Distortion And Death: Norman Mailer’s The Naked And The Dead

Being Norman Mailer’s first successful masterpiece, The Naked and the Dead(1948) contains many of his ideals and concerns. Arranging the backdrop on an isolated tropical island, Mailer is quite inventive for the revelation of the warfare. On the one hand, soldiers face severe natural challenge; on the other hand, they undergo distortion and death brought by the totalitarian war machine. These two aspects form the basic design of this thesis. Soldiers’ fates and integrity are arbitrarily manipulated; humanity and interrelationship are alienated in such absurd and meaningless war.This thesis firstly analyzes the natural conditions that responsible for the distortion and death of common soldiers on this isolated island Anopopei. They enclose themselves to their own world and antagonistically guard themselves, which further deteriorates isolation and barren relationship among each other. Then this thesis analyzes another theme of the novel: war machine. A thorough description is provided through unique narrative manner, from which the symbolic war machine and the characteristics of this warfare are revealed. Such force facilitates the distortion and death of men. Eventually, this thesis analyzes essentials of distorted relationships led by natural conditions and war machine among different parties. The deconstruction of common soldiers’ struggle for meaning and totalitarianism of power operation deepen the dramatic effect of the novel.This thesis tries to reveal the power operating mechanism that lies behind the distortion and death that led by the unique natural and war conditions. The deconstruction of power and pursuit echoes the absurdity and meaninglessness of the warfare, which enables men to take a new look at this war and themselves in return and awake their consciousness for meaning.