Women Struggling In Plights

As a Jewish American, Norman Mailer seems not concentrated on the writing ofJewish subject matter and on the expression of Jewishness but is always involved inthe hottest cultural and political events and movements happened in America. Amongthe events and movements he participated in, the most unexpected is his involvementwith the grand feminist’s movement in the1970s and becoming the primary target offeminist literary critics. His feud with feminists originated from his provocativestatements in the public or in the works.At abroad, the well-known Mailerian scholar from the perspective of feminism isKate Millet who devoted a chapter in Sexual Politics to criticize Mailer’s chauvinism.Many other scholars touched upon the point, but not systematically. At home, RenHujun contributed a chapter of his doctoral thesis to discuss power and morality inman-woman relation in an attempt to disclose in patriarchal society man’s dominanceon woman. On that account, this study will focus on discussing the representativefemale figures in Mailer’s works in an attempt to explore Mailer’s view on women aswell as the women’s hard and embarrassing living situation in men-dominant society.Since Mailer is a prolific writer, it is impractical to cover all his novels in asingle limited study like this. Therefore, the focus of the study is primarily laid onthree of his early novels: Barbary Shore, The Deer Park and An American Dream.The study chooses the three novels is grounded on the following three reasons. Thefirst one is by order of time; the second one is the three works were published beforethe1970’s feminist movement. That is to say, his involvement with feminism isbecause of his works before the movement. Therefore, through the study of the threenovels, we could, to some degree, figure out if the attack at Mailer from feminists istrue; the third is the three novels carry some kind of coherence in plot: the housewifeGuinevere in Barbary Shore is confined by home, eager to walk out from it. Bearing aHollywood dream, she wants to cast it on her daughter who is supposed to send toHollywood. It happens that Lulu in The Deer Park is an actress in Hollywood. But for a girl in Hollywood, life is not as smooth as she expects. If she rebels against theproducer’s will, she will end up as a dance-hall cutey as the producer predicts. It iscoincidence that in An American Dream, Cherry is that sort of girl who sings anddances in night-club, an indecent place. Hence the three life stages of the threefemales purely outline a life trajectory of a woman. That is a journey of how ahousewife runs out of her family, then becomes a famous movie starlet and finallydegrades to be a night-club singer up to death. Therefore, the three novels embracecertain coherence in plot.Incorporated into the theories of feminism, of Foucault’s power, ofpsychoanalysis, and of ethics, with the approaches of contextual analysis, of culturalanalysis, as well as psychoanalysis, the study will unfold arguments from BarbaryShore, The Deer Park, and An American Dream to study respectively three differentfemale roles—housewife, starlet, night-club singer—in different arenas to discusstheir experiences and circumstances on their life stages, thus uncovering the hard andembarrassed living plights of female individuals in patriarchal society. In the threecontexts, the plights women are involved in are home, Hollywood and night-club. Tofree from their plights and to seek for their self, they begin to rebel by their ownmeans. To be absent from the dull and confined home, the housewife Guinevere inBarbary Shore begins to rebel against life by seeking sex from her lodgers who notmerely make her obtain some kind of consoling, but in most possibility help her toleave the home cage for Hollywood. In the end, she is accessible to run out of thehome confining her, but at the price of her husband’s life. The sexy actress Lulu inThe Deer Park traps in Hollywood and her body is displayed on kinds of stages andbecomes the object and target controlled and disciplined by power. To oppose themarriage arranged by the Hollywood movie mogul, Lulu secretly married an unknownactor. Nevertheless, she is eventually failed to get rid of being controlled by powerand of the unreal self grounded on body. The nightclub singer Cherry in An AmericanDream, to men, is nothing but a tool that can be either transferred or deserted. Toescape from the nightclub in which she is surrounded by threatening creatures as thenightclub heavies or mafias, she quits the job and stays with the murderer Rojack. But her altruistic love to him is discovered only to save the man but herself. She ends upbeing beaten to death as a sacrifice. The arguments of the three contexts seemmutually independent, but actually progressive. From the confined home, through thebright Hollywood, to the foul night-club, every step women take forward is difficult,even more and more difficult, as a result that they are led to the grave.Through the study, the dissertation draws the conclusions: one is reveal womenare confronted with the hard living plight in different social stages; the other one isthe early Mailer holds an ambivalent attitude towards women. Mailer casts her malecare upon those women in plights and endows them with consciousness of searchingfor self. But in the mean time, his heroines’ searching for self are either based ondependence on men, or cannot be accomplished in a real sense, or finally leads todeath. In this sense, Mailer’s chauvinism is more or less embodied. To some extent,the attacks from feminists seem somewhat extreme. The study could not only providea new angle for Mailer study at home, but make us rethink the scenes in our daily lifeas well as women’s life dilemma in it, thus carrying a definite significance boththeoretically and realistically.