Samson Agonistes'' or ''Prometheus Unbound''. Because of the significant Christian overtones in ''An American Dream'', a more apt literary analogue may be found in ''Pilgrim’s Progress''.