Dilemmas Of The American Dream

Norman Mailer is a famous and controversial American author, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. His fourth novel An American Dream is a serial fiction. It makes reflections on the time-homed term the American Dream, and carries certain historical meaning. Up till now, domestic studies on An American Dream are extremely rare, and they focus on its existential value; while in this thesis, the American Dream’s multiple dilemmas in An American Dream are to be analyzed under new historical criticism, and thus the novel’s historical value is explored.New historical theory elaborates relationships between literature and history. Mainly adopting Louis Monstrose’s crucial concepts of "historicity of texts" and "textuality of history", together with other related new historicist proclamations, the paper extends itself under the guidance of new historicism. First of all, historical roots of the American Dream’s dilemmas in An American Dream are discovered separately from individual and social perspectives under "historicity of texts". Individually, Norman Mailer and his protagonist Stephen Richards Rojack share some similarities, and there are some names in the fiction related to real historical figure and places. Socially, historical roots of the American Dream’s dilemmas in An American Dream are analyzed in four aspects, including feminist movement and struggle of women, Civil Rights Movement and discrimination of African Americans, wealth accumulation and self-destruction of celebrities, together with incomplete judicial system and judicial injustice of officers.Based on the analyses above, the American Dream’s multiples dilemmas under "textuality of history" in An American Dream are further clarified. Firstly, Rojack’s spiritual dilemmas in pursuing the American Dream, including the paradoxical feelings and moral dilemmas are explored; secondly, identity dilemmas of certain communities in pursuit of the American Dream are elaborated, including the identity establishment failure of the female community, the cultural identity crisis of the African-American community, the identity transformation plight of the celebrity community and the incompatible identity contradictions of the official community. And thus the multiple dilemmas of the American Dream have been comprehensively manifested.