Making War with a Little Help from my Friends

Hemingway, Mailer, and O’Brien

Authors

  • Kathleen "Kat" Robinson Eckerd College Author

Keywords:

war literature, The Naked and the Dead, literary influence, realism and naturalism, Ernest Hemingway, trauma and memory, New Journalism

Abstract

War and going to war is a central theme, metaphor, and concept operating in the Western literary culture. Norman Mailer, like others in his generation, recognized and respected the layers involved in making war on the pages of his texts. Mailer observed that he wanted to write a short novel about a long patrol and his book was stimulated by a few war books that he had read. Mailer recognized the debt that he owed to the influences on his writing, sometimes with a conscious nod and at other times with angry jabs to those who came before him and those who made and crafted an experience of war in fiction.

Author Biography

  • Kathleen "Kat" Robinson, Eckerd College

    Kathleen “Kat” Robinson teaches in the general education program and directs the student grants and fellowship program at Eckerd College. Her research interests include the study of trauma and narrative in modern American and British Literature and the presentation and representation of war in narrative. She has published and presented on Ernest Hemingway, on treasure-hunting in Florida, and on the effect of war on the narrative structure of Ernest Hemingway and Norman Mailer.

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Published

2026-10-10

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 1 (2014): Future Bound

Section

Articles