Postmodernist allegory

272 Pages·2017·13.2 MB·English

by  Deborah L. Jones

POSTilODEBNIST ALLEGORY :
the Wor.ks of Thomas PYnchon
by
Daborah L. Jones B.A, (nons).
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Submitted as a thesiE for the degree of ll.A Ln the Eepartment of
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CONTENTS
Chaoter Page
1. An Abstract Account of Allegory. 1a
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2. vaclllatlng Ln the vofd? verbal vlvlflcatÍon in v. 47.
3. The T¡pologY of the Trl'stero. ll_2.
4, The Numinous, the Nor.¡mBnon and the Text in'
169.
Gravitv's Rainbow.
A Conclusfon: Gonstructlons and Cryptomorphs. 239.
ga
24?,
Notes
Bibllography 258,
SYNOPSIS
The argument of this thesls is grounded on a number of historicLst
assumptions whtch are lmp1l-clt in the tlt1e. I assu¡rne firstly that
allegory ls not, as 1s generally accepted¡ a literary style, but in fact
a genre, distlngulshed by a genre-specific plot structure. This struc-
ture would therefore cut across the discrete perlods of Ìiterary hlstory.
But secondly f assume that the pressure exerted by changlng cultural
attitudes towards art, realÍty and the epistemological nelatlonship
between the two has produced a serles of hlstorical modlficatlons in
thls diachronlc structure corresponding to the periods of lÍterary hlst-
or-)rr 'rPostmodernism,, is one such perfod and "postmodernist aL1egory" one
such generic modlfícatfon, of which Pynchon's narratives provÍde signif-
lcant examples.
The flrst chapter elaborates these assumptions, beglnning with a
consÍderation of lLterary genres as opposed to styles or modes and of
aLlegoresis as an interpretatlve method that has generated some confu-
sion about the precfse nature of literary alIegory. The flgural theory
of slgns provi-des the context wlthln which the thematic structures that
determLne the generfc plot structure of allegory are dÍscussed. Fig-
uralÍsm !s explored 1n terms of the nature of the a}Ìegoric hero and of
his quest¡ the narrative's attLtude towards its Language and íts capa-
city to produce a revelatf.on of the sacred Other (aÌlos) through the
interpretatlon of a prlvileged, anterlor sacred book: the "pretextr'. The
hLstorlcal devaluatlon of the authorlty of thls sacred taxt brl-ngs into'
focus the problens confr-onted by modern fLguralIsm: the epistemological
sceptLcJ-sm, the shlft ln the narratÍve center away from the slgns of
Trirth to those of Evil (tne false losos)¡ find a parall-el- Ln the now
foreshortened a1legorJ.c plot: the plot which Lacks the grounds to
produce a "pretextualtr revelatlon.
trapter two explLcates V in terms of thÍs altered figural mode.
The failure of V to dlsclose the transcendental- slgnlfier of the !!g-
llE v. can only be assi-gned to the predominantly demonic or entroplc
slgnificatlons of the flgura *herself'r.
The ontologlcal ambigulty of the flgura- provides a context for
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the questlon: when the obJects of figural interpretatLon do not belong
to a ProvldentLal scheme, but are signs of a force that actively
disrupts access to a fggg¡ what are the consequences for the narrativeb
relatlonship wlth 1ts pretextual antecedent? fn other words, how is
allegory affected when Lts pretext endorses the disruption of the fig-
ural principles on whlch 1ts quest structure 1s based?
Glven that the fÍgural structure of postmodernlst allegory is
modlfied 1n terms of both its pretext and lts urae the nature of the
postmodernl-st hero must also be affected. The discussion of Gravltvrs
Bainbow attempts to discover the changes produced in the nature and
functlon of the hero by a plot whlch culmlnates in the discl-osure of a
false logos that has been manifest ln a quasi-figural structure of signs.
The concluslon brtefly (re)pì.aces the namatl-ves wlthin their
generlc context, remarklng that whll.st the aLlegoric plot has been
modified through time, nelther the response elicÍted from the reader nor
the generic structures whfch determine this response have changed.
Thls thesis contalns no materLal whlch has been
aocepted for the eward of any other degree or
dlploma 1n any universlty andr to the best of my
knowledge¡ no fiaterlal prevlously publlshed or
written by any other person except where duly
acknowledged..in the text and bfbllognaphy.
ACKNOTTLEDGEI¡ENTS
Wlth gratltude I acknowledge the assistance provided
.thrygglouù the preparatlon of thls thesls by
Professor K,K.Ruthven¡ my supenrisor Mr A.TayIor;
Professor H.Ebgart; and llr B.Taylor.
If there 1s such a thLng as the Clty Sacramentalt
the ctty as outward and vislbLe slgn of lnward and
splrltual tllness or health, then there may have
been, even here, aome contfnulty of sacrament,
through the terrible surface of May.
Bravltyrs
RaLnbow
Beatf ouL non vLderunt et credÍterunt.
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(Blessed are they that have not seen and have bell.eved)
PÍers Plowman
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CHAPTER ONE
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AN ABSTRACT ACCOUNT-OF ALLEGOHY/
Much has been written about modern fictlon i6r general¡ and Thomas
Pynchon fn particular, yet very few crltics seem to be prepared to move
outslde the frame of reference provtded by the o1d realism/experiment-
allsm dfchotomy ln their attempts to determJ.ne Just what "postmodernisin'l
1s. ßeaI1sm Ls obvlously an lnadequate term to describe Pynchonrs
'rproJecttr¡ but the extent of the challenge posed by recent fictlon to
the conventional concept of realism Leaves one with the impression that
lt is now unabl-e to descrJ-be adequate).y gry text; whl"lst the notion of
