The bleeding of America: Menstruation as symbolic economy in Pynchon, Faulkner and Morrison

This dissertation, "The Bleeding of America: Menstruation as Symbolic Economy in Pynchon, Faulkner and Morrison," argues that an extensive tropology of menstruation subtly informs the construction of "America" in the nation's literary tradition. From the Puritan sermons of the seventeenth century to the novels of the twentieth, America is described as a New World Eden, haunted, not only by the Fall, but also by the "Curse of Eve." I argue that Thomas Pynchon, William Faulkner and Toni Morrison call up this traditional construction and concretely align America's fall from innocence---the nation's history of slavery, violence and war---with the figure of the menstruating female. This alignment, however, involves a conceptual shift from "curse" to "cure," and menstrual blood emerges as both an antidote to violently spilled blood and a symbol of regenerative possibilities. I discuss nine novels in the following order: Pynchon's V., The Crying of Lot 49, and Gravity's Rainbow; Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom!; Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon , and Beloved. Each analysis of the texts incorporates theories of the sacred, medical history, anthropological and literary studies of menstruation, and theories of the body.