The naked and the dead

This article describes Norman Mailer's novel The Naked and the Dead . For the film of the same name, see The Naked and the Dead (film) .

The Naked and the Dead (Original: The Naked and the Dead ) is a novel by Norman Mailer from 1948. It is about the everyday life, battle and death of a US company that fought on an island in the Pacific during the Second World War fighting the Japanese troops .

To the author

Mailer enlisted in the army in 1944 and was an infantry soldier in the Pacific. In the novel he writes about things he has experienced himself, by young people his age, and he judges older people, about superior officers, their morals , but also the morals of his generation.

Framework story

The novel is about the conquest of the fictional Pacific island of Anopopei by American troops during World War II.

Most of the characters described in more detail belong to a 12-strong reconnaissance platoon. When the US troops land on the island without any problems, the soldier Hennessey is fatally wounded on the beach in the very first battle with the Japanese. Hennessey's death is accepted calmly by the others, since he was new to the train.

The men are then occupied with grueling road construction work for weeks. In a Japanese counter-attack, the group now deployed on the battle front successfully defended a river bank.

Then the advance of the American troops comes to a standstill on a well-developed defensive position in the hinterland of the island. After numerous quarrels, General Cummings transfers command of the reconnaissance platoon to his previous adjutant, Lieutenant Hearn. The unit is then dispatched to a risky exploration company behind the Japanese lines. After an arduous march across the jungle in the hinterland of Anopopei, the group is caught in a Japanese ambush at a mountain pass. The soldier Wilson is seriously wounded.

The group then separates. Part of the train carried the wounded Wilson in a forced march that lasted days across the jungle towards the coast. Despite the exertion, the wounded man dies of the stomach injury shortly before reaching the coast. The attempt by the remaining porters to at least recover the corpse also fails when the dead body is lost in a rapids and is drifted into a swamp, where it cannot be found.

The other part of the platoon continues the reconnaissance patrol. The Sergeant Martinez - known as the most capable soldier of group - sneak back at night to the mountain pass to explore whether the Japanese have withdrawn from this point. He finds numerous Japanese soldiers in a camp and stabs a Japanese guard to death.

Sergeant Croft ensures that Lieutenant Hearn, who is in charge of the train, has no knowledge of the presence of the Japanese in the mountain pass. When the group climbed the mountain pass the next day, the completely unsuspecting Lieutenant Hearn, leading the train, was shot by the Japanese. The reconnaissance platoon then withdraws from the pass.

Against the will of everyone else, Sergeant Croft, who is now in charge of the train, enforces an attempt to climb Mount Anaka. On this high alpine and almost impossible mountain tour, the soldier Roth fails when attempting to jump over a crevice and falls to his death. When Croft then steps into a hornet's nest, the attacking hornets cause panic in the group. The soldiers began to descend in frantic flight, so that the attempt to climb the mountain had to be stopped for good.

Without the knowledge of the reconnaissance platoon, however, the conquest of the island was almost complete shortly after the reconnaissance patrol was dispatched. The pain suffered and the deaths of three protagonists were thus militarily useless.

Most of the text is devoted to the everyday life and daily conflicts of the soldiers - in addition to detailed flashbacks into the lives of individual protagonists.

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Composition, style and interpretation

The novel does contain some fighting scenes, but not the fighting is mainly portrayed, but the psychological portrait of the soldiers and their military superiors. The protagonists very often relate what they experienced directly to their civil life and private views.

The officers around General Cummings lead an almost carefree life and - in contrast to the troops - are also well fed and enjoy their time. As an example, the officers' idleness and boredom are portrayed on the basis of a day at the beach with clay pigeon shooting and similar amusements. The portrayal of the officers' corps is consistently negative; the majority of the officers are described as having little intellectual or political interest.

Mailer, on the other hand, shows the common soldiers and NCOs as rough, but actually decent, decent guys who are good Americans . Fatefully they were thrown into the armed forces and finally onto this “goddamn island” (quote). Isolated acquaintances with Japanese people show that it is no different here either. But the abysses of human nature are revealed unprotected. A prisoner-of-war Japanese infantryman is shot dead in cold blood by the sadistic Sergeant Croft after smoking a cigarette with him.

