Literary Analysis Essay on "Ego" by Norman Mailer

Introduction

Norman Mailer was a fanatic of Muhammad Ali the all-time greatest boxer to have premiered in the ring in a fight for the heavyweight championship. Muhammad Ali trained hard and always wanted to be a champion and whenever he lost he ever fought for his place in the again ((Mailer, 2018). The fighting career of the boxing champion, Ali was somehow mystical with a sequence of unexpected scenarios whereby his fans were ever left in surprise in the manner which the man easily outsmarted the opponents in the ring, maybe the opponents just disappeared.

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In the writing of a paper about Muhammad Ali, Mailer titled the publication as the "Ego" to exhibit the obsession that the fighter had on winning, the words that the fighter bravely and with vigor uttered to the Americans while in the ring on his hidden identity that was sealed to most of them ((Mailer, 2018). Highlighting on Ali's career life, mailer exhibits Ali as a man that was more obliged to self-centeredness as the best boxer that deserved recognition of his talent even more than the president of the nation. Furthermore, the ego of Ali was the picture of the generation of heroes of the society, who always want to be recognized with the mass and the media; those who still felt better than their audience, the lesser in ego. An example was Alan Shepard, who monstrously exhibited his class in golf playing scoring the points with three whacks of the stroke on the ball while in the moon-What a bravery act (Mailer, 2018).).

However, in his writing, Mailer exhibited some prejudice against the ethnic groupings of people, in that he despised the Black demeaning them as people of darkness who lack the use of intelligence in their communication compared to his race, the Whites. Mailer went further to make the comparison of White boxers and Black boxers who he felt that black fighters were illiterate enough to fail to understand the language of boxing, the use of body and mind but instead, Blacks used their physiques to challenge opponents in the ring. The racial prejudice portrayed in his writing reduces the acceptance of the Mailer's work among the Blacks and anti-racists in the nation (Mailer, 2018). The attitude reduces the reputation of the author from a nationally recognized author to a racially based one. The views of the author reflect on the national politics of boxing whereby the whites were seen as the best heavyweight fighters than the blacks who were recognized in lightweight and middleweight boxing since they lacked the interchange of physique and mind in fighting.

In the comparison of the attributes of Ali and Frazier as boxers of different racial groups, Mailer sees two persons of an entirely different a psyche, physicality, style, honor, flaws, and reputations that can't be compared. The differences are made mainly in the manner which the two boxers react before and the time at the match. As such, before the match, Ali was a man of psyche, cheerful from the morale he got from the fans. On the other hand, Frazier, the Black boxer was too naive before the boxing match to the extent he even forgot to greet his opponents before the kickoff of the boxing ((Mailer, 2018). The paper continues the theme of the history of racial dysfunction learned in class to exclaim that prejudice against the Blacks is a notion that began quite a long time ago to the extent that it's deeply rooted in the society.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Mailer intended to make a knowledgeable paper on the boxer that he loved for a longer time. However, the biasness that surrogates the vital information on the historical career account of Muhammad Ali makes publication rogue and unethical to be accepted in the society.

References

Mailer, ,. (2018). LIFE. Retrieved from https://books.google.ca/books?id=iVMEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA19-IA15&dq=norman%20mailer%20ego%20muhammad%20ali&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false