An American Dream (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Norman Mailer
- First Published: 1965
- Type of Plot: Symbolic and melodramatic romance
- Time of Work: 1962
- Setting: New York City
- Principal Characters: Stephen Richard Rojack, Deborah, Barney Kelly, Ruta, Cherry, Roberts, Shago Martin
- Genres: Long fiction, Satire
- Subjects: 1960’s, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Power, personal or social, Love or romance, Sex or sexuality, Murder or homicide, New York City, Machismo
- Locales: New York, NY
The Novel
The unrealistic nature of An American Dream is signaled in the novel’s first sentence, in which Stephen Richard Rojack, who is both the narrator and the protagonist, says that he met John F. Kennedy in 1946 and that they double-dated one night during which Rojack seduced Deborah Caughlin Mangaravidi Kelly, who later became his wife. By way of comparing his heroism with Kennedy’s, Rojack then tells of a war experience during which he single-handedly wiped out a German machine-gun nest and became a hero. Although this event, narrated in the tough-guy idiom of...
[The entire page is 2153 words long]
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