Dreams and nightmares : the idea of decadence in Thomas Pynchon

Abstract

The introduction examines what has been written by different scholars who have tried to define 'decadence'. Interestingly, there seems to be no agreement on its meaning. What is certain is that the word 'decadence' is derived from the Latin 'cadere~ to fall. Therefore, chapter one deals with the concept of the fall, while the second chapter takes two important images - the mirror and the hothouse - and explores how they function in decadent literature of the 1890s. Several works from the fin-de-siecle are examined and compared with Pynchon's use of these images, taking his "V. in love" chapter from V. as a sample text. What emerges is the creation of a portmanteau image - the looking-glasshouse - which comprises Alice's looking glass and the glass house of Baudelaire's unnatural blooms. As an example of the hothouse, in chapter three we look at Mondaugen's story in V., and the "siege party'' that takes place therein. A process of dehumanization is at work in this symbolic hothouse. Entropy is an important theme in Pynchon's fictions and chapter three attempts to explore the similarities between this physical law and the adverse effects of the hothouse, in which the dream of life is supplanted by the nightmare of decay and death. Ultimately, the hothouse finds its reversal for the new fin-de siecle in Vineland, where Pynchon creates a new image: the icehouse. The image is an apt one for Pynchon's treatment of the cold war.