Technologized subjects in the novels of Thomas Pynchon and Don Delillo

Abstract

Contemporary subjectivity, as portrayed in the novels of Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo, is characterized by a struggle between internal drives for autonomy and self-expression and powerful external technological forces. Using Louis Althusser's notion of "interpellation" as a structuring premise, this dissertation argues that a conglomeration of databases, dossiers, image technologies, and modes of technological indoctrination comprises a "system" which both substitutes for the mysterious Other and "hails" the individual as a subject of technology. The technologized subject is constantly surveilled and influenced by the system; he or she becomes the physical representation of a totalizing discourse, another manifestation of Jean Baudrillard's "simulacrum."

While such a conception can easily be situated in the current academic discourse on late twentieth-century subjectivity, and is easily borne out through close readings of examples from the texts, there are other factors which rupture such a clearly-defined picture. The last two chapters, therefore, provide several examples of the multiple "human," "physical," and polydiscursive possibilities which serve to empower the subject. These possibilities are illustrations of Michel Foucault's "technologies of the self," strategies employed by the individual to exercise control over identity, to gain autonomy, and to work toward personal perfection. Complete autonomy is increasingly difficult in an increasingly technologized society, but innovative acts, deeply communicative interactions with others, and the exuberant linguistic play demonstrated by the characters of DeLillo and Pynchon ensure that the technological domination of the subject is kept at bay.