On The Possible Worlds Narrative In The Cryinsg Of Lot 49

After entering the twentieth century,people's understandings toward world have undergone the major transformation.Their preference for modernism's unified order has gradually given way to the doubt of postmodernism's absolute order.As the representative author of American postmodern literature,Thomas Pynchon pays close attention to the social culture and the human destiny of contemporary era.In The Crying of Lot 49,criticizing totalitarianism and technical rationality,Pynchon deconstructs the traditional mode of metaphysical binary thinking and depicts the possible worlds with openness and inclusiveness to express his admiration for carnival culture and multiculture.Some of scholars have studied this novel from the perspective of the narrative techniques before,focusing more on the stories and discourses within texts from classical narratology than the possible worlds narrative in post-classical narratology,though.Taking the possible worlds narrative as the theoretical framework,this paper discusses the symbolic structure and the hierarchical model of this text from fictionality,narrativity and experientiality.Besides,it analyzes the ontological status of text and readers' cognition,connecting author,text and readers together to examine the possible worlds and multiculture Pynchon builds from multiple perspectives.At first,this thesis analyzes the fictionality of the novel,namely the relationship between the empirical realities and the narrative fiction.In text,Pynchon builds the possible worlds symbolized by Trystero and the impossible world symbolized by the Maxwell Demon to deconstruct the traditional order,making the former have possibility to become the latter.Then this thesis analyzes the narrativity,namely the relationship between worlds within the narrative texts.The suppression of marginal groups under the traditional order is examined by the factuality.The fact that Oedipa can't strike a carnival chord in the detective journey unless she embraces multiculture is illuminated by the virtuality.The possibility that multiculture replaces despotism is embodied by the forward accessibility and the reversed accessibility of the embedded narrative.Lastly,this thesis analyzes the experientiality,namely the relationship between readers and the reconstruction of the fictional worlds.Readers pretend to join the games in text in accordance with the fictional worlds and their experience,and reconstruct the non-deteministc domains and gaps by means of the second narration to go after the openness and tolerance of postmodern society.On the basis of the theory of the possible worlds narrative,this paper discusses the relationships between the fictional story and the actual world,the narrative world,the cognitive world.The relationships present Pynchon's criticisms to the late capitalism of the actual world and his admiration to the possible worlds represented by Trystero.In this sense,the possible worlds narrative of Pynchon becomes one paradigm of his cultural criticisms,reveling his views of despising the archaic authority,opposing the ideological imprisonment,sympathizing the marginal groups and complimenting the multiculture.In this paper,the analyses of the possible worlds narrative of Pynchon's novel and their embodiment of cultural criticisms help us further understand his writing styles,writing motivations as well as the narrative logic of novels deeply.