November 15, 2024

“A Touch of the Cosmos” in Mailer’s “A Time of Her Time”

Today, I’ll discuss Norman Mailer’s “The Time of Her Time,” considering Mailer’s view of time, jouissance, and the apocalyptic orgasm as paths to a transformative self-realization. Mailer offers a complex, often brutal view of self-discovery, exploring how intense encounters become gateways to profound existential insights.

Mailer’s protagonist, Sergius O’Shaugnessy, embodies Mailer’s vision of a certain brand of masculinity tied closely to power, ego, and conquest. Yet, “The Time of Her Time” doesn’t simply explore these qualities; it challenges and ultimately destabilizes them. In the story, Sergius experiences what Mailer calls an “apocalyptic orgasm”—a climax that becomes a form of revelation. The term apocalypse here draws from its Greek roots (ἀποκάλυψις) meaning an “uncovering” or “lifting of the veil.” For Mailer, this orgasm isn’t just physical; it’s a moment of existential clarity that strips away Sergius’ constructed identity, forcing him into uncomfortable self-reflection.

In a 2001 interview, Lawrence Grobel asked Norman Mailer about the link between religious men and violence, and Mailer responds:

“ Violence is one of the existential states. So very often in a violent act you don’t know how it’s going to turn out. It’s different from the way that it seems in the movies or in books. It’s indefinable. Anyone who’s been in an automobile accident knows how the moments before the accident have some exceptional time changes. I once got hit by a car many years ago and it was an extraordinary experience. I bounced off a couple of rocks and ended up wrapped around a tree, but it all took place very slowly. . . . It was a sports car, and it just bruised my hip. But it’s just so different from the normal and the given that it leaves you with an echo that has a touch of the cosmos in it. ”

Mailer’s answer touches on subjects that have been a major point of his literary oeuvre: the role of violence, the existential moment, and the search for the authentic. Mailer’s linking of a car crash and violence suggests here that both contain an experience that has a touch of the cosmos, or something greater and more profound than the everyday world. The experience is both jarring and disruptive, bringing not necessarily insight, but a sense that something more, perhaps something essential, lies in the realm of the unexpected sublimated by the quotidian. These experiences are profound suspensions of time, moving them out of the ordinary and into something larger—moments outside the routine to confront life in its rawest, most immediate form. This “cosmic touch” is central to Mailer’s existentialist vision, where intense personal encounters serve as catalysts that open up new, often painful, perspectives on identity and self-awareness.

Mailer’s Mutable Concept of Time

Mailer’s notion of time in this story is unique. Mailer uses “Time” with a capital “T” to signify moments that transcend ordinary chronological experience—moments that are intense, transformative, and outside the everyday flow of minutes and hours. This concept of “Time” is different from lowercase “time,” which represents the normal, mundane passage of days and activities. Mailer’s “Time” is closer to an existential or cosmic dimension, where characters encounter a reality beyond the familiar, allowing them to face the hidden or unformed aspects of themselves. Critic Stanley T. Gutman suggests that these moments are releases from the ordinary, giving characters the potential to glimpse an authentic experience in the face of heightened reality.

Likewise, Laura Adams argues that Mailer’s characters often seek these transformative experiences as a means of escaping the mundane and discovering buried aspects of themselves. For Mailer, these heightened moments make time a pliable force that, when fully experienced, elevates individuals beyond the conventional flow of existence and into a state of clarity. By using “Time” in this way, Mailer aligns it with intense moments of jouissance that create a break in the character’s psychological and emotional flow, marking a new beginning or an awakening.

Jouissance and the “Apocalyptic Orgasm”

Jouissance is associated with transgressing the limits imposed on pleasure into the excessive—the revolting, traumatic, and/or painful. It is an extreme form of pleasure: “ecstatic or orgasmic bliss that transcends or even shatters one’s everyday experience of the world” and touches upon the Real—a realm beyond the symbolic and the conscious mind. In “Time,” jouissance potentially leads to the apocalyptic orgasm, a concept Mailer describes as both climactic and revelatory. This orgasm, while intensely physical, transcends the body and becomes a gateway to deeper self-awareness. Mailer’s language implies that Sergius’ orgasm is not simply the culmination of an intimate act; it is a revelation that confronts him with uncomfortable truths about himself, his vulnerabilities, and his predilections.

Mailer’s “apocalyptic orgasm” thus serves as a radical rupture of identity, one that strips Sergius of his superficial self-assurance and forces him to reckon with his own limitations. J. Michael Lennon highlights Mailer’s focus on these revelatory moments as ones that challenge characters’ self-perception, pushing them toward what Mailer describes as “authentic existence.” In “The Time of Her Time,” this revelation is essential to Sergius’ journey; it’s a point where ego meets reality and is profoundly altered.

