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Conspiracy Theory, Metanarrative Subversion, and Psychological CONSPIRACY THEORY, METANARRATIVE SUBVERSION, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL GROWTH IN THOMAS PYNCHON’S CRYING OF LOT 49 AND DOUGLAS COUPLAND’S GENERATION X AND GENERATION A A thesis submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts by Thomas P. Meyer May 2016 © Copyright All rights reserved Except for previously published materials Thesis written by Thomas P. Meyer B.A., Kent State University, 2013 M.A., Kent State University, 2016 Approved by Tammy Clewell, Ph.D.__________________, Advisor Robert Trogdon, Ph.D.__________________, Chair, Department of English James L. Blank, Ph.D.__________________, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………………………...iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………………iv CHAPTERS I. Introduction: From the Tin Foil Hat to Legitimate Psychological and Societal Understandings: Conspiracy Theory Re-examined .................…………………..1 II. Conspiracy Theory and Incredulity Toward Metanarratives in The Crying of Lot 49 …………………………………………………………………………………….........11 Postmodern Subjectivity: Entropy, Uncertainty, and the Possibilities for Self- Realization……………….……………………………………………....20 Liberating the Imprisoned Maiden–Weaver ……..….……………..……………26 III. Metanarratives and Metanarration: Rediscovering Lost Capacities of Perception through Conspiracy Theory and Storytelling from Generation X to Generation A…………………………………………………………………….40 Storytelling, Metanarration, and Transcendence in Generation X ……………….48 From Literary Metanarration to Conspiracy Theory: Sojourn as Catalyst for Psychological Growth ………………………………………………...…52 From Generations X to A: Conspiracy Theory as Revelation of Conspiracy Against Storytelling Itself ...……………………………………………..59 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………………...…75 iii Acknowledgements In the available time and space I have for this acknowledgements page, I cannot express my gratitude enough to my thesis advisor, Tammy Clewell. I have enrolled in Tammy’s classes twice before, once during my undergraduate education, and again in my current pursuits. I have her to thank for introducing me to postmodernism in my undergraduate education. Her British and Irish Literature course was consistently intriguing, and her discussion of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart resulted in me producing one the first academic arguments that I was truly proud of. I turned Achebe’s criticisms of Conrad back at him, arguing that that his “Image of Africa” misinterprets Conrad’s portrayal of the native characters, and that Things Fall Apart provides not a more balanced portrayal of humanity, but rather an unbalanced one in the opposite direction. I thank her as well for allowing me to give my graduate seminar presentation on The Crying of Lot 49, a novel I could not wait to read and discuss. This thesis would never have come to fruition without Tammy’s incredibly helpful guidance and enlightening notes on my work. Furthermore, I must also make a point to sincerely thank her for her immeasurable patience with me throughout this past semester. The drafting and submitting processes were rarely smooth, for my own part, and her prompt and understanding responses enabled me to complete and now present this thesis. I thank my other thesis committee members, Kevin Floyd and Babacar M’Baye, not only for agreeing to appear on my committee, but for the excellent experiences I have had in their classes over the past several years. Kevin’s Literary Criticism class provided me with a consistent academic challenge and sharpened my understanding of literary theory. This class has been a tremendous influence on my academic career, and in it I produced the writing sample that iv helped get me into graduate school, a paper charmingly subtitled “The Faulkerian Character- Setting Inversion.” I cannot leave his American Literature course out of an acknowledgements page, as it introduced me to my favorite author: Vladimir Nabokov. Our class discussion of Lolita is among my clearest memories of undergraduate education; I will never forget Kevin writing “VIVIAN DARKBLOOM” on the white board, pausing, and then underneath, writing “VLADIMIR NABOKOV” to the chorus of a collectively baffled and amazed undergraduate class. Babacar has been a tremendous academic influence, as well, with his classes forming a solid basis for my understanding of the subversive potential of cultural narrative, a key concept explored in this thesis. He also has my thanks for his African American Literature graduate seminar; I recall seeing Jean Toomer’s Cane on an early copy of his reading list, and when I mentioned, simply in passing, that I was sad to see it missing on his updated syllabus, he revised it and decided to include the novel on the final version. I was and am greatly appreciative of this gesture, and that class led to a paper in which I produced what I believe to be one of my most professional academic arguments to date, claiming that Toomer’s character Becky is a pharmakos, a literary scapegoat for her community’s guilt. Dr. Don-John