Abstract
As one of the literary figures in post-war American literature, Norman Mailer tackles psychological and sociopolitical issues in The Naked and the Dead (1948) that bewildered both critics and readers. He combined them in a complementary way that explained their cause and effect development. The present paper sheds light on the definition of power in comparison with megalomania, its different causes, and its devastating effects on both the victimizers and the victimized. It also aims at revealing the inner thought of the contemporary individual as suffering from the spiritual decadence as a rebellion against the political life that hovers almost every aspect of the American society. These points are rendered through Mailer's major and powerful characters like General Cummings and Lieutenant Croft who represent the victimizers as a part of their megalomaniac attitudes. An emphasis has always been directed to two other powerless characters—Lieutenant Hearn and Troop Red Valsen—whom will be victimized at the hands of the victimizers. Mailer, in this novel, calls that the individual is either supposed to surrender to wrongful forces or to endeavor to attain some spiritual independence and dignity.
Highlights
Max Weber (1864-1920), the German sociologist and philosopher, defines power as the possibility that “one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests”
Power relates to psychology for it is an extension to megalomania which technically means “mental illness or condition in which [people have] an exaggerated belief in their importance or power.”
The central conflict in The Naked and the Dead is between the mechanistic forces and the will to individual integrity
Summary
Michel Foucault (1926-1984), a French philosopher, historian of ideas, social theorist, and literary critic, believes that power is a “problem,” “exploitation,” and “a total enigma.” Foucault describes power as “visible and invisible, present and hidden [as well as] ubiquitous.” He adds: “Everywhere that power exists, it is being exercised” (Power/Knowledge, 213). Power relates to psychology for it is an extension to megalomania which technically means “mental illness or condition in which [people have] an. It means a person’s “strong feeling which provokes him to have more and more power” (Hornby 957). Mailer’s central subject is the relationship between the individual will and a world that attempts to overwhelm and extinguish it. Connected with this spiritual warfare is the subject of power, political power, and the individual’s need to resist the encroaching forces of totalitarianism (Miller 67). The “natural role of twentieth-century man is anxiety” (N.D.116) which is a common feature throughout the novel
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