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The American Dream in the Crying of Lot 49

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The American Dream in the Crying of Lot 49 Filología y Lingüística xvnm» 39-44, 1992 PYNCHON'S PARABLE: THE AMERICAN DREAM IN THE CRYING OF LOT 49 Kari Meyers Skredsvig ABSTRACT Although the innovative style of Thomas Pynchon's The Crying 01 Lot 49 is both the delight and the despair of its readers, its impact derives from the mythopeic content and historical contexto In this short novel, Pynchon joins !he ranks of U.S. writers who explore individual and national identity in terms of social mythology. The American Dream is an integral people called upon to live in perfect, timeless componentof the history, literature, and lives of harmony with God and nature. the people of the United States. Not only has it The perpetration of this national covenant greatly influenced the politics, economic and depended upon their ability to avoid the parasitic socialprogress, and cultural values of the country, complexity of historical institutions, thus giving it has also shaped the spiritual and psychological rise to the insistence upon individual rights and development of both individuals and the responsibilities which is the basis not only for Americancomrnunity as a whole.' For over three American democracy, but also for the propagation hundred years, the American Dream has been of the American Dream. defined,revised, analyzed, and interpreted in as Throughout the following generations, the many ways as the number of people who American people have maintained their self- undertake the task. It has survived political righteous belief in the uniqueness of their nation manipulation,historical explanation, and literary and its inhabitants. In the twentieth century, interpretation,and remains an essential element of however, the dream has been secularized. The the American mentality and temperament. Puritan belief that prosperity is a manifestation Thomas Pynchon's The Crying 01 Lot 49 is a of divine favor and due reward for perseverance modero reflection on the American Dream, as and hard labor has degenerated into an well as further testimony to its tremendous obsession with material acquisition and social influencewithin American society. position. The seemingly endless frontier, which Historically the American Dream is rooted constituted the basis for the renewal and in the spirit and mentality of the original English dissemination of the covenant, has been settlerswho fled religious persecution in England replaced by conglomerates of people and their in search of virgin territory which would allow appendages. The American Dream has come to themthe freedom to worship as they chose. They represent the desire for material success, fame, sawthe New World as an unblemished Garden of and power, while the nature of modern Eden, a land of limitless opportunity which American society belies the tenacity with which providedthe necessary escape from the evil and the illusion is maintained. corruption accumulated through centuries of American literature, as well as history, European civilization. God's munificence in reflects the gradual transformation of the deliveringthem from further contamination and American Dream.' Cooper, Melville, and Twain restoringtheir innocence led the early settlers to all dealt with the subject of the survival of the the profound conviction that they were a chosen new Adam, the independent hero in redemptive 40 REVISTA DE FILOLOGIA y LINGUISTICA contact with nature surpassing the limitations of residue of the American Dream, California civilization. Henry James contrasted the innocent continues to represent the land of golden simplicity of Americans with the devious nature opportunity, but the idea reflects a rather of sophisticated Europeans. Crane and Dreiser desperate attempt to cling to a last resort, an grappled with the imposition of society upon inability to surrender an inherited illusion. In its instinctive individual virtue. Hemingway and definitive state, California symbolizes the Fitzgerald bemoaned the futility of the individual American Dream turned nightmare rather than both in isolating himself from a corrupt world and apotheosis. in attempting to prevail against it. Each of these Pynchon's presentation of California authors confronts his readers with his particular encompasses the two basic facets of the American version of the American Adam in the New World Dream today: the tamished image of material Garden, for although the American Dream has success and the counterculture unwilling to gradually taken on a new significance, the surrender its vision of individuality. Pierce American myth of uniqueness continues to Inverarity embodies the American success story. operate as a fundamental tenet of national and At his death, his holdings comprise an enormous individual vision. variety of interests extending across the nation but In The Crying of Lot 49 Pynchon employs centered, naturally, in California. A real estate historical references to enhance the background of magnate whose only ikon was a fittingly the American national identity. The plot of the whitewashed bust of Jay Gould, Inverarity Jacobean revenge play both parodies and typifies dedicated his life to buying and exploiting the raw the intrigue and evil of European civilization from material of the national covenant. Among other which the pilgrims fled. The historically things, he owned or held shares in housing important Thurn and Taxis postal system developments, a Turkish bath, a cigarette filter represents the ruthless power of established industry, a home for senior citizens, and the monopolies, while Tristero becomes a metaphor aerospace division of Yoyodyne, Incorporated, for nonconformity to ruling institutions. The where he was considered a "founding father." In detailed accounts of the Peter Pinguid incident ten years of land speculation, Inverarity and the Scurvharnite sect of Puritans contribute to constructed a veritable empire of acquisitions, and the impression of historical reinforcement of the it is this tangle of possessions which Oedipa and modern American condition. The minutiae of the firm of Warp, Wistfull, Kubitschek and information concerning philatelic and textual McMingus must bring into "pulsing stelliferous renditions, revisions, and authentifications also Meaning." 3 By all material standards, Inverarity substantiate the sense of historical weight in was a complete success. As heir to the American Pynchon's writing. His ingenious interpolation of covenant, however, he was a direct descendent of fact and fiction as literary technique transmute to the Peter Pinguid who "violated his upbringing a composite metaphor for the American Dream and code of honor" (p.33) by exchanging civic itself. Pynchon's use of historical references duty for personal gain. Inverarity's estate serves to reinforce traditional American distrust represents further undermining of the traditional of historical complexity and its implied tyranny. values of moral rectitude and respectable self- Pynchon's choice of setting in The Crying sufficiency perpetrated by the original "founding of Lot 49 is far from arbitrary. Because of its fathers." geographical location, California necessarily Yoyodyne, San Narciso's biggest employer constitutes the final opportunity for attaining the and a giant of industry, epitomizes the corporate timeless harmony envisioned by the original complexity of modern America and the settlers. I~ was the last frontier, the mecca of nonhuman success story. Everything about the unsullied promise for those All-Arnerican corporation is oversized and organized. The pioneers who fled the growing institutionalization parking lot is enormous, the cafeteria is a hundred of the East in search of fulfillment of the covenant yards long, filled with long, glittering tables in the Wild West, where the Rockies guarded where "gunboats" of food are served at every against the encroachment of civilization and the noontide "invasion" of workers. The offices fertile land and mild climate provided the means themselves are one great color-coordinated necessary to achieve independence. In the modern flourescent expanse for as far as the eye can see. MEYERS:Pynchon's Parable: The American Dream ... 41 Eventhe stockholders appear to be cast from the inspired the scientific method of investigation is samemold. Yoyodyne is the corporate deity, and hindered by the profuse application of that same atthe stockholders' meeting due reverence is paid method and the intricate results. Pynchon in the form of a ritual business session complete ingeniously discloses the intrinsic danger of with hymn-singing and a pilgrimage to the plant technological advancement through his itself. The vastness of the physical frontier has presentation of an example of the same: beenreplaced by the enormity of the institutions Maxwell's Demon. This invention allegedly which usurped its sacred space, and. the defies the laws of thermodynamics by hamessing traditional concern with the spiritual has been energy without expending it, thus arresting the replacedby engrossment with themáterial,' natural entropic degeneration of all matter and Like generations of concerned authors energy into a final state of inert uniformity. beforehirn, Pynchon explores the ramifications of Entropy and Maxwell's Demon also apply to the this national conversion. The most threatening amount of information which is cornmunicated in aspectof modern progress is the development of a message. By linking science, cornmunication, intricate networks or systems to structure the and the principie of entropy, Pynchon produces a burgeoning society.
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