Death And Resistance

As a contemporary literary figure of America, Norman Mailer (1923—2007) hasbeen regarded as one of the most important writers. The Naked and the Dead (1948),a partly autobiographical novel, is one of his most famous books. This book has wonhim substantial prestige, and since then he has been considered as a famousrepresentative of post-war American literature. The development of Americanexistentialism has brought him the name of contemporary existential writer ofAmerica.After World War II The Naked and the Dead has been viewed as one of the classicworks about war. Mailer concentrates on two significant themes—Death andResistance. This paper tentatively tries to explore Mailer’s American existentialism.It is a research on the interpretation of these two themes in terms of Mailer’sexistentialism. This paper starts with the analysis of Mailer’s existentialism, and thenmakes a thorough comparison between Mailer’s American existentialism andprevious European existentialism. It is followed by a discussion of the practice ofMailer’s existentialism in his novel The Naked and the Dead. In this part, the authorof this paper deems that Mailer’s existentialism is mainly elaborated in the following two aspects. To begin with, existence is death, which means people’s existence iswith no dignity and their death is of no significance. The cause of man’s death can beascribed to the absurdity of war and the alienated interpersonal relationships.Secondly, man’s greatness of resistance is manifested by the struggles betweenhumanity against beastliness and freedom against totalitarianism. In this paper, theauthor finally explores people can transcend death and accomplish their pursuit ofidentity and meaning of life.