Dugas has my gratitude as well, for his Research Methods course was an incredibly helpful introduction to graduate level education, and his guidance on my seminar paper helped me to eventually produce an analysis of Douglas Coupland’s Generation X and Generation A; in some respects, that paper formed the foundation for this thesis’ final chapter. I would additionally like to thank Edward Dauterich, whose classes provided the literary foundation for my academic career in higher education, and who agreed to direct my individual investigation of postmodernism. This investigation introduced me to both Thomas Pynchon and Douglas Coupland, two of the most important authors in my studies, and not coincidentally the v authors on whom this thesis focuses. My individual investigation culminated with a seminar paper on the cognitive mapping of time-space in the ever-challenging Gravity’s Rainbow. His Senior Seminar on Sinclair Lewis also brought together for me two new literary influences: Lewis himself, and Alan Moore. I compared the stratification of fear in each author’s portrayal of fascist society, and will revisit this topic later this semester in my rhetoric class. I thank fellow paranoiac and Graduate Ace Kenton Butcher and his consistently sharp academic insights; after a presentation on Generation A, it was Kenton that first pointed out to me that “Solon,” the novel’s fictional psycho-pharmaceutical drug, shares its name with an ancient Greek statesman. Kenton was also kind enough to lend his copy of Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Greeks, which I use in the final section of this thesis. As Kenton lent me this book two years ago, and my thesis is complete, perhaps I will finally return it to him. Finally, I offer thanks to my family, without whom my experiences in higher education could never have happened. Their consistent support through a stressful semester has helped to keep me stable and productive. I owe my Mom and Dad many phone calls and visits as a result of my general absenteeism at home because of the this thesis, but am happy to say that I am pleased with the result, and am now able to visit much more often. vi Introduction: From Tin Foil Hats to Legitimate Psychological and Societal Understandings: Conspiracy Theory Re-examined This thesis began as an attempt to chart and analyze the proliferation of conspiracy theory within postmodern English literature, stemming from my dual interest in literature of this period and my fascination with real-life conspiracy theories. In this resultant study, I examine conspiracy theory as a mode of literary interpretation of these three western texts: The Crying of Lot 49, by Thomas Pynchon, and Generation X and Generation A, by Douglas Coupland. Conspiracy theory, as I am treating it, is the belief held by one or more characters that there is a clandestine or surreptitious cadre of individuals, often but not necessarily within government, who illicitly influence political or social change as a way to further their own motives or those of the ruling body employing them. I do not treat conspiracy theory in these texts as either the inherently delusional machinations of paranoid individuals, nor as the logical answer to questions regarding the problems within the societies of respective texts. The “truth,” as conspiracy theorists and debunkers both agree, is rarely straightforward. The original proposal for this thesis also included an analysis of The X-Files, Chris Carter’s television series. Although issues of timeframe prevented me from fully exploring the series in this project, I feel it is necessary to include some pertinent analysis of it in this introduction, as it was the most popular American television series of the 1990’s and its plot was largely driven by conspiracy theory. The allure of conspiracy theory to me was not born of my own suspicions; I do not consider myself a conspiracy theorist, yet the concept of an unseen, organizing body standing behind society’s curtain seemed to me a logical response to a confusing, media-driven world. And yet, in this same world, the very term “conspiracy theory” is often met with dismissal or rejected for its absurdity. Indeed, many conspiracy theories are ridiculous. However, as I will demonstrate, 1 conspiracy theory is a fruitful avenue of pursuit for any scholar concerned with an individual’s psychological state and sense of identity amidst a rapidly changing postmodern world. The impetus for undertaking this project was due in no small part to my confusion regarding conspiracy theory’s near-universal dismissal in real life. Because my aim is partly to prove this dismissal unjust, I will first examine what I believe to be a major cause of it. The postmodern world is extensively influenced by media and its representation of popular culture, both textually and visually; one of the most widespread and influential images that characterize popular notions of conspiracy theory is the “tin foil hat.” The image of a nervous individual wearing a makeshift hat fashioned out of tin foil is a common motif in American twentieth-century popular culture.
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