Research On Thomas Pynchon's Novels

Thomas Pynchon(1937-),a representative writer of American postmodern literature,has published eight novels and a collection of short stories since 1963.Featured by peculiar ideas,various subjects,complex content,and ambiguous discourses,his novels involve politics,history,culture,science and technology,economy and other fields.Each of his novels has aroused tremendous attention from American readers and critics.He was nominated many times for the Nobel Prize in Literature.The evaluation and interpretation of his works from critics,however,have been controversial and constantly changing.If we want to estimate the value of Pynchon's novels in a comprehensive and objective way,the theme and thought of his novels should not be ignored.Most of the theme studies of Pynchon's novels in China are confined to the case analysis of specific works,lacking the analysis of the writer's world view,creation perspective,theme and art from the overall or macro level,which is not constructive to the overall discovery of his ideological value.Pynchon's novels were written in the 1960s when the chaotic social reality provided the social background for the formation of Pynchon's world view and creation view.The rise of irrationalism provides the cultural background while the appearance of entropy world outlook exerts more profound influence on Pynchon's creation.As a new model of world view,entropy explains the reality that the contemporary world is becoming increasingly chaotic and disorderly,showing various aspects of the atmosphere of decline and death.Therefore,with the help of a variety of post-modern trends of thought and the corresponding narrative techniques to present the chaos and disorder of the world,it has become an important pursuit of Pynchon literature.The thesis mainly takes one short story and five novels as the study objects:Entropy,V.,The Crying of Lot 49,Gravity's Rainbow,Vineland and Inherent.On the basis of close reading of texts,review and classification of relevant literature with qualitative and quantitative methods,this research tries to interpret the expression of Pynchon's world view and creation view in the theme of the novels—chaos,meaninglessness,uncertainty and the artistic features of the novels—pursuit mode,space writing strategy,narrative technique,etc.to conduct a comprehensive and systematic analysis in order to find out the uniqueness of his works and hidden ideological connotation,through his pessimistic attitude towards reality and self-conscious writing to reveal the ideological value of his novels.The thesis falls into five parts.The introduction introduces Thomas Pynchon's life,creation experience and literary status,and then summarizes the research status of domestic and foreign scholars on Pynchon's works and the translation situation of his works in China.The research on Pynchon at home and abroad shows the trend of multi-dimensional and diversified development,more research results on subjects in particular,which provide a great reference for subsequent researchers.However,compared with the comprehensive and the in-depth foreign studies,the domestic research mainly focuses on his single work.Therefore,the focus of studies should be moved to the depth of research and the richness of research perspectives.Chapter one starts with Thomas Pynchon's world view and creation view,focusing on the three main factors,namely,the 1960s as a social background,the irrationalism as the cultural background and the "entropy" world view as the background of the world view.In the 1960s,Pynchon happened to be in the youth which was also the critical period of the formation of his world view and values.He was an observer and participant of various social and cultural movements in the United States in the 1960s.The chaotic social reality not only affected his world view and creation,but also provided the direct experience and material for his later creation.The formation of Pynchon' s world view and creation view is not only influenced by social reality,but also inspired by the ideological trend of irrationalism and post-modernist philosophy,and make his novels rise from the intuitive feeling to the level of metaphysics-the philosophical "meaningless".In the form of art,his novel narrative has refinement and vulgarity coexisting in it,and expresses confusion with "confusion".The appearance of entropy law and its entry into literature is another important factor influencing the formation of Pynchon's world view and creation.Pynchon's acceptance and application of entropy makes Pynchon's novels more scientific and philosophical in nature.Entropy is the breakthrough point to understand the uniqueness of Pynchon's novels,from which we can not only get a glimpse of Pynchon's complicated and chaotic world,but also appreciate Pynchon's world view and narrative strategy of his novels.It can be said that the theme and narrative mode of each of Pynchon's novels are the projection of the world view of entropy.Chapter two tries to analyze the theme of Pynchon's novels on the basis of close reading of texts.After grasping and analyzing many themes in his novels,the author chooses the more representative themes-chaos,meaninglessness and uncertainty to make a deep explanation.With the development of science and technology,the frequent occurrence of modern wars,and the ensuing death of God in the spiritual realm,the Western world is facing an unprecedented crisis.It seems that human beings for the first time find themselves unable to understand this chaotic world.Reason,faith,and everything based on it have collapsed,not only in the external world,but also in the individuals' spiritual world.Pynchon has quite profound experience of this kind of post-modern chaos,and his novels present a chaotic world both in theme and form.Therefore,meaninglessness becomes the starting point for Pynchon to view the world,individual meaninglessness and communication nonsense become his novel theme,and uncertainty permeates all the actions,thoughts and interpretations of the characters in his works.In Pynchon's works,uncertainty is the normal state of the world,which is not only the main feature of Pynchon's novels—in terms of plot,characters,language and so on-but also an important theme in Pynchon's novels.The