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Article
The Deconstruction of American Myth in Thomas Pynchon’s Fiction
Author(s)
LIU Feng-shan
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5836/2014.01.002
Affiliation(s)
Liaocheng University, Liaocheng, China
ABSTRACT
Living and creating in the tumultuous decades from the 1960s through 1980s, Thomas Pynchon unfalteringly chooses the countercultural and civil rights movements in the United States of that age as the permanent topic of his fiction. It can be seen from Pynchon’s dramatic, sometimes fantastic narratives about these movements that the failure of the countercultural movements lies in their illusive nature in contrast with the hypocrisy and disproportionate power of the government to destruct these movements, and that the presence of American racial problems results to a great degree from the sloth prevailing over various institutions in American society when dealing with racial inequality and from American white racists’ desire to eliminate an imagined threat in the face of the minorities. This paper tries to provide a different understanding that Pynchon’s writing of the marginalized or surrealistic issues in these countercultural and civil rights movements is his strategy to expose the falsehood of American myth of democracy.
KEYWORDS
Thomas Pynchon, American myth, countercultural movements, racial problems, deconstruction
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References
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Holton, R. (2003). “Closed circuit”: The white male predicament in Pynchon’s early stories. In N. Abbas (Ed.), Thomas Pynchon: Reading from the Margins (pp. 37-50). London: Associated University Press.
Kerouac, J. (2012). On the road. New York, Penguin.
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Madsen, D. L. (1991). The postmodernist allegories of Thomas Pynchon. Leicester: Leicester University Press.
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Olster, S. (1994). When you’re a (Nin)jette, your’re a (Nin)jette all the way—Or are Yor?: Female filmmaking in Vineland. In G. Green, D. J. Greiner, & L. McCaffery (Eds.), The Vineland papers: Critical takes on Pynchon’s novel (pp. 119-134). Champaign: Dalkey Archive.
Beals, M. P. (1995). Warriors don’t cry. New York: Washingtong Square Press.
Petillon, P. Y. (2007). A re-cognition of her errand into the wilderness. In P. O’Donnell (Ed.), New essays on The Crying of Lot 49 (pp. 127-170). Beijing: Peking University Press.
Porush, D. (1994). “Purring into transcendence”: Pynchon’s puncutron machine. In G. Green, D. J. Greiner, & L. McCaffery (Eds.), The Vineland papers: Critical takes on Pynchon’s novel (pp. 31-45). Champaign: Dalkey Archive.
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Pynchon, T. (1984). Slow learner. Boston & Toronto: Little, Brown.
Pynchon, T. (1986). The crying of lot 49. New York: Harper & Row.
Pynchon, T. (1990). Vineland. Boston & Toronto & London: Little, Brown.
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Pynchon, T. (1997). Mason & Dixon. New York: Henry Holt.
Pynchon, T. (2006). Against the day. New York: Penguin.
Pynchon, T. (2009). Inherent vice. New York: Penguin.
Salinger, J. D. (1951). The catcher in the rye. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
Saltzman, A. (2000). “Cranbks of Ev’ry Radius”: Romancizing the line in Mason & Dixon. In B. Horvath, & I. Malin (Eds.), Pynchon and Mason & Dixon (pp. 63-72). Newark: University of Delaware Press.
Schwarzbach, F. S. (1978). A matter of gravity. In E. Mendelson, & E. Cliffs (Eds.), Pynchon: A collection of critical essays (pp. 56-66). N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
Seed, D. (1988). The fictional labyrinths of Thomas Pynchon. London: MacMillan.
Simmon, S. (1981). Beyond the theatre of war: Gravity’s rainbow as film. In R. Pearce (Ed.), Critical essays on Thomas Pynchon (pp. 124-139). Boston: G. K. Hall & Co..
