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Chapter 14 - Family

from Part II - Culture, Politics, and Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 May 2019

Inger H. Dalsgaard
Affiliation:
Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
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Summary

During the family reunion in Vineland (1990) that resolves the novel’s action, protagonist daughter Prairie Wheeler notes she is “[f]eeling totally familied out” (VL 374). After finishing Pynchon’s novels, especially those after Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), readers, too, could feel totally familied out. The adventures of a variety of families and family-like groups are important in each novel. However, this significance has been overlooked by scholarly readers – understandably, with so much else of academic interest to puzzle out in the books. Pynchon’s “decentered subjectivity,” well described by McHale, has caused readers to attend to unusual, “postmodern” aspects of Pynchon’s fiction at the expense of traditional aspects such as families. Yet the early novels feature children and neglectful parents, and in the novels after Gravity’s Rainbow, families become increasingly central and noticeable. The action from Vineland on often illustrates troubled families remedying their troubles. Families or family-like groups (such as cults) appear in all Pynchon’s main plots, even when family members are conspicuous by various forms of absence. Ongoing thematic concerns of Pynchon’s like alienation, the attraction to death, the perils of science, the power of history, and the limits of knowledge are expressed through parents and children. The following reviews the secondary literature on families in Pynchon, surveys specific instances of families, considers the significance of Pynchon’s families for his vision of American culture, and examines families in relation to pedagogy.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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  • Family
  • Edited by Inger H. Dalsgaard, Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
  • Book: Thomas Pynchon in Context
  • Online publication: 31 May 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108683784.015
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  • Family
  • Edited by Inger H. Dalsgaard, Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
  • Book: Thomas Pynchon in Context
  • Online publication: 31 May 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108683784.015
Available formats
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Family
  • Edited by Inger H. Dalsgaard, Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
  • Book: Thomas Pynchon in Context
  • Online publication: 31 May 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108683784.015
Available formats
×