Mailer’s focus on the orgasm as a moment of intense, almost mystical clarity links back to the original Greek meaning of “apocalypse.” This is not simply an end but a form of unveiling—a moment when hidden truths come forward, shattering preconceived notions of the self. For Sergius, this revelation strips away his confidence, bringing him face-to-face with the fragility of his own identity.

Revelation as the Uncovering of Identity

For Mailer, this revelatory climax requires the protagonist to confront hidden aspects of his personality, particularly those that contradict his ideas of power and masculinity. In Mailer’s view, the “apocalyptic orgasm” functions as both a culmination and a beginning, pushing characters to grapple with their own limitations. Mailer believed that the path to true self-understanding often involved facing one’s most unsettling or shameful vulnerabilities. Mailer’s protagonists are often forced into these moments of existential reckoning as a way to challenge and ultimately redefine their masculinity.

Mailer’s approach here is radical. In a culture that often equates masculinity with control and dominance, Sergius’ moment of vulnerability disrupts this pattern, pointing to Mailer’s broader critique of American ideals of masculinity. Mailer saw these moments as necessary ruptures that expose the hollowness of American masculinity’s more performative aspects. In forcing Sergius to confront his limits, Mailer challenges readers to reconsider the depths of identity and the fragility beneath socially imposed roles.

Her Time

The final sentence—“And like a real killer, she did not look back, and was out the door before I could rise to tell her that she was a hero fit for me”—reveals that Denise is the one who ultimately holds the power and leaves the encounter on her own terms. Rather than being a passive participant or a conquest, Denise is the one who walks away, leaving Sergius with an unfulfilled sense of control and achievement. Her departure signifies her independence and self-possession, qualities that Sergius is only beginning to recognize and perhaps admire.

In this closing line, Sergius’s desire to call Denise a “hero fit for me” reveals a glimmer of admiration, possibly even envy, for her autonomy and strength. However, it’s crucial to note that Sergius’s epiphany here is incomplete. His perspective remains filtered through his narcissistic worldview; he cannot fully transcend his tendency to view her as a “hero” only insofar as she reflects back onto his sense of self. Rather than a true revelation, his thoughts reflect his ongoing ego-driven need to appropriate even her power and independence into his framework of self-importance.

Denise, by contrast, achieves a clear, silent victory in this moment. Her leaving “without looking back” demonstrates a liberation from Sergius’s dominance. This behavior echoes the language of finality, of having achieved something personal and then moving on without regret—a behavior Mailer ascribes to his notion of a “hero.” Ironically, Denise embodies this heroism more authentically than Sergius, showing that she has reached a kind of existential clarity and freedom that he, despite his posturing, cannot fully access or understand.

So, while Sergius might feel something resembling respect or admiration as she leaves, he has not undergone a true transformation. Rather, the final sentence underscores his lingering limitations. His desire to say that she was a “hero fit for me” encapsulates his current incapacity for revelation; he can recognize her strength only insofar as it relates back to his own ego. Denise’s departure, however, is one of finality and self-ownership, leaving Sergius in a state of unfulfilled control—a recognition of her power, but without a corresponding, genuine change within himself. At least not yet.

The last line encapsulates both Denise’s silent triumph and Sergius’s incomplete, flawed understanding of it. The story’s conclusion thus affirms Denise as the one who has achieved a kind of apocalyptic self-realization, while Sergius remains on the threshold of understanding, able to sense her power but not fully grasp or share in its liberating clarity.

To conclude, Mailer’s “The Time of Her Time” uses the concept of an apocalyptic orgasm not only as a narrative climax but also as an exploration of self-discovery and revelation. Mailer’s belief in the need for intense, often uncomfortable confrontation with selfhood is evident in Sergius’ experience, which requires him to face vulnerabilities that contradict his image of control and dominance.

“Time,” then, presents a unique view of identity, suggesting that true self-awareness arises only through such shattering moments of revelation—perhaps reached only through pushing the boundaries of the quotidian. His work challenges us to see these apocalyptic moments not as endpoints but as beginnings, spaces where the core of identity is uncovered and redefined. In Mailer’s vision, it is only by touching “the cosmos”—by confronting our most intense and destabilizing experiences—that we can truly understand ourselves.

Works Cited

• Adams, Laura (1976). Existential Battles: The Growth of Norman Mailer. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press.
• Grobel, Lawrence (2008) [2001]. "Norman Mailer: Stupidity Brings Out Violence in Me". The Mailer Review. 2: 426–451. Retrieved 2024-09-14.
• Gutman, Stanley T. (1975). Mankind in Barbary: The Individual and Society in the Novels of Norman Mailer. Hanover, New Hampshire: The University Press of New England.
• Malpas, Simon; Wake, Paul, eds. (2006). The Routledge Companion to Critical Theory. London and New York: Routledge.