The Naked And The Dead Analysis

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“War is hell” and Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the dead was designed to present this fact, nearing the time of more accepting nature through written works. Mailer gave an important, uncensored aspect of the Second World War. Mailer uses the overwhelming theme of masculinity throughout The Naked and the Dead with constant tests of power between the men producing a heartfelt response from the public at the time, with war being an important aspect of their lives, with Mailer himself being in the war, he invented the island of Anopopei as a typical island at the time with a large mountain. Cummings believes man’s basic urge is to be omnipotent. “Our history is moved on two rivers, one visible, the other underground; there has been the history …show more content…
The Naked and the Dead presents both an ethnic and class cross-section of American masculinity, seeking war and violence as a way of proving masculinity and releasing themselves from the everyday confides of marriage and work. The men in The Naked and the Dead use their masculinity through sexual fidelity and performance and thus allows them to make comments during the state of war in order to prove their masculinity seen greatly from Brown as he suggests “when I get back im going to have a little account with her” going as far as to suggest “giv[ing] her some lumps before I kick her out” in saying this, the reader gets a sense of aggression and violence from Brown in order to prove his masculinity to those around him. By presenting Brown and other soldiers in this way, Mailer attempts to prove his idea that there are no heroes in the state of war but rather an overwhelming sense of male bravado.It is clear Mailer shows the casual and binding relationship between warfare and masculinity by emphasizing the link between American militarism and the gender ideology of masculinism proving conflict as little more than a means for men to secure an environmentally induced sense of