Nostalgia as a cultural marker in Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's rainbow

Abstract

The author concentrates on the thematic of nostalgia in Thomas Pynchon's most famous novel which, in his view, undoubtedly enplaces Gravity's Rainbow into the very center of American culture. The author analyses, with particular care, the analepsis within the novel in which Pynchon describes the Puritan origins of American civilisation which function not only as the primary backdrop for delineating the main character but encompass the dynamics of a historical dilema which profoundly influenced the later development of the US. The author shows how the nostalgia for the road not taken by the American polity permeates Pynchon's novel but also how the dystopian outcome of utopian beginnings has broader cultural implications.