It is clearly shown that man is depraved and helpless at the mercy of war, but that there are also limits over which he cannot be pushed, as the author notes. The long stay on the island, the military drill, the helplessness before the lurking death demoralize the men. The choir expresses what really interests the men , similar to the epic theater : food, women, the home shot , replacement and life after the war.

Broken by changing narrative technique and reminiscent of HG Wells ' The Time Machine , the novel conveys the vision of a humanity robbed of its freedom and thus goes beyond the sentimentality of conventional war literature.

Historical references

The locations and characters in the novel are largely fictional. Only General Douglas MacArthur is mentioned briefly towards the end of the book. However, there is some evidence that Mailer alluded to the fighting at Guadalcanal (August 1942 to February 1943) in his book . The fighting (relatively safe landing, Japanese counterattacks over a river, long “cleaning” of the island) proceed in a similar way, and the Anopopei island in the book has geographically comparable properties (which a map also shows in some variants). Unlike in the book The Thin Red Line (dt Title:. Island of the Damned ) by James Jones , which clearly refers to Guadalcanal, there are at The Naked and the Dead contradictions: the battles play out only in 1943 from the men belong to an Army and not a Navy division and have previously conquered another island called "Motome".

Main characters of the novel

The constant conflict material of the novel results inevitably from the behavior of the young soldiers towards the officers. One another is provoked, commanded and discriminated against. The following characters can be considered the main characters, because Mailer describes scenes from their lives before the war in chapters as flashbacks:

• General Edward Cummings is one of the central characters in the novel. He comes from a wealthy merchant family in the Midwest. He has had excellent mental abilities from a young age, but has always been lonely and socially isolated. Because of his origins, all opportunities for social advancement are open to him, he attends the elite military academy and West Point University . He marries Margaret, who comes from an influential Boston family, with whom he is unhappy because Cummings has long suppressed his homosexual tendencies. He is a brilliant and ruthless strategist and the only officer with a complete overview of the military problems of the campaign. With ambitions for a further career in the military or the diplomatic service, he also plans beyond the campaign at Anopopei. His image of man is based on an inhumane attitude and cold ratio. Due to the relative prosperity in the United States, he deliberately treats the common soldiers badly, because he regards the hatred of the officers as enhancing performance. Although he is familiar with democratic and communist views, he considers such movements to be naive because they cannot be enforced. In addition, anti-communist positions will be career-enhancing in the near future. This brings him into conflict with his adjutant, whom he initially considers to be a kindred spirit.

• The adjutant Lieutenant Robert Hearn , he too comes from a wealthy (factory owner) family in the Midwest and also has very good intellectual abilities. At the latest during his studies, however, he leaves the career path planned by his family and turns to artistic pursuits. Hearn works in New York as an editor at a publishing house. He also deals intensively with radical political and philosophical views. However, he does not develop a fixed worldview. Hearn suffers from the fact that in his previous life, despite his origins and his undeniable abilities, he has not yet brought about a life that is fulfilling and satisfying for him. His liberal views lead to a dispute with his superior General Cummings. The general enjoys showing Hearn the futility of emphatically philanthropic views. Lieutenant Hearn is the only personality in the novel who has retained a firm belief in humanity. He is also the only officer who has the courage to refuse power. He is convinced that the politicians and generals of this world will never succeed in completely breaking the resistance of the people. After being transferred from adjutant to head of the train, he comes into conflict with the soldiers because of his humiliating, soft leadership. Hearn can be considered the author's alter ego .

