Seminar 2.

Experimentation in American literature of the 1950-1960s

25 September 2019
Texts: Ralph Waldo Ellison Invisible Man (fragment) ● Thomas Pynchon Entropy (Ukrainian translation
+ fragment in English)
1. Ralph Waldo Ellison in his novel of 1952 Invisible Man combines realism and phantasy. Read the
fragment (attached) and comment on this peculiarity of the author’s method. What kind of effect is gained
through such a combination?
According to William J. Schafer, the novel was "an extended jazz performance," a "technical tour
de force" which moved from "nitty-gritty realism to hallucinatory fantasy without a break in the seams of
style." Ihab Hassan called the book a tragi-comedy that contained "hysteria, violence, nightmare, and pain
synocopated throughout in the form of a performance by Louis Armstrong. And there is slapstick,
absurdity, grotesque laughter, and even puns.”
Dead wrong. So far from the truth. While this book has nothing to do with the kind of
disappearing that magician's rabbits do, it has everything to do with a much more important, insidious and
ominous kind of invisibility.
2. Reread the fragment of Invisible Man very carefully and explore what exactly makes the central
character (also narrator) invisible to others?
Identity in Invisible Man is a conflict between self-perception and the projection of others, as seen
through one man's story: the nameless narrator. His true identity, he realizes, is in fact invisible to those
around him. Only by intentionally isolating himself from society can he grapple with and come to
understand himself.
While most the narrator's difficulties throughout the novel are associated with his race, Invisible
Man is a novel aimed at transcending race and all the other ways humanity has used to categorize people.
For a long time, the narrator's identity is defined by his race, leading to his invisibility.
Ultimately, it is only by descending into a manhole and remaining literally invisible to society that the
narrator is able to operate in a setting that allows him to uncover the full range of his individuality.
3. What is Entropy by Thomas Pynchon about? In what way do exact sciences help the author with his
artistic idea?
"Entropy" is extremely significant for students of Pynchon in that it provides us with an early
peak into the development of the author's thought in terms of ideas which carry as themes in later works.
Many concepts which play a key role throughout the bulk of Pynchon's fiction can be found here in
various stages of infancy. For example, the notion of entropy itself is reexamined and more deeply probed
in both V. and the Crying of Lot 49. Another example: Saul's wife is "bugged by the idea of computers
acting like people:" Pynchon years later probes the boundaries of `acting like' and `being' through the
development of his theme concerning the Animate vs. the Inanimate in V. In fact, in V. we find robots
acting like people and vice versa: Miriam would be "bugged" to no end had she been included in this
novel as well. Pynchon's discussion of Noise vs. Signal in terms of communication theory and
information transfer strongly carries through to a number of his later works, most importantly The Crying
of Lot 49 and Gravity's Rainbow. Sandor Rojas' conditioned behavior when a woman walks into the room
is set in motion by certain cues "like a contralto voice or a whiff of Arpege." He is described as salivating
like Pavlov's dog: later, in Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon intimately works with Pavlovian notions and
theories concerning conditioned behavior with regard to the major character of Tyrone Slothrop. Music,
too, utilized as the general metaphor throughout "Entropy," constantly asserts itself as a recurring motif
all the way across the spectrum of Pynchon's work, as does the setting used here in "Entropy:"
ridiculously intense parties lasting not hours but days if not weeks and months, as is the case with, among
others, Mondaugen's story in V.

4. In Entropy, the author represents various life scenarios of young people. IN what way do they differ
and why?
5. How is Europe (and Europeans) depicted in Pynchon’s text?
6. Is music important for the text? If yes, explain why?
A life-long lover of jazz, Ellison conceived of Invisible Man as jazz's literary equivalent. Even the
idea of "invisibility," which is a sight-based (rather than sound-based) concept gets compared to jazz:
Perhaps I like Louis Armstrong because he's made poetry out of being invisible. I think it must be
because he's unaware that he is invisible. And my own grasp of invisibility aids me to understand his
music. [...] Invisibility, let me explain, gives one a slightly different sense of time, you're never quite on
the beat. Sometimes you're ahead and sometimes behind. Instead of the swift and imperceptible flowing of
time, you are aware of its nodes, those points where time stands still or from which it leaps ahead. And
you slip into the breaks and look around. That's what you hear vaguely in Louis' music. (Prologue.8)
Bibliography
1. Денисова Т.Н. Історія американської літератури ХХ ст. – К.: вид. дім «Києво-Могилянська
академія», 2012. С. 255-274, 276-282, 298-306, 421-425.
2. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Any edition, recent is better (English Centre, 2d
floor). A Chapter on Thomas Pynchon and his Entropy.
3. Томас Пінчон. Ентропія. Вікно в світ. Література США. 1999, число 5.
4. Fragments for analysis (attached).