Norman Mailer's Use of Frontier Metaphor

Norman Mailer's romantic conception of the frontier as possibility or the uncreated future and the frontiersman as symbol of resistance, individualism, resolution, courage, and self-reliance has led Mailer gradually to transform the resolute and courageous pioneer into the bad man, who, in the guise of the Hipster, becomes the hero of Mailer's latest novel, An American Dream. The study, treating both Mailer's non-fiction prose and his novels, examines first the traditional uses of the frontier metaphor in American literature and then Mailer's use of frontier metaphor to determine how his conception of the frontier follows or deviates from the traditional concept. The procedure is to show first Mailer's use of the frontier, then his use of the frontiersman, and finally his development of the bad man as hero.