The investigation studies Thomas Pynchon’s givenness in terms of three strata of manifestation: the arty, the rhizomatic, and the acosmic. Utilizing a new affective turn implemented within the phenomenological movement by Michel Henry, the study proposes that alongside a rhizomatic mode of accessibility promoting transcendence, investigates the manifestation of this ontological withholding by carrying out the phenomenological reduction established by Edmund Husserl, and by elucidating the phenomenon of immanence in the literary text by means of a theory of auto-affection rooted in—but not reducible to—such methodological reduction. The study proposes that the thematization of anomaly in unconstructed by means of phenomenological moves that uncover strata of phenomenalization that are not apparent on a thematic or merely playful level. These strata, with their promotion of immanence at the expense of transcendence, are found to be complexly affective in nature. The affectivity governing the withholding of transcendence in these strata is discovered to be instrumental in the work’s critique of colonial modes of spatialization, of logocentric modes of transcendence, and of post-Nietzschean modes of affective mastery. Mason & Dixon as a novel that comes toMason & Dixon manifests a withholding of transcendence. The studyMason & Dixon may be Mason & Dixon normal/anomalous dichotomy and a mode of anomaly that is doubly anomalous. Manifested as a nonspatial zone, the doubly anomalous becomes manifested on the hither side of oppositional structures in the novel, such as truth/untruth. The doubly anomalous in Dixon fall short of their telos. Insofar as the ‘acosmic’ occurs within logocentric cartography, it implies an unsettling of every horizonal subject, of nature as the property of man, and of freeplay as the medium of will to power.discloses a tension between a mode of anomaly that is part of aMason &is identified as an ‘acosmic’ zone of affectivity in which mastering intellectualizations

This study of Gravity's Rainbow replies to critics who have misread Thomas Pynchon's novel, and defines the novel's focal concept. In Gravity's Rainbow, style, structure, and concept are integrated in the author’s design. The fulfillment of this design results in a comprehensive representation of the apocalyptic temper of western civilization in the modern period—the consciousness that has caused the armageddon of World War II and the threat of nuclear war. A meaningful term for this apocalypse is “parousia”, an end to history taking the form of a general surrender to deathliness. A beneficial way of defining “parousia” is through a certain ideological social stratification. Characters in the novel can be categorized as the Elect, the Preterite, or the Redeemer. Ethical struggles between these classes result in an on-going historical process toward an apocalypse.This paper organizes Pynchon’s apocalyptic concept into a centrifugal axis where meaning is organically interrelated and then spirals outward toward varied novelistic developments which offer other perspectives on the same basic concepts. The thesis explicates approximately thirty episodes which substantiate the “parousia” concept as it appears in the author’s style, structure, and thematic ideology.

Abstract This essay is about identity and the self in Thomas Pynchon's critically acclaimed masterpiece The Crying of Lot 49. Through a combination of postmodern philosophy and close reading, it examines instances of postmodernist representations of identity in the novel. The essay argues that Pynchon is dismantling the idea of a unified self and instead argues for and presents a postmodern take on identity in its place. Questions asked by the essay are: in what ways does Pynchon criticize the idea of a unified self? What alternatives to this notion does Pynchon present? The essay is split into six chapters, an introductory section followed by a background on Thomas Pynchon and the novel. This is followed by an in-depth look into postmodernism, and Ludwig Wittgenstein's importance for it, as well as the basic concepts of his philosophy. This is followed by the main analysis in which a myriad of segments and quotations from the novel are looked at. Lastly, this is followed by a summarizing conclusion. The essay assumes a postmodernist approach of not being a definitive answer; rather it is one voice among many in the community of Pynchon interpreters. The conclusion shows that the examples given in the analysis present a range of answers as to how Pynchon dismantles the self, and what alternatives he presents in its wake. Pynchon explores the Cartesian ego, Lacanian other, Freudian ego and postmodernist alternatives in the novel, and presents in postmodern fashion, a multitude of answers as to how he dismantles the idea of a unified self in the novel.