The exclusion of the traditional villain from contemporary American literature (Saul Bellow, Thomas Pynchon)

The American novelists' portrayals of evil have changed from the way in which writer Nathaniel Hawthorne presented evil in his novel The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne and others in nineteenth century America used a particular type of villain that contemporary novelists such as Saul Bellow and Thomas Pynchon have discarded. This thesis closely examines the lack of true villainy in Bellow's modernist novel The Victim. It also considers the post-modernist work The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon and its exclusion of the 19th century characterization of the villain.; Some theories as to why contemporary American authors reject the use of the traditional villain are also supplied. Above all, greater considerations of the self as well as the idea of institutions as the true perpetuators of evil, rather than depictions of a devil-like figure, seem to be the focus of these novelists.