Slade, J. W. (1978). “Entropy” and other calamities. In E. Mendelson, & E. Cliffs (Eds.), Pynchon: A collection of critical essays (pp. 69-86). N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
Slade, J. W. (1994). Communication, group theory, and perception in Vineland. In G. Green, D. J. Greiner, & L. McCaffery (Eds.), The Vineland papers: Critical takes on Pynchon’s novel (pp. 68-88). Champaign: Dalkey Archives.
Solomon, E. (1994). Argument by anachronism: The presence of the 1930s in Vineland. In G. Green, D. J. Greiner, & L. McCaffery (Eds.), The Vineland papers: Critical takes on Pynchon’s novel (pp. 161-166). Champaign: Dalkey Archive.
Tabbi, J. (1994). Pynchon’s downwart art. In G. Green, D. J. Greiner, & L. McCaffery (Eds.), The Vineland papers: Critical takes on Pynchon’s novel (pp. 89-100). Champaign: Dalkey Archive.
Tanner, T. (1978). V. and V-2. In E. Mendelson, & E. Cliffs (Eds.), Pynchon: A collection of critical essays (pp. 16-55). N. J.: Prentice-Hall.
Thill, B. (2005). The sweetness of immorality: Mason & Dixon and the American sins of consumption. In E. J. W. Hinds (Ed.), The multiple worlds of Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon (pp. 49-76). Rochester: Camden.
Thoreen, D. (2003). The fourth amendment and other modern inconveniences: Undeclared war, organized labor, and the abrogation of civil rights in Vineland. In N. Abbas (Ed.), Thomas Pynchon: Reading from the margins (pp. 215-233). London: Associated University Press.
Tololyan, K. (1983). War as background in Gravity’s Rainbow. In C. Clerc (Ed.), Approaches to Gravity’s Rainbow (pp. 31-68). Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
Vanderbeke, D. (1999). Vineland in the novels of John Barth and Thomas Pynchon. Retrieved from http://www.diss.sense.uni-konstanz.de/amerika/vanderbeke.htm
Weisenburger, S. (1981). The end of history? Thomas Pynchon and the uses of the past. In R. Pearce (Ed.), Critical essays on Thomas Pynchon (pp. 140-156). Boston: G. K. Hall & Co..
Werner, C. H. (1986). Recognizing reality, realizing responsibility. In H. Bloom (Ed.), Critical views: Thomas Pynchon (pp. 191-202). New York & New Haven & Philadelphia: Chelsea.
Committee in solidarity with the people of El Salvador. Retrieved from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_in_Solidarity_with_the_People_of_El_Salvador
Wolfley, L. (1981). Repression’s rainbow: The presence of Norman O. Brown in Pynchon’s big novel. In R. Pearce (Ed.), Critical essays on Thomas Pynchon (pp. 99-123). Boston: G. K. Hall & Co..
Yudkim, J. (2002). Understanding music (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall.
ZHANG, Y. L., & LI, J. M. (1992). Social movements and governmental reforms in the history of the United States. Tianjin: Tianjin Education Press.
Bérubé, M. (1992). Marginal forces/cultural centers: Tolson, Pynchon, and the politics of the canon. Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press.
Booker, M. K. (1992). Vineland and dystopian fiction. Pynchon Notes, 30-31, 5-38.
Chambers, J. (1992). Thomas Pynchon. New York: Twayne.
Clerc, C. (1983). Introduction. In C. Clerc (Ed.), Approaches to gravity’s rainbow (pp. 3-30). Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
Clerc, C. (2000). Mason & Dixon & Pynchon. Lanham & New York & Oxford: University Press of America.
Cowart, D. (1994). Attenuated postmodernism: Pynchon’s Vineland. In G. Green, D. J. Greiner, & L. McCaffery (Eds.), The Vineland papers: Critical takes on Pynchon’s novel (pp. 3-13). Champaign: Dalkey Archive.
Curtin, M. F. (2003). Out of touch: Skin tropes and identities in Woolf, Ellison, Pynchon, and Acker. New York & London: Routledge.
