Pat Conroy's first novel, The Great Santini (1976), is a curious blend of lurid reality and fantastic comedy, which deals with approximately one year in the life of Ben Meecham and his family. It is primarily a novel of initiation, but central to the concept of Ben's initiation into manhood and to the meaning of the whole novel is the idea that individual myths must be stripped away from Ben and the other major characters before Ben can approach reality with objectivity and maturity. In The Great Santini individual myths seem to consume the characters, functioning as ways of perceiving the world and as cushions against the reality that myths seem to ignore.
The title of the novel emphasizes the important role myths play, since "The Great Santini" is the identity Colonel Bull Meecham assumes when he wishes to assert his unquestionable authority as head of his household. The Great Santini, however, is merely one facet of the mythos which controls Bull Meecham's life. Colonel Meecham is a Marine Corps fighter pilot of more than twenty years service at the time of the action of the novel…. He sees the Marine Corps of the early 1960's as a perversion of the traditions he remembers from his early years in the Corps, immediately before and during World War II, but his awareness of change does not keep Bull from adopting his faulty memories as a way of life…. Because Bull is unwilling or unable to change his attitudes at will, he has endangered his relationship with his family; each member of the family recognizes that Bull might react to any family situation, from a backyard game of one-on-one basketball with his son, Ben, to arranging the house on moving day, with the same intensity and violence he would unleash in a dogfight.
