Collective Unconscious In The Entropic World

Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr, has managed to remain one of the most prominent postmodern writers in contemporary American literature. Pynchon’s novels are broad in scope and famous for his application of scientific theories, historical facts, and details of popular culture with great accuracy. Entropy is a physical term and was introduced into his literary world by Pynchon in his short story "Entropy". Most of his works apply entropy to contemplate the real world. Chaos, disorder and madness are the eternal manifestation of the entropic world while death means that the entropic world reaches the equilibrium state, the eternal quietness of the world.Jung’s concept of collective unconscious is derived from Freud’s concept of unconscious. Jung believes that collective unconscious is something that does not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but inborn. Jung has chosen the term "collective unconscious" because this part of the unconscious is not individual but universal and it has contents and mode of behavior that are more or less the same everywhere and in all individuals. The contents of collective unconscious are archetypes. There are as many archetypes as there are typical situations in life. Due to the increasing entropy in the world, disorder and madness are deepening and exaggerating. One of the collective unconscious’s contents and mode of behavior---the Dionysus Archetype, plays a crucial part in the madness and disorder. Similarly, facing the cruel fact that the entropic world is reaching its equilibrium, people’s mode of behavior will be expressed in the way of the Death Archetype.The thesis analyzes two scenes in Thomas Pynchon’s short novel "Entropy"---the party downstairs and the hothouse upstairs, revealing the disorder and madness of the entropic world and their attitudes toward death. Jung’s Psychological Types, Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy and Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy have described the Dionysus and its related madness. It is stated in Jung’s Psychological Types that in the Dionysian state the Greek was anything,"he was gripped by his own barbarian nature, robbed of his individuality, dissolved into his collective components, made one with the collective unconscious". Therefore, the Dionysus archetype described in Psychological Types, A History of Western Philosophy, and The Birth of Tragedy reflects the nature of collective unconscious---ollective, universal and impersonal. In the hothouse downstairs, Aubade is never afraid of death and is ready to accept the death fact. Aubade’s attitude toward death coincides with the philosophy about death in D. H. Lawrence’s "The Woman Who Rode Away" and Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of death reflected in his work Time and Being. Being toward death reflects people’s introspection of the past and their preparation for the future. The collective unconscious, therefore, is reflected through the Death Archetype which seems to be always present and everywhere.