Narrative Schizophrenia in Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49

Abstract

The novel The Crying of Lot 49, by Thomas Pynchon, allows a theoretical approach to spatial reconfigurations of identity through its narrative schizophrenia. In this study we explore the ramifications of this narrative, as well as its influence on the production of subjectivities, from the discursive pattern of the rhizome, whose eccentric nature favors the articulation of an identity fragmentation in Pynchon’s novel. That new spatiality, divided and multiple, admits new readings of the main characters in The Crying of Lot 49, and enhances the role of entropy in the decentralization of identity proposed by the novel.