Mailer’s Modern Myth

Reexamining Violence and Masculinity in An American Dream

Authors

  • Maggie McKinley Harper College Author

Keywords:

masculinity and violence, gender politics, existential freedom, moral ambiguity, feminist criticism, An American Dream

Abstract

Mailer’s An American Dream reveals some of the most frustrating but also the most fascinating representations of gender in contemporary American fiction. This essay illuminates the ways in which Mailer himself interrogates violence in his own work, exploring its nuances and consequences nearly as often as he extols it as an essential aspect of masculinity.

Author Biography

  • Maggie McKinley, Harper College

    Maggie McKinley is an Assistant Professor of English at Harper College in Illinois. She recently received her PhD from Marquette University, where she completed a dissertation entitled “Violence and Masculinity in American Fiction, 1950–1975,” which addresses works by Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Philip Roth. Her work will appear in the upcoming edited collection entitled Roth and Celebrity (Lexington Books), as well as in a forthcoming volume of Critical Insights (Salem Press) devoted to Philip Roth.

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Published

2026-10-09

Issue

Vol. 6 No. 1 (2012): Why Mailer Matters

Section

Articles