The Scanty Plot: Orwell, Pynchon and The Poetics of Paranoia

The "Scanty Plot": Orwell, Pynchon, and the Poetics of Paranoia
Author(s): Aaron S. Rosenfeld

Source: Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 50, No. 4 (Winter, 2004), pp. 337-367
Published by: Hofstra University
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The "ScantyPlot":
Orwell,Pynchon, and the Poetics of Paranoia
AaronS. Rosenfeld
In truth the prison,into which we doom

Ourselves,no prison is;and hence for me,
In sundrymoods, 'twaspastimeto be bound
Within the Sonnet'sscantyplot of ground.
-Wordsworth (199)
Not least among the prescientaspectsof George Orwell's 1984 is its

articulationof a paranoiathatis at once dismaland thrilling.If todayparanoia'sdistinctivesensibility-its blend of grandiosityand abjection-has
become a commonplaceof the modernnovel,with writersfromPynchon
to DeLillo to Amis riffing on the suspicion that the world might be a
setup,Orwell'sversion laysthe groundworkfor their sense of paranoia's
possibilities.In this essay,I treatthe paranoiaof 1984 as more thanjust a
topicalthematicsthatreactsto the politicalconditionsof Orwell'stime;I
arguethatthe novel also respondsto the condition of the literatureof his
time.By looking at 1984 and then,briefly,ThomasPynchon'sTheCrying
of Lot 49 as counterpoint,I pose Orwell'sparanoidpoetics as an effort
to mediate between competing literarydiscoursesand their attendant
models of subjectivity.
That Orwell explicitly intended 1984 to addresstopical political
realitieshas been well documented.' In a letter to FrancisA. Henson in
June 1949, commentingon the germ of the novel,he wrote:"totalitarian
ideashavetakenroot in the minds of intellectualseverywhere,and I have
tried to drawthese ideasout to theirlogical consequences"(Howe 287).
Following along these lines,John Atkins,in an early responseto 1984,
Literature
50.4
Twentieth-Century
Winter 2004
337
AaronS. Rosenfeld
atallbuta painstaking
claimedthattheworldof 1984is"notimagination
tendencies
to
what
of
(252).
appearlogicalconclusions"
pursuit existing
Similarly,
IrvingHowe,a chimpionof thework,wrotethatthe"lastthing
Orwellcaredabout,the lastthinghe shouldhavecaredaboutwhen he
astheselaythe groundwrote 1984is literature"
(322).2Suchstatements
its evocationof
workfor reading1984 in termsof its clear-sightedness,
of
Howe's
rather
thanin terms
as
title
(the
article),
"history nightmare"
of the work'sliteraryqualities.
But it is not only Orwell'svisceralrevulsionat totalitarian
politics
it is also 1984'srejectionof novelistic
thatshapesthiscriticalresponse:
book
conventions.
Forexample,while Howe calls1984 a "remarkable"
of thenovel
(321),he alsosuggeststhatit doesnot meetthe requirements
asgenre:
It is not,I suppose,reallya novel,or at leastit doesnot satisfy
we havecometo havewith regardto the
thoseexpectations
novel-expectationsthataremainlythe heritageof nineteenth
with its stressuponindividualconsciouscenturyromanticism
ness,psychological
analysisandthe studyof intimaterelations.
(321)
Howe continues:
"Orwellhasimagineda worldin whichthe self,whateversubterranean
existenceit mightmanageto eke out, is no longera
value,not evena valueto be violated"(322).Herehe gestures
significant
towarda possibilityfor reading1984within,ratherthanoutsideof, the
of the notionof selfis not simplya violatradition:
Orwell's"violation"
tion of an a prioriassumption
aboutthe natureof the human;it is the
violationof the self as literarycategory,as a quantityderivedthrough
In
literatureandwithinthe dynamicprocessof narrative
development.
thissense,if 1984 is only dubiouslyliterature
insteadof politics,Orwell
andthe noveltradiat the veryleastcaresenoughto speakto literature
tion.Whatthenis the relationship
between1984 andliterature,
and,by
its
extension, literaryperiod?
We mightbeginby consideringthe climaxof the novel.The climax
appearsto be the scenein Room 101,whereWinstonis introducedto
his greatestfear,the rats."Do it to Julia!"
he cries(190),provingthatlove
is no matchfortorture,andthatthe perfectedtotalitarian
stateis capable
of erasingthe lastvestigeof humanity.
But we mightoffera different
climactic scene. Immediately before his capture,Winston stands in front
338
andthePoeticsof Paranoia
Orwell,
Pynchon,
"Wearethe dead,"he says.He
of a pictureon the wallof his hideaway.
is shockedwhen"Youarethe dead"is repeatedbackto him,the voice
comingfrombehindthe picture(147).Thescenecontinues:
"Now theycansee us,"saidJulia.
"Now we canseeyou,"saidthe voice....
"Thehouseis surrounded,"
saidWinston.
"Thehouseis surrounded,"
saidthe voice.
(148)
asanempty
Winstonstillhasyetto be turnedinsideoutandreconstituted
while
a
citizen
of
Oceania.
But
the
annihilation
of
Winston
shell, good
hasyet to come,herewe see the calculatedannihilation
the character
of Orwell'snovel.A text thatonce includedmultiplevoicescontending
with one anotherto definethemselves
andthe fictiverealcollapsesinto
restof thenovelwillbe takenup withaninterrogation
monologicity.The
in whichone partyalready
andin whichthe ultimate
knowstheanswers,
As Howesuggests,
it is the end of character
confessionis a faitaccompli.
of agency,interiority,
asa categoryin possession
essence--in
short,in possessionof itself.ButWinston'send is not the startingpointof the novel,
it is the conclusion.If Winstonbeginsasa familiarcharacter-thehero
of a questromance-he endsasquiteanother:an environmental
fixture.
Winston'swallscannotstandin the face of O'Brien'sassaulton behalf
of Big Brotherandthe Party.
"Weshallsqueezeyou empty,andthenwe
shallfill you with ourselves,"
O'Briensays(170).With this"violation"
Orwell'snovelstagesan anxious,reflexiveencounternotjust with the
politicsof the daybutalsowith specifically
literarymodelsof representing the subject.
As the voicein the picturemirrorsbacktoWinstonhis own words,
it is both a momentof supremeromantictranscendence
andof intense
the
action
within
the
fictive
real
a
paranoia,
reproducing logic of complete adequationbetweeninsideand outsideworlds.It is the pathetic
fallacymadeliteral-Winston'sthoughtsreallydo appearin the world,
of paranoia-itsinsistenceon
areindistinguishable
fromit.Thehallmarks
worlda motivated,
coherentnarrative;
readinginto a random,indifferent
for the objectof aggression;
its reductionof the
its claimof grandiosity
worldto a stablebinaryin which all signstaketheirmeaningthrough
theirrelationto the paranoid-arequiteexplicitlyrenderedas the basis
of the novel's"plot."Paranoiabecomes,in effect,the poetic principle
governing1984.3
339
Aaron S. Rosenfeld
it also
If 1984 existsat the intersectionof politicsandpsychology,
the
modernism
of
the
occasioned
a
crisis
of
by
signification
registers
that
make
this
crisis
of
the
novel
1920sand30s.It is the paranoid
poetics
in and
of signification
visible-a poeticsthatsimultaneously
participates
modernism's
resistswhatwe havecome to callmodernism,
particularly
alterationof the termsby which we understandcharacterand plot.4
Thisis not to saythatOrwell'saimwasto critiquemodernism,or that
of writerslikeJoyceand
he passedilljudgmenton the experimentation
Rather,it
Eliot;indeed,he stronglyendorsedtheirliteraryachievements.5
modesof repreis to arguethatOrwellthe novelistdeploystwo separate
andmodernist-in 1984,andthattheclashbetween
sentation-romantic
themconditionsandis conditionedby the paranoiaof the novel.
In recentyearstherehavebeen numerousstudiesof paranoiaand
literaturethat move beyondthe senseof paranoiaas theme and look
DavidTrotter's
insteadto its operationswithin the realmof narrative.
recentworkon paranoiaandmodernismis one example.Focusingon
Lawrence,
Lewis,Conrad,andFord,Trotterseesa linkbetweenparanoia
at the end of
andmodernismemergingfromthe riseof professionalism
on
the nineteenthcentury.Professionalism's
emphasis orderingthe mess
identities
of detailsthatconstitutetheworldplacedwriters'"professional
underextremepressure"
(7).Forthe writersTrotteraddresses,
paranoia,
in
with its"willto abstraction"
and
its
investment
hidden
(5)
knowledge,
valuefromthe mimeticeconomiesthat
becomesa meansof reclaiming
WhatTrottercallsthe paranoidmodernismof these
governexpertise.
to thenew commercial
writersbecomesananxiousmeansof responding
the
cultural
of
value.6
production
paradigm
governing
Inpostmodern
articulated
formulations,
by recentcriticslikePatrick
alsoactsasa responseto a threat
O'DonnellandTimothyMelley,paranoia
to identity.7
Here,however,the threathasexpandedfromthe discourseof
culturalpathology.
to a broad-based
WhereTrotterlinks
professionalism
thesenseof paranoia
ascollectivepathologyto the individual
expressions
of paranoiain the authorshe discusses,
O'DonnellandMelleyfocuson
paranoiaas a culturallyproducedand authorizednarrativetechnology.
For O'Donnellit is a "narrative
workor operationthatarticulates
the
it
order"
while
for
relation
to
the
'individual's'
(14),
Melley is
symbolic
a "complexand self-defeating
[attempt]to preservea familiarconcept
of paranoiaas a meansof narrating
of subjectivity"
It
is
their
sense
(23).
subjectivity that I want to build on here, in order to explore how the
contest over subjectivity plays out in Orwell's aesthetic identity.
340
Orwell,
Pynchon,
Orwellusesparanoia
to bridgecompetingromanticand
Specifically,
modernistmodelsof the subject.He exaggerates
bothromanticism's
sense
of the expansivesubjectandmodernism's
senseof the subjectsuspended
withina complexweb of signs.8The paranoia
of the novelis a symptom
of the contactzone wherethe romanticsubjectwho wouldhavesigns
into immanenceto revealthe "truesubject"is strandedin a
disappear
modernistworld made up of scatteredtextualfragments,where immanencewill come not in the disappearance
of signsbut in theirfull
of the subject.Orwellpinsthe displacedromanticsubjectin
"capture"
Whatis beyondtextualityis
text,effectingbothrepairandstabilization.9
reducedto an erratum:
"Youarea flawin the pattern,
Winston.Youare
a stainthatmustbe wipedout"(169),O'Briensays."Wemakethe brain
bothindulges
perfectbeforewe blowit out."Orwell'sparanoid
portrayal
such an aestheticand evokeshorrorat the loss of those elementsthat
mightescapethe net of legibility.
PeterKnight,in his discussionof the connectedness
of seemingly
randomeventsin DeLillo'sUnderworld,
makesa suggestiveobservation
with regardto paranoia's
capacityfor connectingevents.He notesthat
"takenindividually,
of
many theseconnectionsareperhapsno morethan
the thematicconstructionof a well-composedwork of fiction"(829)
and drawsattentionto the fact thatnovelsalreadyprivilegea kind of
in reading.This associationwith paranoiais not just
"connectedness"
In fact,the cognitivemalfunctionthatlies at the heartof
metaphorical.
is
located
in the perceptionof connectedness,
in thismostbasic
paranoia
act of"fiction."In otherwords,paranoiais the act of readingthe world
asif it werea book.Andmoreover,
asif it werea badbook:the paranoid,
betweensignsandthings,refuses
insistingon anexcessivecorrespondence
the loosersignification
of the metaphorfor unambiguous
In
certainty.10
thissense,paranoid
ratherthanmetaphorical,
mathlogicis instrumental
ematicalratherthanpoetic.The paranoidpremiseestablishes
a coherent
framework
fororganizing
themultiplication
of manifestations.
It is a kind
of excessiveformalization,
a metastatic
of material
thatpoints
organization
towarda singlehiddenconclusion,the threatto autonomy."
Justas the strugglefor autonomybecomesa structuring
principle
of the paranoid's
mentalorganization,
the paranoidtextboth thematizes
the threatto autonomyandenactsit at the formallevel.Threeelements
in particular
structurethisthreatwithinthe "paranoid
style":paranoia's
intensity of investment in its story; paranoid identification (projective
341
AaronS. Rosenfeld
identification); and the persistence of the paranoid premise. With regard
to the first, at the simplest level we notice paranoia when an "objective"
view of events is overwhelmed by the interpretive gestures of the teller.
With regard to the second, paranoid identification establishes equivalency between the paranoid and his persecutor. A paranoid structure
assays reconstruction of the ego on an exaggerated, delusional scale, the
paranoid identifying himself with the more grandiose object of both his
terror and his love.12With regard to the third, paranoid logic relies on its
initial premise of persecution in order to establish its claims. Once such a
conclusion is presumed, the events take on significance in relation to each
other in what appears to be a causal sequence by virtue of their capacity
to prove this prior conclusion. Taken together and singly, these operations are all predicated on asserting both autonomy and authority over
the text. To be paranoid is to be the last and best reader of the text, the
one for whom the text is written.When the paranoid narrative structure
is absorbed into the text, characters within the fictive real are invited to
recognize the world they inhabit as constructed within the protocols of
textuality.
Although, as Knight's comment suggests, each of the above operations
has an analogue in familiar behaviors of reading-we attribute motive
to authors; we identify with characters;we partake of the page-bound
intelligibility of fictive worlds (and "lose" ourselves in them)-paranoia
is distinct in the degree of its investment in this role.What distinguishes
paranoia from a reasonable suspiciousness is ultimately not whether the
threat is true, but the kind of gratification the paranoid takes in the threat.
Though the paranoid is an active reader,he or she also has an investment
in being the passive object of reading.The projective quality of paranoia
has a tendency to reverse the readerly gaze. Imagine the traveler who
stands on a hill and gazes out at the utopian, legible city-paranoia reverses the vector of agency so that the paranoid standsin the middle while
the world gazes back.13 Autonomy is assertedthrough the adoption of two
complementary grandiose positions: the paranoid occupies a privileged
relationship to the text of the world both as the lone reader of signs and
as the object implicated in or by them.
Just as the paranoid shuttles back and forth between the positions of
the reader and the read, the paranoid narrative shuttles between abjection
and grandiosity for its protagonists. This simultaneous decentering and
valorization of subjectivity within the confines of a systematic textuality
342
Orwell,Pynchon,andthe Poeticsof Paranoia

