The Armies of the Night

by Norman Mailer

History as a Novel: The Steps of the Pentagon

Written in third person with Norman Mailer as the protagonist, this section is purported to be a first-hand account of Mailer's activities during the March. After opening with an excerpt from Time, the novel begins with Norman Mailer at home answering a call from Mitch Goodman, a friend from college, asking him to join the March on the Pentagon and specifically join a demonstration "at the Department of Justice to honor students who are turning in their draft cards". Convinced, Mailer promises to join him, but "I can't pretend I'm happy about it". Mailer alluded to himself as multiple egos such as; The Prince of Bourbon and The Beast and took being M.C as a form of competition with the other speakers. The next day, he watches many speeches at the event where 996 draft cards are handed in.

On the day of the March, a Saturday, Mailer is one of the first to arrive at the Pentagon and sets out to get himself arrested. He does so without resisting, and the rest of the part is him in custody. He at first interacts with a neo-nazi at the site, before being moved to holding cell in a courthouse. While there, he debates whether he should give his fellow cellmates some of the money he brought to bail himself out, before giving much of it away. Rumors about how they will be released and what is going on at the Pentagon are the topics of conversation. They are then all moved to the Occoquan, Virginia workhouse, and Mailer settles himself in. During the time where he sleeps, the section "Why Are We in Vietnam" is presented. From his arrest onward, Mailer is periodically interviewed by a British journalist Dick Fountain with a cameraman for a documentary. Mailer is frequently very happy to see them and gladly gives interviews at their behest. In the prison, a deal is made where the protestors would plead "Nolo Contendere" and receive a five-day suspended sentence. Mailer initially refuses, wishing to plead guilty. Despite changing his mind, Mailer is still judged more harshly for his actions and, initially, is sentenced to 30 days in jail as well as a $50 fine. After much legalistic challenges, Mailer is released and gives a rambling speech about Jesus Christ to the press.

The Novel as History: The Battle of the Pentagon

The second part begins with an image of "the Novelist in passing his baton to the Historian has a happy smile." This part of the book is much shorter and deals with the March on the Pentagon at large, beyond when Mailer was arrested and taken away. It begins with a discussion of the organization of both sides of the March. Groups are shown to organize which exact routes and which locations are to be used. The protestors and the government negotiate the minutia of the protests, with each side reluctant to give up the smallest ground. Finally, on the day of the March, Mailer goes into the tactics and tools used by each side. He details the violent acts done by the military, using first hand accounts to illustrate the gravity of the actions. At the end of the day, the final hour of the protest is recorded in detail. As the loudspeakers tell the protestors to disperse before midnight, the last stragglers refuse to board the buses. Mailer again ends this section with religious imagery, and the last section, "The Metaphor Delivered", attempts to illustrate how Mailer feels about the war and the protests.

Why Are We in Vietnam?

{{Multiple issues|section=yes| }} "Why are we in Vietnam" is at the center of Mailer's The Armies of the Night. The chapter, located roughly at the end of the first half of the novel, is a clinical exploration of the involvement of the United States in Vietnam. The format differs from the previous sections the reader has followed the character of Norman Mailer along through preparations for the protest at the Pentagon, the protest itself, and finally Mailer's imprisonment. Following the imprisonment of Mailer, said character goes to sleep and this section occurs. This section, described by some as the author's dream, can be described as an internal monologue regarding the issues surrounding the Vietnam War. It appears strikingly out of touch with the surrounding portions of the novel, and could easily be transplanted into the editorial section of a newspaper. This section bridges the gap between the view of Norman Mailer the character and Norman Mailer, the author and presents his most straight forward discussion of the war in the novel.

Mailer divides American opinion on the Vietnam War into two camps, the Hawks and the Doves, the former in favor of the war and the latter opposed to it. Mailer argues that he disagrees with both camps and places himself in his own category of the Leftist-Conservative, a label he had employed in several of his other works. Mailer summarized the arguments each side had for and against the war, as well as his disagreements with both parties. He noted that the Hawks held five main arguments in favor of continuing or expanding the Vietnam War: # it demonstrated that China would not expand guerrilla activities in Asia without great expense; # rallied small Asian nations to America's side; # it underlined America's commitment to defending said small nations; # it was an inexpensive way to fight a great power, far less expensive than actually fighting a great power directly; # and was superior to starting a nuclear war with China.

The Doves countered that the Vietnam War failed to defend America, and only united Vietnam with China, nations previously at odds. Additionally, the war was not an inexpensive means of containing China, but rather a phenomenally expensive one. Mailer took care to note that the Vietnam War had already consumed itself. Finally, that the war's real damage took place in the United States, in which it contributed to the deterioration of civil rights and led to the exposure of students to drugs and nihilism.

Mailer argued that the Doves appeared to have more powerful arguments; however, they failed to respond to the Hawks' most pivotal claim, "The most powerful argument remained: what if we leave Vietnam, and all Asia eventually goes Communist? all of Southeast Asia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia, Japan, and India?" Finally Mailer turns to what he holds is the "saddest conclusion" of the Vietnam War, namely it highlighted the country's deep state of schizophrenia. The nation's state of schizophrenia had been a theme of Mailer's work, appearing in such pieces as The White Negro. In Why are We in Vietnam? Mailer noted, "The average American, striving to do his duty, drove further every day into working for Christ, and drove equally further each day in the opposite direction—into working for the absolute computer of the corporation ... So the average good Christian American secretly loved the war in Vietnam. It opened his emotions. He felt compassion for the hardships and the sufferings of the American boys in Vietnam, even the Vietnamese orphans." The year Armies was published, 1968, Mailer would begin work on another project, Miami and the Siege of Chicago, after witnessing the Republican and Democratic National Conventions that year. Mailer's recounting, though quite different in terms of his self-portrait, takes on a comparable rhetorical approach to evoking what he saw as historical underpinnings.