On The Disillusionment Of Freedom In Gravity’s Rainbow

Gravity’s Rainbow is the third full-length novel written by Thomas Ruggles Pynchon. Like Pynchon’s earlier works, this novel continues the theme of "pursuit" In this novel, Pynchon presents a vivid description of living dilemma, social chaos and absurdity encountered by the modern western people in the Second World War. Pynchon criticizes bitterly the total war and totalitarian rule of the governing strata and the indifference between the modern people. By analyzing the existential predicament and the irresponsibility, degeneration, extreme individualism, indifference of the major characters and the absolute control and domination of the ruling strata in the novel, this thesis endeavors to explore the reasons and convincing evidence of the people’s disillusionment in the pursuit of freedom and true self.This thesis consists of three parts. The first part is an introduction aiming to explain clear the creative background and significance of the thesis and the previous study of this novel both at home and abroad. The main body of this paper appears in the second part, which can be divided into three chapters. The first chapter introduces a particular analysis of the existential dilemma that bothers the western people in the 1970s. The second chapter focuses on the reasons why those major characters could not be able to pursue the freedom and happy life. The third chapter centers on the absolute control and domination of the ruling class, which undoubtedly further make the pursuit of freedom become foams in the sky. The third part is the conclusion of the thesis.By the meticulous textual analysis of Gravity’s Rainbow, there comes to a conclusion that facing external factors such as existential predicaments, destructed environment, the total war, the domination of the ruling class, and the interior factors such as bad faith, indifference, alienation, irresponsibility, degeneration, modern people cannot really escape from the absurd and disorder society and pursue the satisfactory freedom and happy life. In Gravity’s Rainbow, Pynchon expresses his alarming concern about the living state of modern people. Even though he points out that the major characters’superficial pursuit of the uncertainties, knowledge, truth, and the resistance of the mainstream culture, as a matter of fact, they themselves at last end up with no chance of real freedom at all.