Clemson University TigerPrints All Theses Theses 5-2009 Ambiguity and Apocalypse: Metafictional Reading Strategies in The rC ying of Lot 49 and One Hundred Years of Solitude David Foltz Clemson University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Foltz, David, "Ambiguity and Apocalypse: Metafictional Reading Strategies in The rC ying of Lot 49 and One Hundred Years of Solitude" (2009). All Theses. 599. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/599 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses at TigerPrints. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Theses by an authorized administrator of TigerPrints. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. AMBIGUITY AND APOCALYPSE: METAFICTIONAL READING STRATEGIES IN THE CRYING OF LOT 49 AND ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE A Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of Clemson University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts English by David Charles Foltz May 2009 Accepted by: Dr. Cameron Bushnell, Committee Chair Dr. Michael LeMahieu Keith Morris ABSTRACT Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 and Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude posit reading strategies linked by similar methodologies and complementary conclusions. The exposition in the following chapters examines the novels’ methodologies on three levels—the utilization of historical background, the Principle of Uncertainty, and apocalyptic endings—to establish a basis for the novels’ shared perspective on narrative and, by default, approaches to engaging narrative. This thesis argues that the novels demonstrate that as uncertainty increases within narrative the potential for meaning increases, and the converse—as uncertainty decreases, the potential for meaning decreases.