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Man of Many Words

Armies of the Night stands at a perfect mid-point between Mailer's journalism and his fiction. Spend a class reading some of Mailer's work for the Village Voice and selections from some of his fiction, The Executioner's Song and The Naked and the Dead. How do they compare to this novel?

Self as a Character

Norman Mailer goes about the fraught process of turning himself into a character in his own novel. As a class, have each student imagine she is writing a film in which she is the lead character. She should write some key components to the character's personality and choose an actor who could play the role.

Vietnam

Armies of the Night is positioned at a moment when the few folly of American involvement in Vietnam was becoming clear to the US populace and leadership at once. As a class, watch selections...

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