Dickinson, D. (1998). The utterance of America: Emersonian newness in Dos Passos’s U.S.A. and Pynchon’s Vineland. Göteborg, Sweden: ACTA Universitatis Gothoburgensis.
Foreman, D. (2000). Historical documents relating to Mason & Dixon. In B. Horvath, & I. Malin (Eds.), Pynchon and Mason & Dixon (pp. 143-166). Newark: University of Delaware Press.
Gordon, A. (1994). Smoking dope with Thomas Pynchon: A sixties memoir. In G. Green, D. J. Greiner, & L. McCaffery (Eds.), The Vineland papers: Critical takes on Pynchon’s novel (pp. 167-178). Champaign: Dalkey Archive.
Hayles, N. K. (1994). Who was saved?: Families, snitches, and recuperation in Pynchon’s Vineland. In G. Green, D. J. Greiner, & L. McCaffery (Eds.), The Vineland papers: Critical takes on Pynchon’s novel (pp. 14-30). Champaign: Dalkey Archive.
Hite, M. (1994). Feminist Theory and the Politics of vineland. In G. Green, D. J. Greiner, & L. McCaffery (Eds.), The Vineland papers: Critical takes on Pynchon’s novel (pp. 135-153). Champaign: Dalkey Archive.
Holton, R. (2003). “Closed circuit”: The white male predicament in Pynchon’s early stories. In N. Abbas (Ed.), Thomas Pynchon: Reading from the Margins (pp. 37-50). London: Associated University Press.
Kerouac, J. (2012). On the road. New York, Penguin.
LIU, F. S. (2013). A study of Thomas Pynchon’s fiction in postmodern context. Jinan: Shandong University Press.
Madsen, D. L. (1991). The postmodernist allegories of Thomas Pynchon. Leicester: Leicester University Press.
Mendelson, E. (1978). The sacred, the profane, and The Crying of Lot 49. In E. Mendelson, & E. Cliffs (Eds.), Pynchon: A collection of critical essays (pp. 112-146). N. J.: Prentice-Hall.
Olster, S. (1994). When you’re a (Nin)jette, your’re a (Nin)jette all the way—Or are Yor?: Female filmmaking in Vineland. In G. Green, D. J. Greiner, & L. McCaffery (Eds.), The Vineland papers: Critical takes on Pynchon’s novel (pp. 119-134). Champaign: Dalkey Archive.
Beals, M. P. (1995). Warriors don’t cry. New York: Washingtong Square Press.
Petillon, P. Y. (2007). A re-cognition of her errand into the wilderness. In P. O’Donnell (Ed.), New essays on The Crying of Lot 49 (pp. 127-170). Beijing: Peking University Press.
Porush, D. (1994). “Purring into transcendence”: Pynchon’s puncutron machine. In G. Green, D. J. Greiner, & L. McCaffery (Eds.), The Vineland papers: Critical takes on Pynchon’s novel (pp. 31-45). Champaign: Dalkey Archive.
Pynchon, T. (1966). A journey into the mind of Watts. The New York Times Magazine, 12, 34-35, 78, 80-82, 84.
Pynchon, T. (1973). Gravity’s rainbow. New York: Penguin.
Pynchon, T. (1981). V.. London: Pan.
Pynchon, T. (1984). Slow learner. Boston & Toronto: Little, Brown.
Pynchon, T. (1986). The crying of lot 49. New York: Harper & Row.
Pynchon, T. (1990). Vineland. Boston & Toronto & London: Little, Brown.
Pynchon, T. (1993). Nearer, My couch, to Thee. The New York Times Book Review, 6. Retrieved from http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_sloth.html
Pynchon, T. (1997). Mason & Dixon. New York: Henry Holt.
Pynchon, T. (2006). Against the day. New York: Penguin.
Pynchon, T. (2009). Inherent vice. New York: Penguin.