uncertainty in Pynchon's works is reflected in two aspects:uncertainty of identity and uncertainty of truth.This chapter focuses on the chaotic,meaningless and uncertain textual world Pynchon describes for us to reveal the sense of loneliness and absurdity in his writing.Then he points out three possibilities in the face of chaos,uncertainty and meaningless world:first,to accept the world as it is;second,to construct space to seek shelter for human beings to escape from the coldness of this chaotic world;third,to give meaning to mankind in a meaningless world through love.From this,it can be seen that Thomas Pynchon,who seems pessimistic,is still hopeful.Chapter three mainly analyzes the artistic expression in Pynchon's novels.Pynchon is not only a writer who relies on experience—growing background,educational background and working background—to create,but also bases his writing on reason and theory—conscious creation view and entropy theory—guiding creation.By virtue of his genius wisdom,he combines the three in his novels and thus the unique artistic features of his novels are formed.He creates a chaotic plot structure through the ingenious application of narrative modes,the narrative strategies and narrative techniques.Therefore,the plot of the novel is no longer closed.The past,the future,and the present are mixed into one;reality,illusion,and recollection are intertwined.Then he forms a seemingly chaotic scene,and thus reflects his world and creation view that correspond to the theme of the novel,showing a chaotic and disorderly world together.The artistic features of Pynchon's novels are respected in three aspects:first,the "pursuit mode";second,the space writing;third,the narrative skills.The choice of the plot mode of novels is related to the writer's educational background,growing environment and life experience.Behind each plot mode lies the writer's creation view and world view.Pynchon is very fond of the plot structure model—"pursuit",which is employed in almost all his works.In traditional western literary works with the theme of "pursuit",the protagonists are generally "heroes",and for the narrative framework he draws lessons from and uses the epic structure:taking the protagonists' travels or life experiences as clues,to pursue the ultimate goal of life such as spiritual home or ideal as the main idea.In Pynchon' s works,the pursuit is embodied in the anti-hero ordinary characters and the open narrative structure.The protagonists in Pynchon's novels are no longer heroes,but have degenerated into ordinary people or even marginal people.In Pynchon's novels,no circular structure that traditional narrative often has can be found,and all the narratives have open structures,like "leave--pursue—lost".This nonlinear pursuit mode has lost the traditional causal relationship in the plot,and reflects the postmodernist literary concepts,such as"confusion and disorder,all goes for entropy" in the modern society and the impossibility of human beings' seeking meaning in the absurdity.The space writing is an important feature of Pynchon's novels,which plays an important role in plot advancement and thematic expression.The space-time span of Pynchon's novels is large and the characteristics of space narration are extremely obvious.The type,the narrative function and the narrative strategy of space of his novels are all representative in the American postmodern novels.Foucault's theory on the relationship between space and power construction provides a theoretical way to interpret Pynchon's space writing.Pynchon's four types of space in his novels correspond to four different kinds of dystopia in Foucault's theory of space:deviant heterodystopia,crisis heterotopia,compensatory heterodystopia and hallucinatory heterodystopia.Space is the basis of the operation of all power mechanisms,and these four kinds of heterotopia have become the ways and means of power reconstruction in modern society.Pynchon's space writing reveals the spatial structure of American social power and the involuntary existence of human beings,embodying the writer's conscience and humanistic feelings.Pynchon deliberately breaks the traditional narrative order,introduces some confusion to expand the interpretation of the text and increase the amount of information expressed in literature,which also makes the subject matter of Pynchon's novels complicated.All kinds of subjects are mixed together in confusion,which shows.the characteristics of fragmentation.But a careful crawl through the text reveals that Pynchon's novels seem chaotic and disorderly;but under the surface clutter the author's meticulous planning and layout are hidden.The core of entropy law is the order behind disorder and unpredictability.Pynchon,who is deeply influenced by the law of entropy,intentionally or unintentionally used literary techniques and methods to express and resist disorder.He frequently uses various writing techniques,such as series of characters,flashing,collage,multi-clue narrative,embedded narrative and so on,to make the text look chaotic and disorderly on the surface,but there are still rules to follow in the context of the text.This writing style reflects the writer's efforts to make redemption facing the chaotic world,in which the complex and unstructured structure symbolizes the chaotic society,while various writing skills reflect hi' efforts to seek order in the chaos.The writer's world view is thus revealed and extended:although society is chaotic and disorderly,the individual cannot give up hope,and there must be some order that can integrate the fragmented system.The conclusion summarizes the thesis.Pynchon is an "unusual" being in American literary history.His uniqueness lies in not only his accomplishment as a literary and scientific writer,but also his philosophical theme of his novels,dazzling narrative techniques and his subversion of traditional narrative methods.It more lies in his concern about the human condition and the philosophical height of his achievement.The themes and artistic expressions in Pynchon's novels correspond exactly to the social reality of the United States,showing Pynchon's concern for the plight of human existence and his compassion for humanity,and confirming more profoundly the consistency of the writer's world outlook and creative view.