echoes the modernistproject.Theapocalypticsense thatFrankKermode
identifiesaspartof the modernsensibilitydovetailsin paranoiawith what
he refersto as the "formaldesperation"of the Joyce/Proust/Kafka/Musil
brand of modernism (10). Modernism shifts the balance of inflection
between the word and the world in favorof the word, substitutingthe
dreamof a formallycoherenttext for the expectationof coherentcharacter,and thus opens the door to the enforcedunities of paranoidreading.
As modernism morphs into postmodernism,we see an even more
explicit portrayalof form and an even greateremphasison the textual
nature of subjectivity.14Knight argues that in a world where "everything is connected but nothing adds up" (823), more, not less paranoia
is required.Many critics,including the ones noted above,have explored
how contemporarywriterslike Pynchon,KathyAcker,MartinAmis,and
Don DeLillo exploit paranoiaas a pervasiveculturaltheme within what
O'Donnell calls the "complicitousrelationbetween postmodernityand
paranoia"(vii). O'Donnell arguesthat texts by writerslike Pynchon and
Acker"chartthe peregrinationsof fluid,postmodernidentitiesoperating
within increasinglycomplex and encroachingdisciplinarymatrices"(23).
In other words,if modernism requiresparanoidreadingto make sense
of the world text, postmodernismposes paranoiano longer as a buttress
againstfragmentationbut as its complement,as a defenseagainstthe enforced hierarchiesof modernistreading.15
Within this account of paranoia'srise,Orwell'stext is a harbingerof
thingsto come. In what follows I will tracesome of the formsand figures
that shapethe "familiarconcept of subjectivity"that Orwell inheritsand
show how paranoiaregistersmoments of change within it. I will also
suggestsome of the waysin which postmodernparanoiais distinctfrom
modernistand romanticversions.
While Orwellsharedfor much of his careera historicalstagewith various

