The Strategic Temporal And Spatial Narrative In The Crying Of Lot 49

Thomas Pynchon is noted for his complex and intricate postmodern novels.The Crying of Lot 49 and Gravity's Rainbow were listed among the best 100 English novels since 1923 by Time Magazine in 2005.In the novel,Pynchon has presented a worldwide conspiracy through the protagonist Oedipa's investigation as an executrix of her late boyfriend Pierce Inverarity's will,during which she kept encountering some extremely interesting and absurd characters and events.The more clues Oedipa found,the more nervous she got,feeling that she was in an exitless labyrinth.The novel is generally regarded as typical black humor.The complexity and obscurity of this novel are mainly achieved by Pynchon's narrative strategy.The thesis is to analyze the strategic temporal and spatial narrative,along with the narrative effect achieved.Through explaining anachronies of story time,relations of repetition between narrative and diegesis,and anisochronies of duration of narrative and story,the thesis is to analyze the strategic temporal narrative in order to comprehend its role in characterization,plot description and background introduction in the novel.The thesis also elaborates on the strategic spatial narrative through features and skipping of various story spaces and the complexity of Oedipa's psychological space to interpret people's living status and the operation mode of the postmodern American society depicted in the novel.Moreover,by analyzing the application of plot juxtaposition,with lots of characters and events regardless of temporal and spatial order,and ending juxtaposition,an open ending,it can be concluded that Pynchon succeeds in introducing a chaotic and indeterminate postmodern society which was turning into decadence andentropy.