experimentalism, often deflned as antl-realism, stllL involves the
same
discnedlted assumptÍons about the relationshfp between art and realityn
Together, these terms represent a modal epÞroach to contemporary fic-
tion; that ls¡ an attempt to classify and critlcfse texts on the basis
of their style. l,lodal crl-tlcism attends to the relationships existing
between llterary traditlons and genres¡ manifest fn distinctÍve styles:
ironyr satire or the rrexperimentaL reaÌlsm" of the for
no,r+leau Ioman,
example. However, the work of P¡rchon, John Barth and Robert Coover,
among othersr represents a movement away from such a modal orlentatlon,
towards the recuperatLon of literary genres which exist as rrsub-catego-
ries'r of, or structural posslbllltfes wl-thfn¡ the broader category of
non-realLstfc form. ft is now generally accepted that in Pricksongs and
Descants Coover uses the fable forrn and that Barthrs Giles Goat-Boy ls
[allegorical".-
1 Yet there stllL renaLns sone resistance to the ldea of
using a generlc methodology to approach Pynchonts work! llaureen
Qufl.ltgan has been the onl.y theorist to include a dlscusslon ofl The
Cryfns of Lot 49 and Gravltyrs Ratnbow ln an hlstorical account of
aLlegory as a genr€.
The reason for this must be, at least in pant, that alregory 1s a
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notorlously ll-I-deflned terrn, so the notlon of a postmodernist aì-legory
only compounds the problem of deflnltion. The historlcal connotatlons
of thís term suggest that all-egory has undergone a series of transform-
ations - from Plers Plowman through to @ - and, 1t is
my argtrmentr that despite thelr l-mmedlate dlfferences these works do
exhiblt a sustained allegoric form. ft 1s in thls concept of a sustal-ned
form that the clearest dlfference between a genre and a mode lies. A
mode has no characteristfc structure of actlont the deflnitive qualtty
of satLre, for lnstance, resldes ln Íts effect; whlle comedy, tragedy
and allegory are defined by the manner Ln whfch their plots unfold.
Stl1lr the apparent dlsslmLlality between allegoric works does seem to
contradÍct the notl-on of hLstorlcal continuLty and to undermj-ne the
adequacy of the term fo descrlbe Pynchonrs fiction. That is, until- it
ts recognlsed that such an appearance is common to the hlstorles of all
llterary genres. Because a genre is both synchronlc and diachrontc - in
the manner of language itself - each new work fs both a product of the
existlng set of generic features and posslblllltiesr and ls itself a
tnansfon¡atlon of them. Each unique text alters the generic system by
reading l-ts exlstlng and potential features ln a rrew watr So this
fnitial chapter attempts to defl-ne those structurel and substantive
elements whlch constltute allegoryrs generic form, wfthin the context
of thls seemÍngly paradoxfoal process of changfng continufty.
It may stlll be obJected, however, that what this process of
change has ln fact done 1b tranåfstrn,,allegofy out of exlstence; that
the terrn properly describee only those texts wrltten during the medLeval
and RenaLasance perlods whlch are habLtually assoclated with tt, as for
example The Faerle Sueene isr and that any nodlflcatton of the accepted
form locates that wor{< wlthin another genre; one perhaps closely related
to allegory but nonetheless other than 1t. Thls 1s the l-lne of argunent
whlchr taken to lts J-ogtcal extreme, leads us lnto the sonewhat unwieldy
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situetlon of one-text genres. But the process of historlcal transform-
atl"on 1s not restrlcted to all-egoryt comedy and tragedy are also capabLe
of subsuming dlfferent fo¡rnal t¡pes while remalnlng dlstlnctly comlc or
tragic. fn each of these genres the structure of the action or the way
ln which the plitt develops is designed to reveal a characterl-stic
metaphyslcal orlentatfon. I'lletaphysl-cal orientatlon'r is my short-hand
term for the complex of attltudes and assumptJ.ons which Ls sometimes
loosely referred to as a generic nworLd-view'r3 the tragic notion of man
confrontfng a unl-verse from rhLch certaJ-nty and absolutes have beenr
wl-thdrawn¡ or the comedlc ldea of a provl-dentially designed unlverse.
ft 1s the detenninlng ldeatLonal force of the genre and lts primary
functlon Ls to provide a dLrectLonal framework for the readerrs response
to metaphysJ-ca] problems and realltfes. So whl}e the conceptual
dimensLons of individual texts are responslve to change as accepted
ldeas about the nature of reality and of lfteraturers relatLon to it
are refo¡mu1ated, these changes occur withln the broader generfc
orfentation which remains stable. Modern "bÌack comedyn may reveel a
klnd of design that ls quite dlfferent in agency to that discovered
operatlng Ln the world of Shakespearean comedy - ãs the descent of Hlnnen
l-n As You Lfke It lntimates a form of order that ls dl-fferent to Kurt
Vonnegutrs discLosure 1n The Sirens of TLtan, that alL human history 1s
rea11y a forrn of message to a stranded space traveller - but still they
both shane the comedÍc orLentatfon towards the concept of a purposeful1y
designed unÍverse. Just as black comedy can be seen as a varlatlon of
the diachronic structure of oomedy, so the modern rdrama of the absurd"
modlfies the baeLc orientàtLon of tragedy. The structure of actior' Ln' a
"conventfonal,, tragedy fs deafgned to reveal dramatically the conditions
under whlch accepted metaphysfcal absolutes are withdrawn from a humanr
sftuatl-on; a situatfon created by the protagonistrs 'tragfc flaw" and
manlfest ln his cholcee whlch dÍrect the actlon. This structure ls