incarnationsof the modernistmovement,his relationshipto modernismas
an aestheticis contentious.Most strikingis his senseof the groupof writers now classedunder the rubric of"modernism"-Joyce, Eliot, Pound,
Lawrence,etc.-as havingneglecteda historicalsense of purposein their
writing. In "Inside the Whale" he writes of them:"Our eyes are directed
to Rome, to Byzantium, to Montparnasse, to Mexico, to the Etruscans,
343
AaronS. Rosenfeld
the subconscious, to the solar plexus-to everywhere except the places
where things are actually happening" (CollectedEssays 1: 508). Despite the
approvalof the technical innovation and experimentation ofJoyce and Eliot that he expresses elsewhere, he goes on to critique the culture of arid
formalist excess in which technical experimentation takes precedence:
In "cultured circles,"art-for-art's-saking extended practically to
a worship of the meaningless. Literature was supposed to consist
solely in the manipulation of words. To judge a book by its subject-matter was the unforgivable sin, and even to be aware of its
subject matter was looked on as a lapse of taste.
The generation that follows-"Auden, Spender & Co."-reintegrates
politics in his view, but moves "no nearer the masses"by blindly adhering
to "the ill-defined thing called Communism" (1: 512). In this generation
the "typical literary man ceases to be a cultured expatriate with a leaning towards the church and becomes an eager-minded schoolboy with a
leaning towards Communism" (1: 510). Both groups are insulated from
direct encounter with the realities of political life. Even Henry Miller,
whom Orwell consistently and lavishly praised, is guilty of writing from
"inside the whale," Orwell's phrase for the "final, unsurpassable stage of
irresponsibility" (1: 521) that comes with giving up on the world.
While on the one hand Orwell's concern is ardently political, on the
other it cuts to the heart of the aesthetic issue that courses through modernism, the relation between language, the self, and the world. In Orwell's
account, following the 1920s
the pendulum swung away from the notion that art is merely
technique, but it swung a very long distance, to the point of
asserting that a book can only be "good" if it is founded on a
"true" vision of life.
(CollectedEssays 1: 522)
For Orwell, this "true vision" is equally dangerous, open to abuse by those
who would claim to possess it. He opposes the "true vision" to the merely
technical vision, requiring that the "true vision" resist its own orthodoxies if literature is to reclaim its relevance. Orwell sees little hope. If Miller
is the "only imaginative prose writer of the slightest value who has appeared among English-speaking races for some years past,"he is also "a
demonstration of the impossibility of any major literature until the world
has shaken itself into a new shape" (1: 527). In the meantime, writers are
344
Orwell,
Pynchon,
asit is,to "simplyacceptit,
condemnedto submitto the"world-process"
it will be via
endureit, recordit"(1:526).If languageis to be recovered,
individualtruthsthataddressthe collectivereality;but,in keepingwith
suchtruthsmustnecessarily
be
Orwell'sfiercedefenseof the individual,
if
are
to
derived
from
be
valid.
lonelytruths,
singularperceptions, they
Criticssuchas KeithAlldrittgo so faras to findthe symbolism,
alandhistoricalconcernof 1984consistentwith the modernist
lusiveness,
reproject.At the sametime,AlldrittreadsOrwellas a failedsymbolist,
fableandutopia... formsthatweremoreresistant
turningto "allegorical
to the stronginfluencesofJoyce,Proust,andD. H. Lawrence"
(4).He
in
that
this
is
the
novel
a
struggle allegorized 1984,
argues
"projection
and a criticismof the tendenciesof the specificallyliteraryorthodoxy
of the time,"with O'Briena "caricature
of certainsymbolistattitudes"
if Orwellis"interested
than
lessin temperament
(158-59).16Meanwhile,
milieu"(21),he is alsolinkedwith the naturalist
traditionof Gissingand
Wells,the sametraditionthatVirginiaWoolfattacksin her modernist
manifesto
"Mr.BennettandMrs.Brown.""17
If,likeWells,Orwell'sinterest
liesasmuchwith settingaswith character,
likeEliothe alsoseesa world
constructed
by language.
Thisaestheticconundrum
becomesa sourceof 1984'sownversionof
is
between
the degenerate
that
Winston
caught
popularliterature
passivity.
culture
Orwellso despises,
embodiedin themechanical
produced
popular
by the Party,andanaestheticof purelanguagethathasno connectionto
the world,embodiedin the InnerParty's
languagegames.Theindividual
Orwell
is
tied
for
already
subject
dangerously up in signifyingsystemsthat
threatento overwhelmagency.Throughhis essays,memoirs,and other
novelswe see Orwellstruggling
to definea notionof the subjectthatesIn hisfamousessay"Politicsandthe
from
the
of
discourse.
capes
vagaries
of debasedlanguageas thatwhich
Orwell
conceives
EnglishLanguage,"
ratherthanbeinggeneratedfrom"inside"the
is imposedfrom"outside"
who writesof
own
subject's perceptions.
EchoingDanielPaulSchreber,
that
that
birds"
"miracled
phrases theyhavelearnt
repeat"'meaningless
by heart'andthathavebeen'crammedinto them"'(qtd.in Freud,Three
CaseHistories
will construct
111),Orwellwrites:"[Ready-made
phrases]
think
for
yourthoughts you, to a certain
yoursentencesforyou-even
extent-and at needtheywill performthe importantserviceof partially
concealingyourmeaningevenfromyourself"(Howe258).The answer,
he writes, is "to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other
345
AaronS. Rosenfeld
way around"(255).18 His commitmenthere is to the struggleagainstthe

