Pynchon’s Against the Day: Bilocation, Duplication, and Differential Repetition

ACADEMY PUBLICATION 9 (5):953-960 (2018)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In Against the Day, Pynchon is obsessed with twoness, double worlds, as well as dual realities, and like Deleuze’s concept of repetition, these duplications and twinships are not merely repetition of the same, rather they allow for creativity, reinvention, and becoming. Pynchon’s duplication of fictional and spectral characters intends to critique the notion of identity as does Deleuzian concept of repetition. Not attached to the representational concept of identity as the recurrence of the same, Pynchon’s duplications decenter the transcendental concept in favor of a perpetual becoming and reproduces difference and singularity. Like Deleuze, Pynchon eschews an identity that is always guaranteed, and shows that the repetition of an object or a subject is not the recurrence of the original self-identical object or person. Moreover, Iceland spar, the mystifying calcite, with its doubling effect provides the reader with a view of a world beyond the ordinary, actual world, which is quite similar to what Pynchon’s novel does per se.

Author's Profile

Ali Salami
University of Tehran

Analytics

Added to PP
2018-09-02

Downloads
649 (#21,677)

6 months
149 (#17,861)

Historical graph of downloads since first upload
This graph includes both downloads from PhilArchive and clicks on external links on PhilPapers.
How can I increase my downloads?