엔트로피에서 맥스웰의 도깨비로: 토마스 핀천의 『제49호 품목의 경매』 속 닫힌 세계로서의 미국과 실존적 탈주 가능성 연구

초록

This paper aims to find the meaning of closed society and possibility of Oedipa's existential escape in The Crying of Lot49 written by Thomas Pynchon. This paper first delves into factors of ‘Americaness’ as Pierce's inheritance—the military-industrial complex, cultural cynicism, media-dominating culture that dominated 1960s' America with the theoretical scaffoldings such as Jean Baudrillard's theories especially focusing on his ideas of simulation and hyperreality as the cultural illusion. This paper then traces Oedipa's quest to find a way to resist America as closed society where entropy becomes a dominant metaphor of its catastrophe through prying into Tristero which aims to insidiously rebel against totalitarian control of hegemonic Americaness. Yet Oedipa gets frustrated after finding out that Tristero is in fact a hidden apparatus of Pierce's inheritance. But Oedipa finally arrives at a third way to overcome nihilism brought about by her frustration by being awaken up to her own consciousness as outsider and finding meanings of existential choice and communication. This paper suggests that the opening ending of the novel can trigger bigger questions about the existential realm of humanity that the novel is seeking.

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