Mythic Mailer in An American Dream: Difference between revisions

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 relationship with Cherry is both sexual and spiritual. Sexuality figures prominently in the plot and in the myth. The sexual battle which Rojack describes as a struggle between the Devil and God, or non-creative versus creative power begins shortly after Rojack murders Deborah. Rojack sodomizes Deborah's maid, Ruta, an act of non-creative sex. After leaving the police station, Rojack goes to hear Cherry sing and falls in love with her. Their lovemaking results in a pregnancy, a result with obvious creative implications.

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.

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:

Rojack does judge the foulness of the country as he moves further West only to end up, ironically, in the city which is the image of Western corruption and materialistic dreams--Las Vegas. It is also ironic that it is at the gaming tables where Rojack makes the money necessary to abandon his old life and to continue his search for the spiritual American dream. Failing to find it in this country, he then delves into the jungles of South America to rediscover the aboriginal innocence that once marked North America.

Rojack begins his quest for this innocence at a cocktail party in a ritzy part of the city, where he ends up vomiting over the apartment balcony, a sure sign that his life is making him sick. His retching seems to be a form of self-purging, getting sick in order to get well. After his spell of vomiting, Rojack must go down into the city to begin his adventure even as he goes down into the unconscious to explore himself. Several scholars, including Philip Bufithis and Tony Tanner, have noted how often Rojack "plunges" downward in the book. Bufithis describes the advent of his odyssey: "Rojack must plunge into an ordeal of mythological import";{{sfn|Bufithis|1978|p=71}} while Tanner writes: "the hero of the book, Stephen Rojack, is twice very close to a literal plunge from lighted rooms in high buildings to dark streets below".{{sfn|Tanner|1971|p=356}} Leaving the party after plunging down ten flights of stairs, Rojack emerges in the cold March air.

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>

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:

How Rojack seeks to acquire this heroic consciousness controls the action in the book. The action culminates in Rojack's walk upon the parapet. His attempt to walk the parapet, buffeted by nature and lured, or taunted, by the moon, takes on the appearance of ritual in the mythic aspects of the novel. Rojack feels that his successful walk upon the parapet, high above the city, is somehow essential to his life. Cassirer's scholarship on ritual and myth contributes to our understanding of the importance of Rojack's walk on the parapet. The ritual in a society explains and precedes the evolution of the myth and is as important as the myth itself. Cassirer states: "in order to understand myth we must begin with the study of rites".{{sfn|Cassirer|1946|p=24}} Seen along one dimension, the walk on the parapet is an open clue from Mailer that this novel has mythic aspects. More importantly, the walk on the parapet is the climax of the book. The courage to complete the ritual is the courage to confront one's own existence. Frye writes: "in human life a ritual seems to be something of a voluntary effort (hence the magical element in it) to recapture a lost rapport with the natural cycle".{{sfn|Frye|1957|p=682}} Continually, when Rojack is on the parapet, he feels the force of nature, both positive and negative. The moon, a mythic symbol of nature's cyclical rhythm, appears to give him strength. Rojack's courage is faltering, when he hears an inner voice:

The power of the moon puts Rojack in touch with his inner self and enables him to see what he must do to further pursue wholeness. He must atone for the violence of Deborah's death and for the uselessness of his former life with a show of courage and confidence in himself. This self-trust or listening to one's depths is a cornerstone of many mythic quests. Rojack, a very human mythic American hero, has the perspicacity to glimpse the necessary deed for atonement, yet in the end lacks the wisdom and the strength to accomplish it. His descent from the parapet echoes the failure of Orpheus, whose beloved wife Eurydice died from a snakebite. According to Ovid, Orpheus, inconsolable, ventures to the underworld and begs Pluto and Persephone for the return of his beloved. The king and queen of Hades allow Eurydice to leave only if Orpheus leads the way out of the underworld without looking back to see Eurydice. Just as Luke Skywalker, in another modem myth--the movie Star Wars--must finally trust the intangible Force to acquire the strength to save himself and those he loves, so Orpheus must trust the powerful gods.

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