Fetterley criticizes Mailer's treatment of women by his male characters in pointing out that each female character must meet a violent death in order for Mailer's hero to be "free". Although power might lay in the masculine hands of those in government and big business, women have a mystical power over men. This power enacts a control over Rojack and only when Rojack rids himself of Deborah does he feel in possession of himself. American culture, Justin Shaw states, has a tradition in which society expects men to achieve the "self-made mode of masculinity". Betty Friedan writes in The Feminine Mystique that men, in other words, were not enemies but "fellow victims" of society's expected and assigned gender roles. His wife's recognition of Rojack in the existing world is shown to have been the link to his masculinity which left him "a void where his sense of masculinity resided" when she tells him that she no longer loves him. Rojack then begins his search for an active subject role in a masculine role. Maggie McKinley argues that Mailer uses "violence as a literary device that facilitates an analysis of his philosophies surrounding existential freedoms, social oppression, and gendered relationships". Rojack's violence is not just a result of his masculinity, but from chasing the "sexual freedom that is often denied by a repressive or 'cancerous' society". Violence provides a centre for Rojack's "construction of a liberated masculinity": "Rojack seems able to discuss manhood only through the language of violence", specifically addressing his view that masculinity revolves around either the repression or embrace of violence. Robert Merrill posits that An American Dream seems to suggest violence "is not an intolerable aberration but an extreme example of life's essential irrationality". Publication An American Dream was first published as an eight-part serial in Esquire, January–August 1964. Mailer announced the serial in his final "Big Bite" column, making clear that his serial will distinguish itself from other authors. Mailer writes: "It's been a long time since anything of this sort has been tried by an author who takes himself seriously"; Mailer cited Dickens and Dostoyevsky as inspiration. While the serialization proved a challenge for Mailer he writes that the process "has me more or less pissing blood." Esquires circulation increased to 900,000 during the serial's first month. Mailer rewrote 40% of the scenes for the novel's release in book form. Dial Press published the book