Ignorance And Bigotry In John Mailer's The Time Machine

The "Time Machine" may be a laborious device to enrich our experience with the men on Anopopei, but that is its function. Although Leeds cites Martinez, he might have mentioned any number of other characters. When Gallagher learns of his wife's death, for example, he becomes an important figure in the novel for the first time. At this point Mailer introduces a "Time Machine" section on Gallagher's Boston-Irish background, his training in frustrated prejudice. Just as we first see Gallagher as fully human, stunned by the loss of his wife, Mailer highlights his ignorance and bigotry. Paradoxically, we are all the more impressed by Gallagher's intense feeling for his wife. He becomes a more complex and interesting character than would have been possible had his biography or his mourning been presented alone. Thus, Mailer uses the "Time Machine" to illuminate character, introducing the device at just that moment in the narrative when it best supplements the novel's action.
The "Time Machine" differs, then, from similar devices in the works of John Dos Passos. The "Camera Eye," "Newsreel," and biography sections in U.S.A., for example, are clearly intended to complement the narrative in the manner of a
Like Mailer’s other works, The Naked and the Dead constantly portrays women as sexual objects who are unequal to men. Many men, especially Brown, fear that their wives are cheating on them while they fight in the war. This only causes them to have more hatred towards women. Brown tells Stanley that if he finds out his wife has cheated on him, he will beat her then throw her out.[4]:168 Later, in the Chorus “Women,” Polack insists that “there ain’t a fuggin woman is any good” and Brown agrees. Women are especially emphasized within Time Machine segments. Here the men’s romantic relationships and sexual experiences are heavily described. In many of the Time Machines, such as Martinez, women are portrayed as simply sexual