The varieties of paranoia in 'Gravity's Rainbow'

This paper is an investigation into the way that paranoia is represented in Thomas Pynchon's novel Gravity's Rainbow. Using various definitions of paranoia which are given in the text itself, I outline how each definition is demonstrated, both in narrative events and in the structural principles of the text. As well, I show how each definition may lend a different perspective on the reading process itself, thus implicating the Pynchon's reader in the paranoid dynamic which Gravity's Rainbow depicts. In effect, I attempt to return the pluralism to Pynchon's definition of paranoia.