Beginnings: Voices Under Erasure & the Writing of Ecology in Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon

Abstract

In "Beginnings," I examine the real in Thomas Pynchon's novel Mason & Dixon. Employing, at various stages, the works of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, HansGeorg Gadamer and Jean Baudrillard, I ask: what is the real in Mason & Dixon? Who wields it? Why does Pynchon, with his references to the fantastic (talking dogs, robot ducks, witches, werewolves, a golem) and allusions to cartooning (Popeye, Daffy Duck, The Simpsons), persistently place the real under erasure? And how does this relate to the politics of postcolonialism, feminism and environmentalism, three themes unquestionably fundamental to the text? I also argue against the widespread exclusion of Derrida from Pynchon criticism, ecocriticism and environmental studies. The scholars working in these fields, I argue, tend to misread, misunderstand and misrepresent Derridean theory. Presented in fifty fragments, "Beginnings" is an intentional step away from traditional postgraduate theses and a definite step towards criticism written as writing.