Postnational Visions in Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day

Abstract

Thomas Pynchon is very often associated with the creation of alternative worlds and the category of postmodernism. These alternative realities have been analyzed by prominent scholars from different standpoints. For instance, the relation between Pynchon’s multiple worlds and a trans/post-national imagination in his fiction has been addressed by several distinguished critics. However, regarding Against the Day, a meticulous analysis still has to be done. This essay aims at investigating how Pynchon’s Against the Day depicts a postnational vision that questions and challenges the metanarrative of nationalism. Drawing on the works of leading experts in the field of Pynchon studies, this essay seeks to show how the alternative worlds of Against the Day instantiate a trans/post-national vision which resists the rooted hegemony of nationalism in the world.

Keywords

• Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, postnationalism