…Rojack writes: “I released the pressure on her throat, and the door I had been opening began to close. But what I had had a view of what was on the other side of the door, and heaven was there…and I thrust against the door…and crack the door flew open and the wire tore in her throat, and I was through the door, hatred passing from me in wave after wave, illness as well, rot and pestilence, nausea, a bleak string of salts. I was floating. I was as far into myself as I had ever been and universes wheeled in a dream.”
…What Rojack sees on the other side of the “door”—“heaven”—is his freedom from the “they-self” within the “self”; he sees his freedom from Deborah who stands at the center of his Being. What he catches a glimpse of is his freedom from his lostness in the “they”; what he sees is “heaven”—his freedom from early forces and constraints— and the authentic possibilities for the “self” that transcends its thrownness in this world. Rojack describes his “transcendence”—his freedom from his lostness in the “they”—in terms of illness leaving him; his “transcendence” feels like “floating”. Since Rojack has wrenched his “self” free from the “they” by killing Deborah, Rojack feels as he did on the balcony: groundless, free, as if he could “fly”. He tells us he was “as far into” himself as he “had ever been” and his “flesh seemed new,” since by freeing himself free from the “they,” he transcends his “thrownness” and frees himself to form his own basis for Being. Further, after he frees himself from Deborah, Rojack is progressively freed from his public roles as her husband, a t.v. personality, a professor, a psychologist, and a socialite.
…For Rojack, this evil on earth not only manifests itself in the form of an oppressive American culture, but is also manifest in the form of Deborah, the temptress, the embodiment of The Dream and its empty promise of happiness.
…Through Mailer’s recovery of the Adamic myth, Mailer presents Deborah as the American Eve who tempts Rojack with the promise of power, money, status, and fame; she tempts him with the promise of The Dream: “the road to President” (AAD 2). In doing so, Mailer associates Rojack’s temptation and his “fall” with his blind absorption in American culture and with the corruption of his “self” and his “soul,” a corruption Rojack associates with Deborah, who tempted him with a lie.80 This lie—of The American Dream—is the lie of the serpent: the apple does not transfer the infinite knowledge of God to Adam or Eve, nor does The Dream provide infinite opportunities and possibilities for the individual “self”; in fact, both corrupt those who believe the lie. Yet Rojack’s “loss of innocence” occurs when he comes to an awareness of the lie of The Dream and of his “failure” in life. Mailer and Rojack envision “innocence” as an existential “innocence,” which has a negative connotation: “innocence” suggests blind absorption in the social world, the covering-up and hiding of one’s “true” self. In existential and religious terms, after his “fall,” Rojack acquires knowledge of the evil within and of free will, and he comes face to face with his existential situation in life: he must choose his own basis for “Being”; he must choose whether his life will be lived for good or for evil. Mailer suggests through Rojack that Adam became aware of his own existential situation in life after eating the apple: Adam became aware of his freedom, his free-will, his ability to make choices for his own life. Mailer suggests the knowledge both Adam and Rojack acquire—of the evil within and of their freedom—is a loss of innocence that is necessary to become self-aware and to come to a heightened awareness of the world and of others.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewc...ontext=etd