• Sergeant Sam Croft , is the platoon leader of the reconnaissance platoon. Before the war, he worked as a rancher on his father's ranch in Texas. He is a capable soldier and is feared and respected by his men. He regards the reconnaissance train as his personal property and leads it with iron severity. His character drawing resembles that of Cummings; Like him, he secretly knows that he is hated by his men and tries successfully to control them through fear. He also tends to be brutal and unscrupulous. For example, he shoots a Japanese prisoner who, when captured, initially gave him the feeling that he was being treated as a prisoner of war. From the beginning he was strangely fascinated by Mount Anaka, which dominates the island of Anopopei. Climbing this summit becomes an obsession with Croft. This leads to an intrigue against the officer Hearn assigned to the train, which ends with his death.
• Sergeant Julio Martinez is the troop's scout, is described as their most capable soldier and is nicknamed "Japskiller". He is the only confidante of Croft on the train, but two worries plague him: his panic fear of death - which also drives him to peak performance - and his shame of being of Mexican origin and therefore never really being respected by the Americans.
• Sergeant William Brown is the third sergeant on the platoon. Brown is portrayed as an affable, friendly All American boy with a penchant for binge drinking and going to brothels in civilian life, where he works as a salesman. Brown is secretly traumatized by the experiences of the battles and no longer trusts himself to fill his position as a sergeant.
• Woodrow Wilson is portrayed as a happy, overly carefree womanizer. Wilson, who bears the name of an American president, comes from a humble background, but is content with his life compared to other soldiers on the platoon and does not make any special efforts to advance socially. In his private life, but also towards his comrades in his train, he tends to little rip-offs and irresponsibility, partly because of his character, partly because it brings him advantages.
• Red Valsen is one of the older and more experienced soldiers in the group and has nihilistic traits and a strong lack of attachment and indifference. Before joining the army, he led an unsteady life, among other things as a tramp and dishwasher, which was characterized by his restlessness and his inability to bond with women for good. Although he has caring feelings towards his comrades on the train, he finds it difficult to express them. He is anti-authoritarian and despises all officers. After Croft he is the bravest man on the train and the only one who dares to rebel against him.
• Jack Gallagher is portrayed as a grumpy, very devout Catholic of Irish descent. He joins a reactionary political group in Boston when he was young and has anti-Semitic views, which leads to conflict with Jews on the train. On the other hand, he has a strong sense of family, which is why he falls into a deep crisis when his wife dies in childbed.
• Joey Goldstein is a friendly, kind-hearted and believing craftsman from New York with a penchant for philosophizing. As a devout Jew, he has to fight with anti-Semitic resentment and tries to find out what is special about the Jews. Nevertheless, he behaves in a very friendly manner towards the other men on the train, which repeatedly leads to disappointments for him.
• Casimir "Polack" Czienwicz is an amoral character. Coming from a simple background, he behaved cleverly and skillfully, looking for and finding contacts with organized crime in Chicago as a teenager. Since he can cope with any situation, he also fits in quickly as a newcomer who only joins the train after landing.

While the officers, from major to division general, constantly keep an eye on their careers, the soldiers vegetate without time, only concerned not to perish, to satisfy their physical needs and to leave the army as soon as possible. Mailer highlights individual men in the chapters of the novel and describes their careers, childhood, parental home, first love, job. The young men are the main characters in the novel, all of them normal Americans from different parts of the country. In each case it describes the appearance of the type exactly, like that

• nineteen-year-old Arthur Stanley, who would have been a handsome fellow had it not been for his long nose and scanty black beard;
• Roth, a short, hunchbacked man with long arms who owned a child, a two-year-old boy, and whose wife had a spongy face;
• Sergeant Brown, who claimed his wife was a beauty;
• Jack Gallagher, who always longed for the passionate eyes of his wife Mary;
• Pollack Czienwicz, a product of the Chicago slums and the cunning crook whose only image of life is to get the best out of every situation for yourself;
• William Brown, he was a little over medium height, a little fat, with a boyish face, a broad snub nose, had freckles and reddish brown hair, but there were wrinkles around his eyes and some jungle ulcers on his chin.

Quotes

• The killing lost all measure and troubled the men less than the discovery that some ants were on their night camp.
• For the first time in our history, I tell you, the powerful men of America have become aware of their real goals. Pay attention. After the war, our foreign policy will become far more naked and less hypocritical than ever. We will no longer cover our eyes with our left hand while holding out an imperialist claw with our right. (Cummings).
• Certain things were against the rule. The Japanese had set up a number of small hospitals in the last weeks of the campaign and killed many of their wounded while retreating. The advancing Americans did what was left of the wounded, smashed their heads with the butt of rifles or shot them.

Publications

The German translation by Walter Kahnert was published by FA Herbig in 1950 . In the GDR, the same translation was published in 1967 by Volk und Welt Berlin.

The new translation by Peter Torberg and Jürgen Bürger was published by Langen Müller Verlag in 2018 .

filming

The novel was in 1958, directed by Raoul Walsh filmed .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ihab Habib Hassan: The Modern American Literature. An introduction (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 444). Kröner, Stuttgart 1974, ISBN 3-520-44401-1 , p. 50.

swell

• About Mailer, his book and his anti-war stance