The Narrative Labyrinths In Thomas Pynchon’s Fiction

Thomas Pynchon (1937-), American postmodern writer, has published seven fictionsand a collection of short stories since1963among which The Gravity’s Rainbow is themost well-known. He distinguishes himself by his fiction of weird structure and mysteriousmeta-culture features in metropolis and of various complex themes. The story of his fictionis very complicated involving politics, history, culture and science etc.. The narrativediscourse is obscure, hard to understand, but very humorous. These fictions not onlyillustrate the story of many postmodern men who live in both the past and the present, thereal and the fictive, but also reveal an uncertain and meaningless postmodern society whichgradually turns into decadence and entropy. Thomas Pynchon’s great contribution toliterature has won him many honors.Because of great works and his unique insights, Pynchon has been studied by manyscholars with essays and books on his works. Generally speaking, the main stream ofcriticism on Thomas Pynchon has developed from single-perspective-orientation tomulti-perspectives-orientation. In recent years, narrative approach invites critical attention,among which there are some essays and monographs on labyrinth narrative of Pynchon’sfiction, but few articles have approached Pynchon from narrative structure, characterizationand narrative discourse systemically.This dissertation “The Narrative Labyrinths in Thomas Pynchon’s Fiction——takingV., The Crying of Lot49and Gravity’s Rainbow as examples” explores narrative labyrinthin Pynchon’s fictions. Labyrinth refers to the complexity of narrative structure,characterization and narrative discourse. Based on the theories of Classical and PostmodernNarratologies, this dissertation mainly focuses on analysis of three labyrinths in Pynchon’sfictions: labyrinth of narrative structure, labyrinth of characterization and labyrinth ofnarrative discourse. Labyrinth of narrative structure includes multi-level narrative structureand open-ended narrative structure. Multi-level narrative structure refers to embeddednarrative structure and switching narrative structure. Open-ended narrative structure refersto an open ending, plot juxtaposition, repetition of main structure and theme. The two kinds of structure constitute a mysterious, indeterminate and ambiguous labyrinth which is hardfor the reader to go through.The second is labyrinth of characterization. First, the dissertation analyses thefeatures of Pynchon’s characters and illustrates indeterminacy and open-ended principles ofcharacterization. Second, it explores the strategies of characterization on three aspects:absurd, paranoid and illusive antiheroes through parody and irony; tragic destiny anddistorted inner world of characters through spatial narrative; materialized and alienatedcharacters through external appearance, speech and action depiction. These strategies forma labyrinth of characterization and aim to create helpless, indeterminate postmodern men.The third is labyrinth of narrative discourse illustrated by discourse intertextualityand defamiliarization. Intertextuality of Pynchon’s narrative discourse falls on three aspects:intertextuality between Pynchon’s discourse and European, American literary works’, hisown works’, as well as non-literary fields’ discourses, including artistic and scientificdiscourses. Defamiliarization of Pynchon’s discourse involves two aspects: language andnarrative techniques. Defamiliarization of language includes strange rhetoric, use ofvarious languages, signs and words play. Defamiliarization of narrative techniques mainlyincludes: collage and pastiche, labyrinth and ambiguity, meta-narrative etc.. Intertextualityand defamiliarization together make Pynchon’s fiction an encyclopedic labyrinth.From the perspective of theory of classical Narratologies and postmodernNarratologies, Pynchon’s postmodern labyrinth embodies great breakthrough andinnovation of narrative strategies against realism and modernism literature. It also becomesan important artistic technique of Pynchon’s writing which attracts readers to participate inreconstructing text. The conclusion indicates that the artistic effect of labyrinth comes fromintrospection of Pynchon’s fiction and mobilization of readers’ active participation andinterpretation. The strategy aims to put the readers into the double labyrinths of structureand meaning so as to reveal the fictionality of postmodern works and insignificance of theworld.