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The Transcendence of Masculinity in Thomas Pynchon's Fiction

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The Transcendence of Masculinity in Thomas Pynchon's Fiction Volume 4 Issue 3 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND December 2017 CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926 The Transcendence of Masculinity in Thomas Pynchon’s Fiction Rachid Neji Teaching Assistant Higher Institute of Applied Studies in Humanities of Mednine University of Gabes, Tunisia Abstract In the reading of Pynchon’s novels, the focus has not been on the study of the artistic peculiarities of the writer as much as it has been on the novelist’s view of the Western male identity, which is the product of historical, political, psychological and stylistic changes that the postmodern masculine selfhood had experienced. The learning of Pynchon’s novels provides an obvious understanding of how this postmodern identity was twisted and deformed on several occasions, at times asserted and at others subverted. This paper deals most explicitly with how the project of analyzing the different aspects of identity fails to pave the way for a conspicuous recognition of the main dilemma. In this sense, Pynchon seems to be incompatible with the classical trend. He satirizes the superiority of masculine identity. In this process, no one can deny that postmodernism is devised to subvert the inculcated values about manhood which were inherited from ancient artistic background. The subversion foreshadows the loss of the assumption that the Western male identity is superior to the female one. Therefore, Pynchon’s deconstruction is meant to give voice to the female selfhood. Keywords: Identity, Masculinity, Postmodern, Subversion, Assertion and Femininity. http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 254 Volume 4 Issue 3 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND December 2017 CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926 Introduction Pynchon exposes a comprehensive contention on the way the patriarchal belief about Western masculinity was demoted. The writer stigmatizes certain conventional values such as the superiority of man over woman, the dependence of woman on man and the absence of female ego. This stigmatization is meant to fully debunk the hegemonic classical practices. The writer reveals the traditional view in a condition of illness wherein the Western male identity seems to be unable to reign supreme over the emergence of postmodern female selfhood. The point here is that the author seems to be saying that postmodern literature necessitates the presence and acceptance of the female ego. In this process, no one can deny that the surge of feminism and the beginning of the American Women’s Liberation movement were only hardly rising in the mid-1960s, when The Crying of Lot-49 was published. Militant feminists would rarely speak through political anti-war meetings, before they launched off on their own. The names of Betty Friedan, Kate Millet and Gloria Steinem were starting to be recognized but had not yet developed into as prominent as they were in the 1970s. For instance, in The Crying of Lot-49, Gravity’s Rainbow, Mason and Dixon and V, Pynchon seems to be far from ignoring the dominance of the feminist subject on the literary postmodern scene. In this sense, the subject of woman in the novelist’s works and Oedipa as a postmodern heroine has been much mentioned. On account of the character Oedipa Mass, Catharine Stimpson considers that Pynchon “grants a privileged place to women. They are actors and symbols. Their characterization-at once generous and warped, shrewd and regressive-provokes a mixture of contempt for contemporary sexuality and reverence for an atavistic mode” (Pre-Apocalyptic Atavism: Thomas Pynchon’s Early Fiction, 31). Following this, the heroine and the main character of The Crying of Lot-49, Oedipa appears to be the only character who challenges her own stereotyped roles and myths as a woman. She enthusiastically makes the will an outlet to flee from her “Rapunzel-like role of a pensive girl somehow, magically, prisoner among the pines and salt fogs of Kinneret, looking for somebody to say hey, let down your hair” (CL-49, 10). It is interesting to note here that Oedipa suffers from the regard of a male-dominated society. In fact, the Rapunzel myth was used by the American feminist poet Anne Sexton in a lyric poem about a woman’s ensnared status in society. Paradoxically enough, Metzeger embodies the most classical form of male chauvinism, which is considered to be the opposite of the emergent feminist movements. It diminishes the real importance of woman and reduces her to a sexual object. This idea is deeply conveyed through the conversation between Metzger and Oedipa. In this process, Oedipa is seduced by Metzger, and when she asks him about Inverarity, he provides her with tricky answer “ What did Inverarity tell you about me,” she asked finally. That you wouldn’t be easy”. She began to cry “Come back, “said Metzger. “Come on” After awhile she said, “I will”. And