loss of authorityover language.Is authorityover the realto residein the
individual'sabilityto grasp"facts,"or in the languageitself?19Language
thathasmigratedfromspeakersto "speakers"-theloudspeakersthatblare
out propagandain 1984-cannot guaranteeindividualpresence.
How, then, does Orwell'sparanoiamediatebetween these conflicting
aestheticmodels?While Orwell'sinsistenceon signs that can point the
way to the world ("two plus two makesfour")is an attitudethat resists
certain of modernism'spresuppositionsabout language,his assertionof
characteras a categorythatis open to the protocolsof reading,that exists
as if in a book, associateshis text also with the very modernismhe seems
to strainagainst.It is a deep strainof latent romanticismthat connects
these positions.By imagininga subjectwho is in possessionof-or who
ought to be in possessionof-an "impregnable"heart,an essentialconnection to a sublime that transcendsmere language,Orwell reproduces
romanticism'sterms of subjectivitywithin the protocols of a modernist
world. It is this embattledromanticismthat surfacesin Orwell'stext in
the form of paranoia.
I want to turn now to severalcharacteristic
examplesthatsuggestone
to
version of the romanticrelationship textuality.Wordsworth's"Nuns
fretnot at their narrowconventroom"closeswith an image of agreeable
incarcerationin poetic language:
In truth the prison,into which we doom
Ourselves,no prison is;and hence for me,
In sundrymoods,'twaspastimeto be bound
Within the Sonnet'sscantyplot of ground.
Ironizing the "scantiness"of the sonnet form, Wordsworth suggests
that,far from being a prison,it is, like a convent room, a relief from the
crowded outside world.Wordsworthis finally alone with his text. The
"we" of the first line of the stanzabecomes "me" in the second line;
readingand writing are,finally,solitaryacts.The scantinessof the "plot"
occurs in severalregisters:graphically,in the sonnet'splotting out of the
space on the page;expressively,in the sense that the sonnet limits itself
to a rendition of one thought, emotion, or feeling;and finally socially,
in the reader'sopting out of the world of things for the world of signs.
Wordsworthclaimsthe privilege of entering alone into the scantyplot;
the paranoid is condemned to it.
346
versionof theromantic
MaryShelley'sTheLastManoffersa different
relationbetweensolitudeandsigns.In her novel,a plaguewipesout all
of humanity,
leavingVerney,the lastman,in an ecstasyof singularity:
I shallwitnessallthe varietyof appearance,
thatthe elementscan
assume-I shallreadfairauguryin the rainbow-menacein the
cloud-some lessonor recorddearto my heartin everything.
Thusaroundthe shoresof desertedearth,whilethe sunis high,
andthe moonwaxesor wanes,angels,the spiritsof the dead,
andthe ever-openeye of the Supreme,
will beholdthe tinybark
freightedwithVerney-the LASTMAN. (342)
Verneyhas become the one personin the worldwho can readthe
looks aroundhis cell and
signs-literallythe last man.If Wordsworth
seesthe writingon the wall,Verney
seesthe writingon the world.But
andShelleyprovidea subjectwho standsaloneat the
bothWordsworth
centerof a networkof signs,in the privilegedpositionof solitaryreader.
andShelley'sformulations
Wordsworth's
inhersuggestthe romanticism
ent in paranoia(andvice versa).
Tobe alonewith a textis the essenceof
the paranoidstructureof reading,whichpresumesa specialrelationship
betweenreaderandsigns.In Orwell,romanticsolitudeis exchangedfor
the sensethatthe textcanbefora chosen
paranoidsingularity,
preserving
reader.
This romanticconception survivesinto the next century.But what
happenswhen the signsno longerpoint to the self?Perchedon the verge
of modernity,we see Thomas Hardyadoptingthis problematicas theme.
In "Hap"Hardyexpressesanxietyabout the condition of reference,linking it to the desireto find intentionalityin the signs:
If but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky and laugh:"Thou sufferingthing,
Know that thy sorrowis my ecstasy,
That thy love'sloss is my hate'sprofiting!"
Then would I bearit, clench myself,and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-easedin that a powerfullerthan I
Had willed and meted me the tearsI shed.
347
AaronS. Rosenfeld
But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
-Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain
and dicing Time for gladness casts a moan ...
These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.
(Norton44)
If there were only intention, Hardy seems to say,joy would blossom in
the knowing that one has been singled out, however unjustly, for a bad
ending. Indeed, Hardy returns again and again to a notion of fate's lack
of personal interest as the wellspring of tragedy.The gods are not vengeful, but randomly, coldly indifferent-and thus, for Hardy's narrator,sorrow becomes unbearable. Hardy is not paranoid in "Hap"; paranoia is a
subjunctive promise of relief, an outlook that might somehow redeem
suffering by making it his own. Orwell recapitulates this anxiety about
intention and the place of the subject in 1984. Winston asksJulia if she
remembers
"that thrush that sang to us, that first day,at the edge of the
wood?"
"He wasn't singing to us,"said Julia. "He was singing to
pleasehimself." (147)
LikeHardy'sdarklingthrush,the birdsingsof somethingWinstonand
to theirexistence.20
Juliacannotsee,thatis indifferent
The crisis Hardy points to is not strictly a historical one. It also invokes the exhaustion of a romantic literary rhetoric in the face of its own
belatedness.Perry Meisel argues that the modernist novel in turn is a form
of materialized memory, an effort to retroactively produce a ground that
will authorize the subject. This "paradox of belatedness" (5) infuses both
modernism and romanticism.According to Meisel, both romanticism and
modernismenact a "retroactiveproductionof lost primacyby means of

evidence belatedlygatheredto signifythe presenceof its absence"(229).
This formulationdrawsattentionto the importantconnection between
these two modes, though there is also a substantivedifferencein exactly
how the "presenceof absence"is signified.In the romantictext, it ap-
in modernismthrougha shiftin the

pearsthrougha shiftin perception;
signifyingstatusof the textitself,whichrelocatesthe sublimenot in the
world but in the textual object.
348

1984 signals a new phase in the battle for romantic subjectivity.
Orwell provides a vision of the romantic character-Verney, the last
man-fallen into a modernist landscapewhere individualpresence is
disallowed.But instead of simply lamenting the demise of the subject,
Orwell uses paranoiato returnthe subjectto the center of the signifying system.Unable to ignore the crisisto which Hardyis responding,he
indulges romanticism'sfantasiesof reference,its intensity of affect,and
its version of the solusipse,the solitaryself, that seeks to reachharmony
with nature'sgranddesign.21In a modernistworld of fragmentation,such
figurescurdleinto paranoia.
The sense of compromisedinterior space is criticalto the paranoid
conception of the subjectas a thing undersiege.22It is a subjectthat recognizes itself only throughits contact with an outside force that would
eradicateit, whose bordersbecome visiblein the outline castby the surroundingarmy of threats.Thus, even memory,which would seem to be
the impregnablecore, the means by which the subject recognizesitself,
is shown in 1984 to be under the control of the state.If the production
of memory is a wellspringof both modernismand romanticism,in 1984
we see a failureto produce such a grounding memory,either through
recollectingan individualpast or defining a textual presentthat can be
controlledby the individual.The reduction of memory to an alterable
text destabilizesboth characterand setting.In 1984, the public past has
been successfullyoverwrittenby the authorities,as in the case of Jones,
Aaronson,and Rutherford.Theold man in the barpossessesnothing but
a "rubbishheap of details"(62) that are of no use to Winston.Though he
seeksto embracethe pastthroughthe antiquesin the junk shop,through
his encounterwith the old man in the bar,or throughhistoricalrecords,
they suggestonly the extent to which the pasthas been effectivelycolonized.
Neither can Winston'sprivate history withstandthe Party'sassault
on memory.AlthoughWinston managesto rememberfragmentsof his
personalhistoryin dreams,such as the "dark,close-smellingroom"(107)
where he last saw his mother and heardhis sister's"feeblewail" (109) as
he fled with the stolen chocolate,even these will be subject to seizure.
"You sufferfrom a defective memory" (163), O'Brien tells him in the
interrogationscene;these privatememories will be replacedby love for
Big Brother.Winstonhas alreadyunderstoonthe implicationsof this effacement, thinking:
349
AaronS. Rosenfeld
when memory failed and written records were falsified-when
that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved human
life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and
could never again exist, any standard against which it could be
measured.
(63)
Paranoiain Orwell's formulation provides an answer to this destabilization.
Its rigid architectonics of narrative underdetermine character,stabilizing
it: a multiplicity of signs is reduced to a paucity of meaning; the paranoid
is frozen in someone else's text.The paranoid text invokes not an extratextual sublime but a manifestation, the hard sheen of surfaces. Rather
than developing character toward a horizon of the real, the paranoid text
develops character toward the horizon of textuality; but, unlike modernism in Meisel's formulation, the individual's authority over the resulting
textual object consists only in being named by it.
This emphasis on textuality makes it no accident that the "plot" of
1984 is punctuated by three texts: Winston's diary, Goldstein's manual,
and finally Winston himself, as intelligible text to be read by the state
apparatus(the appendix on the principles of Newspeak might count as a
fourth, though it falls outside the "plot" of Winston's demise).The secret
diary the novel begins with is Winston's effort to resuscitate a notion of
the subject as distinct from environment. But later,Winston and his diary
are both read by the thought police, suggesting that there can be no private voice that is not subject to external authority.Winston finds himself
unconsciously scrawling "DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER" (14) over
and over again in the margins of his diary early in the novel, but by the
end he is absently writing "2+2=5" (192) in the dust on the table of the
Chestnut Tree.This shift indicates the collapse of a self capable of opposing itself to the external reality or of generating thoughts that escape the
Party's efforts to make language meaningless and wholly independent of
the individual. "There was no idea that he had ever had, or could have,
that O'Brien had not long ago known, examined, rejected" (170).
The novel progresses toward this undoing of agency through a series
about its language. Though we encounter various competrevelations
of
ing discourses throughout the novel, from manuals to interior thought to
dialogue, newspapers, and popular songs, they all lead to the same place
within the text, having been fabricated and deployed by the Party.The
versificator produces popular songs for the proles, history is written and
350
rewrittenaccording
to Partydictates,
andGoldstein's
subversive
manualis
a trapproducedby O'Brienandothermembersof the Party.Evenrandombitsof doggerelcannotescapeincorporation
into the design.Winston cannotrememberthe restof the shopkeeperCharrington's
rhyme
thatbegins"Orangeandlemonssaythebellsof St.Clement's;"
it is
finally,
of the Party,who suppliesthe missinglines.
O'Brien,the representative
rolein languageis conspicuously
absent."No bookis
The individual
to
the
O'Brien
(174); implicationhere
producedindividually,"
according
who ofis not thatthelanguagehasbeenopenedup to multiplespeakers
fertheirown variations
andconsequently
constructa communaltongue,
but thatlanguagehasbeen divorcedfromlived experience.
When the
tout
in
machines
increases
shoe
or
announce
that
propaganda
production
the armyis winningthewaragainstEurasia,
become
singular
perceptions
becausethereis nothingotherthanlanguageon which to
meaningless
O'Briensays(165);but he also
groundthem."Realityis not external,"
on
to
in
that
exists
mind,whichcan
"[n]ot the individual
say
reality
goes
makemistakes,
andin anycasesoonperishes;[it exists]onlyin the mind
of the Party,whichis collectiveandimmortal"
(165).23
with
constricted
andjoyless-is
Newspeak's
play
language-though
It complements
the meansby whichthe realis to be madeinaccessible.
whichis
doublethink,
the tellingof deliberate
lieswhile genuinelybelievingthem,to
fact
that
has
become
andthen,when it
inconvenient,
forgetany
becomesnecessaryagain,to drawit backfromoblivionforjust
so long asit is needed,to denythe existenceof objectivereality
andallthe while to takeaccountof the realitywhichone denies.
(143)
Whatis describedhereis a poeticsof signification
thatis both complete
in itselfand,paradoxically,
independentof anyobjectivesignified,except
insofaras the languageimpliesa doublethinking
speaker.Doublethink
erasesallclaimsto an extralinguistic
real.
In fact,the sadistic,
Thisis sadismdirectedatlanguage.
paranoidelement of 1984'sworldis directedemphatically
at literary
The
language.
of
literature the pastis being translated
into Newspeak;Symeexplains
to Winston,"Chaucer,
Milton,Byron-they'll existonlyin
Shakespeare,
Newspeakversions,not merelychangedinto somethingdifferent,but
of whattheyusedto be"
actuallychangedinto somethingcontradictory
351
Aaron S. Rosenfeld
(37). O'Brien allows metaphor to expire in explaining the logic of the
world: "The object of persecution is persecution.The object of torture is
torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand
me?" (175). This tautology-what Alok Rai calls a "vacuous circularity" (161)-devastates not only any attempt to answer but also the very
notion of a literary language that progresses toward elusive (or allusive)
objects. Paranoia, certain of what signs mean, cannot sustain itself in the
face of a language that refuses to hold still. Such slippage as is found in
poetry-emultiple contexts for a single word, for example-disrupts at
the microscopic level the structure out of which the paranoid plot is
constructed and sustained, requiring an even more powerful paranoid
investment to fend off meanings that fall outside the boundaries of the
"scanty plot."24In 1984, words become like mirrors, reflecting back only
their own fixed images.
The paranoia of 1984 thus becomes as much wish as nightmare. It
is a "last man" fantasy,a wish for a privileged relationship to signs. In this
sense,Winston Smith is a romantic, filled with nostalgia and a sense of his
own specialness, searching for signs that will affirm his existence, desiring to leave civilization behind for the pastoral of the "golden country."
But there is no more nature; there is only an artificial language that has
preempted the real with a construction of the Party.Winston writes in
his diary:"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four.
If that is granted, all else follows" (55). It is the same equation that Dostoevsky's Underground Man rails against as tyrannical ("This twice two
image stands there, hands in pockets, in the middle of the road, and spits
in your direction" [117]), but Dostoevsky rejects it because it denies the
irrational, romantic soul of man.25 For Orwell, the formula is salvation,
the irrefutable indicator of an objective real that can be apprehended and
rendered by the individual.
Orwell seemed to have been rehearsing 1984 his entire career as a
novelist. Though the earlier novels lay the groundwork for 1984 without
ever passing into the kind of explicit paranoid structuration that infuses
the later novel, paranoia is nonetheless an ever-present possibility. In
Coming UpforAir, for example, Orwell also tells the story of a man who
searchesfor his golden past.GeorgeBowling wins the lotteryand decides
to takea tripto visithischildhoodhome.Bowling'sshameat thisurgeto

