Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead

Martin Kich (Wright State University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1948

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Originally published in 1948, when Mailer was only twenty-five years old, The Naked and the Dead was immediately hailed as a major novel about the American experience in the Second World War. In the subsequent half century, the novel has retained that standing. Indeed, despite Mailer’s attempts to replicate its success in a series of “big” novels, The Naked and the Dead has remained, in the view of many critics, his most important and most fully realized novel.

The novel is set on the fictional island of Anopopei in the South Pacific. An American force is attempting to dislodge the Japanese from the island, but the American effort quickly bogs down. The novel focuses on Lieutenant Robert Hearn, an aide t…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

919 words

Citation: Kich, Martin. "The Naked and the Dead". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 31 May 2006 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=120, accessed 24 November 2024.]

Save this article