Carl S. Horner is Assistant Professor of English at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida.

Carl Horner's study contributes significantly to our understanding of the fictional presentation of the American male and to our awareness of the complexity of the male corporate ideal.

• Competition, expectation, and the American corporate psyche; life-or-death-dealing, dress and behaviour codes in American business; against the fires of Ilium - Vonnegut's restless engineer in player piano; "The Catcher in the Rye" - irreconcilable tension in Salinger's Peter Pan; the boy inside the salesman - "tired to the death", in Miller's "Death of a Salesman"; rabbit in the showroom - healthy, wealthy and no place left to run; the boy inside Bob Slocum - the ambiguity of "death" by "asphyxiation" in Heller's "Something Happened".

Carl S. Horner is Assistant Professor of English at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida.

Carl Horner's study contributes significantly to our understanding of the fictional presentation of the American male and to our awareness of the complexity of the male corporate ideal.

• Competition, expectation, and the American corporate psyche; life-or-death-dealing, dress and behaviour codes in American business; against the fires of Ilium - Vonnegut's restless engineer in player piano; "The Catcher in the Rye" - irreconcilable tension in Salinger's Peter Pan; the boy inside the salesman - "tired to the death", in Miller's "Death of a Salesman"; rabbit in the showroom - healthy, wealthy and no place left to run; the boy inside Bob Slocum - the ambiguity of "death" by "asphyxiation" in Heller's "Something Happened".