into a paranoidfarce:
go backto the siteof childhoodis exaggerated
352

What was more,I actuallyhad a feeling they were afterme already.The whole lot of them!All the people who couldn'tunderstandwhy a middle-agedman with false teeth should sneak
awayfor a quiet week in the place where he spent his boyhood.
And all the mean-mindedbastardswho couldunderstandonly
too well, and who'd raiseheavenand earthto preventit.They
were all on my track.It was as if a huge armywere streaming
up the roadbehind me. I seemed to see them in my mind'seye.
Hilda was in front,of course,with the kids taggingafterher,
and Mrs.Wheelerdrivingher forwardwith a grim, vindictive
expression,and Miss Minns rushingalong in the rear,with her
pince-nez slippingdown and a look of distresson her face,like
the hen that gets left behind when the others have got hold of
the bacon rind.And Sir HerbertCrum and the higher-upsof
the Flying Salamanderin their Rolls-Royces and Hispano-Suizas.And all the chapsat the office,and all the poor down-trodden pen-pushersfrom EllesmereRoad and from all other such
roads,some of them wheeling pramsand mowing-machines
and concrete garden-rollers,some of them chugging along in
littleAustin Sevens.And all the soul-saversand Nosey Parkers,
the people whom you've never seen but rule your destinyall
the same,the Home Secretary,ScotlandYard,the Temperance
League,the Bank of England,LordBeaverbrook,Hitler and
Stalinon a tandembicycle,the bench of Bishops,Mussolini,the
Pope-they were all afterme. I could almosthear them shouting:
"There'sa chap who thinkshe's going to escape!There'sa
chap who sayshe won't be streamlined.He's going back to Lower Binfield!After him! Stop him!" (205--06)26
Here, as in 1984, the desireto returnto the past is thwartedby a ubiquitous network of authoritiesand informants.In fact,Bowling will find
that the fishingholes and houseshe remembershavealreadybeen fouled
by the same type of industrialmiddle-classdevelopmenthe is escaping.
ComingUpfor Air also provides us with an earlierversion of Big
Brother.Bowling speakssarcasticallyof the "god"of the HesperidesEstates,the subsidized,middle-classhousing projectwhere he now lives,as
a "queer sort of god ... bisexual ... [t]he top half would be a managing
353
Aaron S. Rosenfeld
director and the bottom half would be a wife in the family way" (13). In
1984, the order is reversed. Instead of seeking to escape from the tyranny
of a hermaphroditic god,Winston embraces it.
in ComingUpforAirOrwellprovidesan
Perhapsmostsignificantly,
emblemof the collapseof boundariesbetweenthe privateandpublic
worldsthatbecomesrealizedon a granderscalein 1984. Returning
of a bomb'sexplosionin Lower
home,Bowlingwitnessesthe aftermath
Binfield.The explosionhasrippedthe walloff a house"asneatlyas if
someonehaddoneit with a knife"(264).The gutsof the houseareexwas thatin the
posedto Bowling'sview:"andwhatwas extraordinary
rooms
had
been
It
was
like
touched.
upstairs
nothing
just
lookinginto a
doll'shouse"(264).In 1984 thisexposureis appliedto character:
"They
couldlaybarein the utmostdetaileverythingthatyou haddoneor said
or thought;but the innerheart,whoseworkingsweremysteriouseven
to yourself,remainedimpregnable"
(111).
In 1984 Orwellfullypullsdown the wallof the houseand of the
the subject's
subjectto reveal,in a perverseswitchon thefamilyromance,
truehomein thelaw.1984closeswithWinston'ssuccessful
returnto the
The regressive
of the novelunpacks
bosomof "family."
rapprochement
Freud's
lovehim,I hatehim,he hatesme"(ThreeCase
logicof paranoia,"I
Histories
fromWinston'sfeelingthathe is the object
It
moves
139-40).27
of hostilesurveillance
andcontrolto anactivestruggleagainstBigBrother
andfinallyto anembrace:
"Hegazedup atthe enormousface.Fortyyears
it had takenhim to learnwhat kind of smilewas hiddenbeneaththe
darkmoustache.
O Cruel,needlessmisunderstanding.
O stubborn,selfwilledexilefromthe lovingbreast"
The"enormousface"signals
(197).28
thatthe sightline belongsto the sucklinginfant,butBig Brotheris also
a lover("HelovedBig Brother"[197]),a brother("theBrotherhood"),
andthe fatherwhoselawWinstonembraces.
FulfillingSchreber's
fantasy
of identification
with God,Winstonevacuates
himselfin orderto merge
with the objectof his fear.(Infact,the evacuationof Winston'sbowels
andbile is a recurringmotifthroughout.)
Here,the GodWinstonenters
is the law,an emptysign,no morethana faceon the telescreen.
The law
of thefatherstandsalways
"before"
theparanoid;
he acceptsthiscondition,
ratherthanthe strugglefor autonomy.29
At the
choosingidentification
end of the novel,Winston
sitsin the ChestnutTreeCafe:the"chest-nut,"
it. It is the fulfillment
the heart,surrounds
Winston,he doesnot surround
of O'Brien's earlier prophecy:"Do you see that thing facing you? That is
354

