The aim of this article is to study Stephen Rojack, the main
character of An American Dream (1964) inasmuch as the one that
most successfully approaches the "hipster' upon whom Mailer had
written "The White Negro" (1957). The biographical parallelism
between the author and his character, the shortlived experience of the
Kennedy era, Mailer's disappointment at what the sixties were coming
to, etc., tell Rojack apart from the other Maileresque characters —so
far does he achieve his role as metaphysical rebel.
