Theme Of War By Maile Mailer

Being himself in the war, as most American young men at the time, Mailer gives a arguably more accurate depiction of the experiences of war and the intense level of masculinity which is thus pushed to the forefront of most conflict between men. One of these themes is the dehumanization of soldiers. The soldiers are continuously referred to as machines within the novel. At one point, Mailer describes this dehumanization stating, “When a man was harnessed into a pack and web belt and carried a rifle and two bandoliers and several grenades, a bayonet and a helmet, he felt as if he had a tourniquet over both shoulders and across his chest. It was hard to breathe and his limbs kept falling asleep.”[4]:24 Thus, in this instance, the soldier is losing grasp of his bodily functions and simply going through the motions of being a “soldier”.
In dehumanizing the soldiers, the reader gets a sense of violence and masculinity involved in the animal kingdom. Unfortunately, Cummings and Croft are also the novel's principal