the lastman.If you arehuman,that is humanity"(187).Admittingdefeat
in the will to recovery,Orwell chroniclesthe lastgaspof a romanticpres-ence in the novel.
Postmodernism,emphasizingexcessesof signification,generatesa thematics and a poetics that is even more highly susceptiblethan modernismto
paranoia,to the portrayalof readingasplot. If modernistparanoiais an attemptto preservean oldermodel of the subject,postmodernparanoiawill
look somewhatdifferentfrom Orwell'sversion.In this section,I want to
briefly examineanothertextualavatarof paranoia,Pynchon'sTheCrying
of Lot 49, focusingon severaldifferencesbetween it and Orwell'sversion
of paranoiaand on the implicationsof these differences.
Pynchon'stext operatesat the junctureof modernismand postmodernismratherthanthatof romanticismand modernism.30
Again,paranoia
registersthe disruptionscausedby the shiftinggroundsunderneaththe
subject."In a singleday,how manynon-signifyingfieldsdo we cross?Very
few,sometimesnone,"Roland Bartheswrote in 1957 (112);it is as if the
world has increasinglymade itselfamenableto being readlike a novel.As
the sense of the subject constructedin and through an encounter with
signsbecomes pervasive,it is the modernistsubject-patching signsinto
coherence,shoring fragmentsagainstthe ruins-who is under siege, in
need of rescue.
As Brian McHale notes, Pynchon'sfiction is structuredaroundthe
tension between a desire for the textual unity of modernism-a text
that makessense-and the proliferationof signs. The Cryingof Lot 49 is
built arounda set of codes that gives the appearanceof unity but in fact
could simplybe a randomcollection of signs,the posthumouspulsingof
Inverarity's
game.Oedipa,in turn,strugglesmightilyto replacea narrative
coherencethat hasbeen lost to the multipleconnections.Driving to San
Narciso,Oedipa resolves"to pull in at the next motel she saw,however
ugly,stillnessand four wallshavingbecome preferableat this point to this
illusion of speed,freedom,wind in your hair,unreelinglandscapes"(26).
ForWordsworththe "scantyplot" of ground promisesa deeper reality,
but for Oedipa the "scantyplot" of the four walls representsa blessed
relief from the proliferationof signs. Pynchon imaginesWordsworth's
"narrow convent room" not as a source of the aesthetic sublime but as
355
AaronS.Rosenfeld
an escape,a fixingof untrammeled

is to be contained
possibilities.What
is Oedipaherself,the motelroomfunctioninglike the tupperware
that
opensthe novel.Oedipaseeksto knowherself,bothasthe materialbody
thatPynchon'stext withholds-she is neverphysicallydescribed-and
asthe materialgroundingforherdisembodied
emotions.LikeDriblette,
who wantsto "givethespiritflesh"(79),Oedipais lookingfora narrative
framework
thatwill supportherdesirefor connection.
If Pynchon'scharacters
representthisyearning,so doesthe rhetoric
of the text itself.By constructing
an elaborately
cross-referenced
puzzle
thatseemsto revealnew unitieswith eachreading,Pynchon'stextboth
validates
andironizesthequestformeaning.LeoBersani's
readingof paranoiain Gravity's
Rainbow
makesjustsucha claimforparanoia,
andit is a
claimthatdistinguishes
version
of
from
Orwell's:
Pynchon's
paranoia
It is,then,onlywithinthe paranoidstructure
itself-and not
in someextra-paranoid
mythsuchaslove or anarchicrandomness-that we canbeginto resistthe persecutions
whichparanoiaimagines,and,moresubtly,authorizes. ("Pynchon"
109)
ForBersani,
theparanoid
moveis to "combineoppositionwithdoubling"
(108),the visiblebecominga deceptivedoubleof the "real."
Paranoia,
a convincingfailureof selfthen,providesfora "modelof unreadability,
knowledge"(118) thatallowsfor the maintenanceof the subjectin a
fluidstateof becoming.The novelendsjust beforethe actualcryingof
lot 49.Wereturnto whatposesasa momentof ontologicalcertainty,
the
even
as
the
novel
resists
the
the
moment
of
that
title,
closure,
self-identity
the titlepromises.
Indeed,forPynchonin TheCryingofLot49, paranoia
becomesa modeof knowingthat,at leastprovisionally,
acceptsthe rhetoricalgroundof postmodernism
as a richnew fieldfor the exerciseof
modernistreading.
As Dr.Hilariusnotes,"inrelativeparanoia... at least
I knowwho I am andwho the othersare"(136).The "knowing"
Pynchonrepresents
pointsin two directionsat once:it is bothknowledgeof
a perfecttext thatmightstillevokeor maponto a worldof humansand
in constructknowledgeof the necessityof text,withitsinfinitedeferrals,
ing subjectivities.
The scenein the bathroomat Echo Courts,when Oedipacannot
findherimagein the mirror,emblematizes
the differencebetweenPynchon andOrwell."Atsomepointshe went into the bathroom,triedto
find her image in the mirrorand couldn't.She had a moment of nearly
356

pure terror.Then she remembered that the mirror had broken and fallen
in the sink" (41). Art no longer holds a mirror up to nature; the mirror
is shattered. If art is to be renewed, it will not be because the texts make
sense, but because Oedipa chooses to read them as if they do.The narcissistic presumption of centrality that underpins paranoia here gives birth to
semiotic solipsism.Though the mirror has shattered,Oedipa will continue
to read, her (and the text's) paranoia a shoring of fragments against the ruins. Pynchon's coherent subject, as McHale argues,is a modernist, at home
in a world of signs. Pynchon answers the paranoid tendency to allow
language to ossify into a frozen stringency with a kind of hyperparanoia,
the riotous capacity of the word to generate new meanings, new secrets.
It is this playfulness that finally distinguishes Pynchon's version of
paranoia from Orwell's. Pierce Inverarity remains forever out of reach in
The Crying of Lot 49-Oedipa will continue to stumble over his tracks,
conspiracies will continue to be nurtured in the back halls of bureaucracy, but we will never get to the heart of the plot. There is no lifting
of the curtain to reveal a Big Brother at whose loving breast Winston
suckles in the last lines of 1984. Finally, the networks are too complex
and untraceable; as for Hardy, paranoia is more a wish than a successful
practice.The "scanty plot" of the paranoid becomes a potential means of
containing narrative,a sea wall against the tides of signs that threaten to
wash away the subject. Though Oedipa may never fix herself in or to
the world, hope resides in the fact that metaphor can connect anything:
"Our beauty lies ... in this extended capacity for convolution," the child
star turned lawyer Metzger observes. Paranoia simultaneously promises
to unpack the convolution and to reify it.
In Pynchon's
newintroduction
to 1984,he observesthatBig Brother
and the system he presides over "put the whole question of soul, of what
we believe to be an inviolable inner core of the self, into harsh and terminal doubt" (xxiii). But for Pynchon, such an "inviolable core" remains
a possibility in The Cryingof Lot 49, because signs are finally fluid, entropic, simultaneously demanding and resisting paranoia'sattempts at fixing.
There is still a future hope that a coherent subject will materialize within
or out of the text. In place of Orwell's grim monologicity, Pynchon's
postmodern paranoia offers an intertextuality capable of forging new possibilities for connection and play,the endangered subject safely stowed behind the walls of text. If there is a melancholy that attaches to Pynchon's
project, it properly belongs to modernism, to the sense that there is an
357
AaronS. Rosenfeld
lossat theheartof narrative,

