Heroic Narrative Resolution in The Armies of the Night

Authors

  • Alexander Hicks Emory University Author

Keywords:

The Armies of the Night, heroism, narrative resolution, protagonists, 1967 March on the Pentagon, New Journalism

Abstract

Norman Mailer long aspired to great accomplishments, especially to writing that would “change the consciousness of the times” or “take the temper of the times and turn it.” Very likely, he also aspired to extra-literary acts of his own to rival the “heroism” he saw in the Mohammed Ali of “King of the Hill” and The Fight and behind enthusiasm for JFK in “Superman Comes to the Supermarket,” for he boxed, ran for office, addressed public affairs and both wrote and starred in The Armies of the Night, which provides an exemplary illustration of heroic narrative resolution.

Author Biography

  • Alexander Hicks, Emory University

    Alexander Hicks is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Emory University and author/co-author of several books, including Social Democracy and Welfare Capitalism (Cornell, 1999) and The Handbook of Political Sociology (Cambridge, 2004), plus numerous papers in leading social science journals, The Mailer Review, and Poetics, and was 2003–2006 inaugural co-editor of The Socioeconomic Review (Oxford). He exchanged several dozen letters with Norman Mailer during 1983– 2006.

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Published

2017-10-26

Issue

Vol. 11 No. 1 (2017)

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Hicks, Alexander. “Heroic Narrative Resolution in The Armies of the Night”. The Mailer Review, vol. 11, no. 1, Oct. 2017, pp. 127–134, https://mailerreview.org/journal/article/view/616.