In The Executioner's Song, Mailer is exploring the uncertainties of an American selfhood and a society that build up into an intolerable tension in his main characters. Gilmore, for example, cannot control his compulsive and ambiguous behavior. He arbitrarily kills a clean-cut gas station attendant and provides no convincing explanation. Yet by implication, by the way Mailer sets his scenes in this understated "true life novel," it is clear that Gilmore cannot abide the antiseptic neatness of the gas station attendant, for Gilmore.....
This is a free excerpt of 82 words. This section contains 162 words. This
study guide contains 34,368 words (approx. 115 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Literature Guide with our The Executioner's Song Access Pass.
