Norman Mailer's 'The Naked and the Dead' - An analysis

Seminar paper from the year 1998 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: very good, University of Vienna (Anglistics/ American Studies), course: Journalism and Fiction in the United States, language: English, abstract: This paper deals with the relationship between fiction and traditional and New Journalism. I have taken Norman Mailer´s novel 'The Naked and the Dead' as an example of fiction influenced by New Journalism and my paper intents to show the relationship on the basis of this novel and other contemporary texts. The first chapter deals briefly with the author´s motivation to write the novel and more extensively with the referential material used, referring partly to the author´s own experience and to the existence of derived material, which has to be taken into account as well. The next chapter states the parts the novel consists of and gives a brief analysis of how structure and point of view work in the novel. The main focus of the paper is the next chapter: Norman Mailer and New Journalism. After a definition of 'traditional' and 'New Journalism' these terms are brought into relation with Mailer´s novel with regard to the most eminent features: perspective, details and language. The last chapter features the narrative techniques Mailer employed and how these techniques provide the reader with closer insights into the novel´s characters and events.