Article
Author: Patrick J. Hurley (St. Louis University)
The pig appears again and again, in many contexts, throughout Gravity's Rainbow. A number of studies have explored the way the pig image functions in the novel, but many of them are flawed by attempts to impose a single reading of the image. Not that one reading is correct and the others not: as with many aspects of Pynchon's writing, the truth is more complex. We were warned as early as The Crying of Lot 49 to beware the pitfalls of either/or thinking. The prevailing view of the pig as a symbol of transgression, detailed most thoroughly in Allon White's Bakhtinian reading, considers perhaps the primary function of the pig in GR. This function, however, is only one component of a multifaceted image.
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How to Cite: J. Hurley, P. (2001) “Pynchon, Grimm and Swinish Duality: A Note on the Pig Image in Gravity's Rainbow”, Pynchon Notes.(0). doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/pn.99