Victims of Cosmic Construction: A Study of John Barth’s Floating Opera and Thomas Pynchon’s V
Journal Title: Notions A Journal of English Literature - Year 2017, Vol 0, Issue 3
Abstract
This paper explicates the Protean Wo/man’s frail struggle to constitute identity resulting in psychological disintegration. Most of the characters of Pynchon and Barth suffer from peculiar afflictions which can be categorized under the labels ‘Cosmopsis’ (Barth) and ‘Entropy’ (Pynchon). Cosmopsis intimates a cosmic manipulation in extremity that as a result numbs the mind and the body. Entropy indicates the declivity of energy or the measure of disorder actualized by it. The paper attempts a scientific clarification of these terms in order to apply them to the study of the demented personalities of these novelists. This paper concludes with the observation that entropy/cosmopsis above all elucidate the tension between order and disorder in reality and that the approach of both Barth and Pynchon to this problem is dualistic. That to retain an identity by sustaining the tension in an ambilectic world of order/disorder, the entropic/cosmoptic protean wo/men need control.
Authors and Affiliations
Muzafar Ahmad Bhat, Dr. S. Kartik Kumar
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP532392
- DOI -
- Views 135
- Downloads 0
A Critical Analysis of Vikram Sethi ‘s an Equal Music
Ian Equal Music is a novel written by an Indian with nothing Indian in it, and set in England with English characters. Moreover, it deals with characters intense love and loss that causes loneliness and psychotic existen...
Langston Hughes’ Simple as Black Every Man
Simple is the most important fictional character of Hughes. He was what many Negroes thought they were. Simple is moulded by racism which has kept him poor, unlettered and hated. The truths that Simple speaks are black r...
Man’s Inhumanity to Man: the Agonizing Cry
Inhumanity is the lack of compassion or consideration for others. It is a viper kind of oppression which is practiced on people through various ways. Different slices of society such as, marginalized, black people and mo...
Images of Man in the plays of Arthur . A concise construal of ‘All My Sons’, ‘Death of a Salesman’ and ‘A View from the Bridge’
The present paper is an endeavour to exhibit that man’s struggle for the attainment of the dignified image becomes meaningful only when he realizes the integrity and inviolability of community values. The problem and iss...
The Trauma of Female Gender with Special reference to Henry James Novel “The Portrait of a Lady”
Females have been a silent feature for the majority of human history, their thoughts, and feelings are not considered being of theleast importance. Henry James has embellished the social responsibilities of marriage vo...