An Analysis Of Black Humor In Thomas Pynchon's The Crying Of Lot 49

Thomas Pynchon (1937- ) is considered as one of the most influential postmodernist writers and black humorists in the second half of the twentieth century. The Crying of Lot 49 is Pynchon's second full-length novel. Since its first publication in 1966, it has appealed to many critics. Because of the description of the absurd theme, the disordered plot, the grotesque characters, and the out-of-order clue, the book won the Richard and Hilda Rosenthal Foundation Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Therefore, it is generally regarded as a good novel to reflect the black humor, and it has become a landmark in post-war American literature.To explain better the embodiment of black humor in American fiction in the 1960s, this thesis will take the representative contemporary novel of black humor—The Crying of Lot 49 for an example. Under the base of Camus' existentialism (A fully responsible philosophy emphasizes that the world is absurd, and that it is impossible to explain the existence of human beings. It also believes that life has become meaningless, and that it is impossible for human beings to understand the reality exactly only to feel isolated), it will explore the absurd, disordered, and complicated world in this novel in order to understand the content of black humor.The whole thesis is divided into four chapters. Chapter One is an introduction of the thesis statement, research aim and a brief summary of the novel in question and its reviews. Chapter Two serves as the general introduction to black humor meanwhile introduces Camus' existentialism—philosophy base of black humor. Chapter Three presents detailed analyses of black humor in the fiction of The Crying of Lot 49. This paper studies the absurd theme, the disordered plot, the tragic anti-hero characters, the alienated system, the uncertain and ambiguous names, and the open-ending. After analyzing these elements which make his work a great success, the black humor permeated in the novel will be illustrated fully. Chapter Four is the conclusion part; it points out the importance of analyzing the black humor in Thomas Pynchon's creation—The Crying of Lot 49.