she did. (CL-49, 115). The tenor of this story is that Oedipa is badly treated by her conventional heritage. Moreover, some of the men the female character met refuse to give her credence without looking for http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 255 Volume 4 Issue 3 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND December 2017 CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926 male reference, for instance Driblette’s speech to Oedipa: “You could fall in love with me” (CL-49, 82). In this process, one can notice the derogatory description given to woman. The slang terms reveal the disreputable position exposed for the female identity. She is reduced to object status without any dignity or role. This is mainly because she seeks to demolish all sorts of exploitation, loneliness, alienation and persecution. 1. The Assertion of Female Identity It does not come as a surprise that Pynchon’s female characters suffer from loneliness as well as estrangement. In fact, there are many reasons that lie behind this situation, but the most important one may be a mass-media controlled society, wherein advertising makes use of her physique and endless love songs incarcerate her within a sublime picture of kindness, faithful motherhood and overstated prostitution. However, Pynchon’s female character feels no shame to pursue her challenge in spite of the hardships. Edward Mendelson does, however, remark upon a compulsory fact It was an act of courage to name his heroine Oedipa...for the novel contains not even a single reference to her emotional relations with her parents or her impulses towards self- creation. The name instead refers back to the Sophoclean Oedipus who begins his search for the solution of a problem”. (The Sacred and the Profane in The Crying of Lot- 49, 112) Following this, one can foreshadow two main suggestions behind Pynchon’s insistence on giving free rein to the female voice. In this sense, the novelist portrays his female characters in a neutral space with no family relationships. This portrayal may recur to the American culture and its lack of obvious history. In addition, Pynchon’s characters are without mothers, which might be a recurrence to America as a motherless country. This condition incites Oedipa to look for her own ego. She expresses the wish to escape from the enclosed tower and “project a world” (CL-49, 115) as she feels that there is no place for her as a woman in America. It is compulsory to note that there is an echo of Oedipa’s attempt to escape from the confinements of the tower, which had been impossible as long as she remained a mere housewife. Such an observation is very pertinent to Oedipa’s impulse of self-creation. She expresses the wish to boycott the social world, even if it means being propelled into void and darkness. As a reaction to the claim that weakness is a characterization of the woman, Pynchon perhaps hints the difficult task of devising a heroine in American literature similar to Leslie Fiedler. She is, indeed, the image proper of the woman who debunked the American literature, defining it as “a literature of horror for boys” (Love and Death in the American Novel, 113). This suggests that any confrontation between man and woman will definitely lead woman to marriage and responsibility, which are considered as hindrance for a pure emancipation from man’s shackles. Therefore, the result of the heroine’s dilemma lies in feeling as alone as she ever had, now the only woman, she saw, in a room full of drunken male homosexuals. Story of my life ( CL-49, 86). In this vein, the heroine will find herself quite alone by the end of the novel. In fact, no man is willing to support her in decoding the issue. This condition would make her lose confidence as well as independence. http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 256 Volume 4 Issue 3 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND December 2017 CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926 However, one can detect that Pynchon’s heroines experience their adventures as manifestations of magic. Oedipa searches for “that magical other” outside the world and inside the word. The clarity of this attempt seems to be advocated by the novelist’s endeavour to make her the main focalizer of the novel. In this sense, Pynchon delineates his heroines as being without precedents or mothers. What the writer wants to imply is that Oedipa and Katje become fledged persons. In fact, they strive to fill the space of lack, absence and otherness of the demoted women in Western culture. It is therefore more interesting for the novelist to construct an innovative postmodern fiction around an individual relegated from the American literary scene. This interest is shown in breaking with the classical views considering woman. Pynchon looks for a female protagonist to give both literature and society new resistance, not through any mindful feminist perspective, but because he has attained a dead end and requires to devise an original world by weaving a character who has no ancestors behind her.
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