a"postmodern
in Marc
sublime,"
unspeakable
Redfield'sphrase(159),thatis alwaysyet be recovered.31
If postmodernismasksus to perceivetextswithina framework
wheresigns
ofjouissance,
dartanddance,weavinga simulacrum
of the worldthatis liberating,
it
is modernismthatcombsthe text for evidenceof design.The authoris
buriedbutnot dead,in Pynchon'swords,"likeMaxwell'sdemon... the
linkingfeaturein a coincidence"(120-21).
Thisparanoiaof the postmodernembracesthe worldof signsthat
Orwellstrugglesagainst.If TheCryingofLot49 is a "critiqueof episteBut
mology"(O'Donnell87),it is alsoa defenseof the subjectasreader.
in Orwell'stext,it is not fluiditybutrigiditythatparanoia
with
imposes,
readinga correlateforbeingread.Thisdifferencecutsto the heartof the
distinctionbetweenOrwell'sparanoiaand thatof the postmodern:
for
the revanchist
romanticin Orwell,the signsthemselvesarethe problem,
the markof a worldthathascome too muchto resemblea novelanda
subjectthathascometoo muchto resemblea character.
It is significant
thatin the scenewithwhichI beganthe discussion
of
1984, it is seeminglythe picturethatspeaksback.If Oedipacannotsee
herselfin the frame,Winston's
look yieldsup anall-too-objective
reflection.UnlikeOedipa,his roleas readerhasbeenfatallycompromised
by
the shiftof authorityfromthe viewerto the work.Art speaks,
Winston
canonlylisten.ForOrwell,stillsuspendedbetweenromanticandmodernistpoetics,paranoia
takeson a darkertincture,
becomingthe recordof
the struggleto rescuefrommodernistpoeticsa subjectthatexistsoutside
of text."Youare outsidehistory,"
O'BrientellsWinston(179),but to
returnto historyis to be destabilized
in the rewritingof it. Anticipating HaroldBloom'sinfluencemodel,in whichthe strongpoet wrestles
with precursor
poets,Orwell'sparanoiais the symptomof a momentof
aestheticcontention.If for Bloom the struggleis with the past,Orwell
alsocontendswiththefuture.It is not onlythevoiceof hisforebears
that
assailsOrwell,it is alsothe voice thatwould"swerve"as Bloomwould
put it, andrewritethe pastto whichhe is committed.
Orwell'smasterpiece
residesnotjust at a crucialtemporal-historical
but
also
at
the
intersection
of the competingliterarydiscourses
juncture
thatcollidein Orwellthe artist.O'Brien'scomment"Menareinfinitely
malleable"
about
(179)resonatesnotjustwith totalitarian
presumptions
but
literature's:
also
Winston's
becomes
an
humanity
plight
allegoryfor
the changing structures by which men are generated anew in each era.
358

The paranoid poetics of 1984 enact this tension as well at the structural
level, staging a struggle with modernist poetics that produces, instead of a
bildungsroman in which character is forged via the gaining of knowledge
through the encounter with "life," a reverse bildungsroman in which
characteris diminished to a vanishing point of textuality.Modernism shatters the romantic, lyric voice; out of the fragments Orwell reconstructs a
romantic version of textual sense to replace "essence."The signs may be
blowing apart,but by reading them as indicative of a plot directed toward
the solitary individual, Orwell reclaims a grandiose, utopian centrality for
Winston.Then, though the radical passivity that governs the text-Winston is not the reader but the read-affords Winston a no less central
position, it is the centrality of the inmate. Orwell's "scanty plot" becomes
a prison-house for the romantic subject.
Notes
1. See Pynchon'snew introductionto 1984 for the most recent example.Also
seeWilliam Steinhoff.Alex Zwerdlinggives an excellent account of Orwell's
relationshipto politics in OrwellandtheLeft,focusingparticularlyon his struggle to adaptfiction to politicalends during the 1930s and 40s.
2. RaymondWilliams,on the other hand,claimsthat Orwell failsto recognize
the materialrelationsof his own createdworld,chalkingup this failureto his
"obsessionwith ideology"(77).
3. By using the wordpoeticshere,I mean to say that the novel'sparanoiaappearsnot only in its theme, characters,or subjectmatter(though it does appear
in each of these) but also that it appearsin what PeterBrooks callsthe "logic
of narrative"(21):as a dynamicstructuraland syntacticelement that parallels,
rehearses,and illuminatesparanoidpsychic organization(3-36). In an effortto
move beyond traditionalformalism,Brooks articulatesa relationbetween the
movementsof desireand those of narrative.He suggeststhat in "plot"we see
a working throughand out of a hermeneuticcode that drawsits energy from
psychic economies of desire.David Shapiro'sinfluentialbook NeuroticStylesis
also seminalin enablinga considerationof paranoianot as a clinicaldesignation but as a set of formaloperations.Shapirodrawsattentionto the formal
qualitiesinherentin such categoriesas"suspiciouscognition,""projection,"
"biasedattention"(59),"lackof spontaneity,"
and"disdainfor the obvious"
the
attendant
as
hallmarks
of paranoidmodes of
(64), identifying
operations
below
draws
on
thinking.My description
heavily Shapiro.
359
Aaron S. Rosenfeld
4. Rather than theorizingparanoiaas culturalpathology,I am treatingit
through the lens of poetics in orderto suggestits recentlineage as a literary
"style"and to sketchout some of the implicationsof this formalhistory.Many
recent texts explorevariousaspectsof the relationbetween paranoia,literature,
and culture,includingthose by Trotter,Melley,Fenster,O'Donnell, Bywater,
and Bersani.
5. OfJoyce he said,"Joyceis so interestingI can'tstop talkingabout him once
I start"(Collected
Essays1: 128), and he groupedboth Joyce and Eliot among
"the writers I caremost about and never grow tired of" (3:24). He defended
their rejectionof a moralmessageand their emphasison technique ratherthan
didacticisma la Spender,Auden, and MacNeice, saying,for example,ofJoyce,
"Joycewas a technicianand very little else,about as nearto being a 'pure'artist
as any writer can be" (3: 124). Still,of Eliot he did apparentlygrow tired,writing in 1942,"thereis very little in Eliot'slaterwork that makesany deep impressionon me" (3:236). PatriciaRae tracesOrwell'scomplicatedrelationship
to Eliot more fully.
6. Trotterarguesthat the writersin questionsought to demonstrate"an expertise freedfrom the institutionalizedimitativenessof bureaucraticrevelation"
(9). Ultimately,he uses this argumentto explainthe transformationof modernistto postmodernparanoia;paranoiais "no longer a strategyfor acquiring
symbolic capital,it has become aformof symboliccapital"-that is,"proofof
literarysophistication"in its own right (326;Trotter'sitalics).
7. Both O'Donnell and Melley historicizeparanoiain terms of the postwar
Americanexperience.O'Donnell locatesparanoiawithin the "multifarious
contradictionof a postmoderncondition"that characterizeslate capitalismin
America (14), while Melley paysparticularattentionto paranoia'semergence
in Americanliteraturein the face of nuclearanxiety,the Red Scare,and the
Cold War.O'Donnell sees paranoiain the context of postmodernity'scontradictions:"libidinalinvestmentin mutability... contestswith an equallyintense
investmentin the commodificationof discreteidentities"(14). In Melley's
account,the incursionof the military-industrialcomplex into dailylife gives
rise to a sense of powerlessness.He tracesthe disruptionof subjectivityto
"agencypanic"(11), the "feelingof diminishedhumanagency"that invites
the enforcedcoherence of paranoiain orderto containperceivedthreatsto
autonomy.Similarly,MarkFensterexaminesconspiracytheories as a form of
"populistpossibility"(xiii).He views paranoiain a somewhatmixed light, critiquing Hofstader'seffortsto applya "theoryof individualpathologyto a social
phenomenon"(21) becauseit overlooksthe waysin which paranoiaand conspiracytheories posit a potentialalternativeto power through"redirect[ing]
the populismof conspiracytheory"(21).
360

