The Importance Of Intertextuality In Mailer's The Armies

Mailer`s The Armies is written in an overtly self- conscious manner as he assumes the roles of both the author and the central character. It models itself on the tradition of the more experimental fiction of the time. In this novel, Mailer does not abandon reality like fabulists but rather he extends the literary range to make reality relevant and meaningful in this multi-faceted and complex world. In this novel, Mailer attacks traditional reporting that rarely gets at the truth of a situation such as the march on the Pentagon. As critic Kathy Smith points out, "Mailer's strategy [.. .] is to question the authority of the newspaper text and to discover the limits of the reporter's narrative practices" (Smith 179). For Mailer, these limits exist

There is a common consensus among them that a meaningful world can always be projected not through a process of mythos-making but rather through the operation of various versions of the same story in a certain text or the interaction of the text itself with other texts within it. Intertextuality has particularly permeated the theoretical framework of literary journalism. Julia Kristeva, Mikhail Bakhtin and Roland Barthes are among the major critics who seek to give a thorough definition of the term, “intertextuality.” According to Kristeva, “Any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another. The notion of intertextuality replaces that of inter-subjectivity, and poetic language is read as at least double” (Original italics 66). It is obvious that this definition aptly recapitulates the main characteristics of intertextuality. First, any text relates in a way or another to other texts constituting a mosaic. Second, any text enthralls other texts within itself in a process that results in a metamorphosis of the text itself to a new form. Third, this metamorphosis of the text creates a sense of doubling and infinitude that denies originality. Every text is an intertext in another text. Therefore, intertextuality can be regarded as “the most important tool” to deconstruct the relationship between the text and its author. Through intertextuality, “creativity and productivity are transferred to the text... and the individual subjectivity of the author disappears and his authority over the text vanishes” (Pfister 212). Thus, intertextuality has accentuated its usefulness and significance in challenging the “author-text relationship” and replacing it with “one between reader and text” (Hutcheon, Poetics 126). In brief, intertextuality assumes that any text derives its meaning and significance from the