English

ERIC ED482946: The Basic Concepts in Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow".

This paper uses passages from Thomas Pynchon's novel, "Gravity's Rainbow," to examine basic concepts, explaining that the process of identifying the basic word-concepts in literary texts is to some extent a tension between anticipation and unexpected frustration. The paper focuses on an interpretation of the basic concept "paranoia" from Pynchon's novel. It presents passages from the novel that illustrate a simultaneous realization of several meanings of paranoia, noting a metaphorical transformation of the basic meaning "disease" from the semantic structure of the medical term rendered by non-medical contextual meanings into the world-concept. It suggests that Pynchon is a living classic of American postmodernist literature, noting he has developed a postmodernist sensibility that is a new cultural paradigm. The paper asserts that Pynchon rejects conventions and dogmas and makes the contexts of vision entirely new. This is achieved by stretching language and applying a method of pragmatic multiplicity. Molding the basic concepts, Pynchon presents an involuted case of the individual and his fate within the community. The paper concludes that Pynchon's postmodernist sensibility thro

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