Salinger, J. D. (1951). The catcher in the rye. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
Saltzman, A. (2000). “Cranbks of Ev’ry Radius”: Romancizing the line in Mason & Dixon. In B. Horvath, & I. Malin (Eds.), Pynchon and Mason & Dixon (pp. 63-72). Newark: University of Delaware Press.
Schwarzbach, F. S. (1978). A matter of gravity. In E. Mendelson, & E. Cliffs (Eds.), Pynchon: A collection of critical essays (pp. 56-66). N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
Seed, D. (1988). The fictional labyrinths of Thomas Pynchon. London: MacMillan.
Simmon, S. (1981). Beyond the theatre of war: Gravity’s rainbow as film. In R. Pearce (Ed.), Critical essays on Thomas Pynchon (pp. 124-139). Boston: G. K. Hall & Co..
Slade, J. W. (1978). “Entropy” and other calamities. In E. Mendelson, & E. Cliffs (Eds.), Pynchon: A collection of critical essays (pp. 69-86). N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
Slade, J. W. (1994). Communication, group theory, and perception in Vineland. In G. Green, D. J. Greiner, & L. McCaffery (Eds.), The Vineland papers: Critical takes on Pynchon’s novel (pp. 68-88). Champaign: Dalkey Archives.
Solomon, E. (1994). Argument by anachronism: The presence of the 1930s in Vineland. In G. Green, D. J. Greiner, & L. McCaffery (Eds.), The Vineland papers: Critical takes on Pynchon’s novel (pp. 161-166). Champaign: Dalkey Archive.
Tabbi, J. (1994). Pynchon’s downwart art. In G. Green, D. J. Greiner, & L. McCaffery (Eds.), The Vineland papers: Critical takes on Pynchon’s novel (pp. 89-100). Champaign: Dalkey Archive.
Tanner, T. (1978). V. and V-2. In E. Mendelson, & E. Cliffs (Eds.), Pynchon: A collection of critical essays (pp. 16-55). N. J.: Prentice-Hall.
Thill, B. (2005). The sweetness of immorality: Mason & Dixon and the American sins of consumption. In E. J. W. Hinds (Ed.), The multiple worlds of Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon (pp. 49-76). Rochester: Camden.
Thoreen, D. (2003). The fourth amendment and other modern inconveniences: Undeclared war, organized labor, and the abrogation of civil rights in Vineland. In N. Abbas (Ed.), Thomas Pynchon: Reading from the margins (pp. 215-233). London: Associated University Press.
Tololyan, K. (1983). War as background in Gravity’s Rainbow. In C. Clerc (Ed.), Approaches to Gravity’s Rainbow (pp. 31-68). Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
Vanderbeke, D. (1999). Vineland in the novels of John Barth and Thomas Pynchon. Retrieved from http://www.diss.sense.uni-konstanz.de/amerika/vanderbeke.htm
Weisenburger, S. (1981). The end of history? Thomas Pynchon and the uses of the past. In R. Pearce (Ed.), Critical essays on Thomas Pynchon (pp. 140-156). Boston: G. K. Hall & Co..
Werner, C. H. (1986). Recognizing reality, realizing responsibility. In H. Bloom (Ed.), Critical views: Thomas Pynchon (pp. 191-202). New York & New Haven & Philadelphia: Chelsea.
Committee in solidarity with the people of El Salvador. Retrieved from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_in_Solidarity_with_the_People_of_El_Salvador
Wolfley, L. (1981). Repression’s rainbow: The presence of Norman O. Brown in Pynchon’s big novel. In R. Pearce (Ed.), Critical essays on Thomas Pynchon (pp. 99-123). Boston: G. K. Hall & Co..
Yudkim, J. (2002). Understanding music (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall.
ZHANG, Y. L., & LI, J. M. (1992). Social movements and governmental reforms in the history of the United States. Tianjin: Tianjin Education Press.