Counter-storytelling: Competitive Ethos of Norman Mailer’s The Armies of The Night

Abstract

This paper explores the flip-side of the discussion of The Armies of the Night, and examines how Norman Mailer tried to do things with other journalistic stories. By bringing up the competitive ethos of his news-story, I am foregrounding the reporter- novelist who purports to argue about ‘reality’ with a story and to influence and change the world the story is addressing. The purpose of highlighting the argumentative aspect of The Armies of the Night is to relocate the discussion from the issue of referentiality to the practices of textual engagement, in which Mailer analyzes, interprets, and examines competing stories in order to argue for his own version of the reality—a practice which I would like to conceptualize as “counter-storytelling.” As the prefix “counter” (“contrary” and “complementary”) implies, counter-storytelling does not necessarily mean only “storytelling against other stories” but also refers to “storytelling with neighboring stories” to support one’s perception of the reality. In retelling his experience of the Pentagon March, Mailer rarely resorts to his own experience of the event but rather actively engages other competing and neighboring stories to appropriate and attack the world-view positions of his competitors. At the textual level, The Armies of the Night cites other stories in the form of narrative summary, news report, interviews, and other documents, and engagingly recycles other competing and neighboring stories, heterogeneous in origin and desire in their pursuit of retelling the same event.