Much of the wealth of recent criticalwork focuseson Americanmanifestationsof paranoia,includinganthologiesedited by George Marcusand by
Jane Parishand MartinParker.A notable exception is Trotter'swork discussed
above. Takinganothertack,LindaFisherlocatesparanoiawithin the hermeneutical"traditionof suspicion"(109) growing out of Marx,Nietszche,and
Freudand carriedforwardby Ricoeur and Gadamer.Building on these theories,it is paranoiaas a "literary"pathologythat most interestsme here.
8.While romanticismand modernismareboth obviouslycontentiouscategories,I want to deal with them here as constitutinga fluid but recognizable
set of characteristictropes,figures,and structures.As precedentfor this, I am
following the approachtakenby criticssuch as IhabHassan("Towarda Concept of Postmodernism")for modernismand postmodernismandWellek for
romanticism.ForWellek,romanticismis characterizedby "imaginationfor the
view of poetry,naturefor the view of the world,and symbol and myth for
poetic style"(161).
9. Alex de Jonge arguesthat the eighteenth centurybringsa "fundamental
sense of ontological unease"(4) and that"strongfeeling comes to act as a substitutefor meaning"(5). Romantic agony thus becomes an attemptto find
wholeness not in timelessstructuresof orderand truth but in the individual's
capacityfor repairinghis or her newly fragmentedsense of self with a sensation of supremepresence.De Jonge arguesthat intensity,with its exaggeration
of feeling and presence,is capableof "healingthe cleavagebetween subject
and object"(26) that is characteristicof the romanticconsciousness.
10. SalomonResnik callsattentionto the paranoid'sconfusion about how
fictions work, callingit a "lackof the capacityto metaphorizecorrectlyand to
symbolizeexperience"(24).This failureof metaphorsuggestsa failureof separationbetween the signifierand the signified.The reductionof the world to a
provisionallystablesignifyingsystemand the absorptionof all informationinto
the systemare the paranoid'ssolution to the problemof otherness.
11. Resnik describesthe stakesof this processof organizationthroughwhat
he callsa "catastrophicfragmentation"of the paranoidego (24), in which the
fragmentedego appearson the outside as a multiplicationof plot points,the
threatcoming not from one location but from everywhereat once.The paranoid narrativelinks these independentnodes into a narrativewith systemic
integrity,parallelingthe paranoid'sattemptto make himselfwhole again.
Indifferenteventsareincorporatedboth into the paranoidnarrativeand,by
extension,the paranoid'sprojectedego.When relinked,these plot points again
constitutea bounded ego formation,though this iterationis external.The paranoid narrativeis thus able to reclaimthe scatteredobject world throughthe
361
AaronS. Rosenfeld
strengthof the paranoid'sintegrativeprinciple;the unconscious,once external
in the formof thislatticework

of fragments
andalien,returnsto the paranoid
linkedtogetherin a coherentnarrative.
famousDr.Schreber
seesin his
thatFreud's
12.The"indescribable
grandeur"
own identity(ThreeCaseHistories
into Schreber's
visionsis incorporated
144).
GoddemandsthatSchreberbecomea womanandbride,to givebirthto a
(133).Themodernnar"newraceof men,bornfromthe spiritof Schreber"
rativeof accommodationin which the charactermust learn to accept his lack
of grandiosity
(forexampleGordonComstockin Orwell'sKeeptheAspidistra
In a paranoidtext,
astragedy.
out
Flying)plays the failureof suchaspirations
of
the
not as
transformation
we see a movementtowardsuccessful
completion
soul
as
for
the
of
the
but
literal
striving
accomplishment.
metaphor
13.Freudassociates
neurosiswith religion,and
hysteriawith art,obsessional
of a
He
writes:
"a
delusionis a caricature
with
paranoia philosophy.
paranoiac
Like
a
92).
system"(Totem
paranoia
imagines single
philosophy,
philosophical
the worldwithviewpointfromwhichperceptionfansoutwardto encompass
in a closedsystem.It is worthnotingalsothe staticnatureof sucha gaze.
the relationbe14.DavidLodgeprovidesa usefulmodelforunderstanding
modernism's
tweenmodernismandpostmodernism.
Essentially,
predicateis
mimetic
but
autonomous
Saussurian
language-whilepostlinguistics-not
is suspicious
of the mimeticand
modernism,
seekingto subvertcontinuity,
the metaphorical
coherenceof modernismandso turnsto intertextuality,
a Concept
andexcess(6-7, 13-16).In"Toward
contradiction,
permutations,
between
of Postmodernism,"
Hassanproposesa set of convenientdistinctions
suchasmodernism's
hierarchical
schemavs.
modernismandpostmodernism,
or transcendence
vs.immanence.
anarchy,
postmodernism's
15.JeanBaudrillard
writes:
If hysteriawasthe pathologyof the exacerbated
stagingof the subject,
of the body'stheatrical
andoperaticconvera pathologyof expression,
of the strucwasthe pathologyof organization,
sion;andif paranoia
and
turationof a rigidandjealousworld;thenwith communication
with
with the immanentpromiscuity
of thesenetworks,
information,
we arenow in a new formof schizophretheircontinualconnections,
nia. (133)
to
threatens
ForBaudrillard,
the schizophrenic
experienceof postmodernity
in thisincarnation,
coherence.Paranoia,
wrestleswith the
obliteratenarrative
in orderto
of networks,
randomplayof signs,the"immanent
promiscuity"
reassertcoherence.O'Donnell resistssuch a formulation,arguingthat the op-
362

position is insufficient,since the paranoidalso"relieson the segmentationthat
characterizesthe schizoid regime"(28). Laterhe makesan interestingcomment on Deleuze and Guattari'sborrowingof paranoiato counter schizophrenia, noting that"the partialand interlockingconspiraciesthat the paranoid
must negotiatein orderto signifyher or himselfas the mobile subjectof conspiraciesmust alwaysbe in process"(28-29).
16. Similarly,PatriciaRae arguesthat the characterof Charringtonin 1984
representsEliot, and hence Orwell'sdisillusionmentwith modernistpoetics,
specificallythe embraceof purelyaestheticappealand the positing of history
as a thing largelyunrecoverable.For Rae, the glasspaperweightin the novel
representsthe deception of modernism:the image that appearsat firstas a
"metaphysicalconceit"and to hold out the possibilityof salvationis in fact
"impotent"(211), subjectto breakage.
17. Orwell himselfcalled 1984 a "fantasy,but in the form of a naturalistic
novel"(qtd.in Zwerdling,"Orwell'sPsychopolitics"106).Alldrittalso associates Orwell with Dickens and Zola.
18. Similarly,in "The Lion and the Unicorn"he defendsa version of English
socialismthat at its best "will crushany open revoltpromptlyand cruelly,but
it will interferevery little with the spoken and written word"(Collected
Essays
2: 102).
19.This is the same strugglethatJoyce invokesin Portraitof theArtistas a Young
Manin Stephen'sand the Jesuit'sdisputeover the tundish.
20. For a specificallymodernistcontext for this sentiment,see Eliot'sPrufrock:
Prufrock'smermaidssing "eachto each"but will not sing to him.
21. Hans Georg Gadamerasksif the romanticindividual,with his attendant
sense of interiorityand distinctivenessfrom what is outside,is no more than"a
kind of Robinson Crusoe dreamof the historicalenlightenment,the fiction
of an unattainableisland,as artificialas Crusoe himself,for the allegedprimary
phenomenon of the solusipse?"(qtd.in Sass253).
22. As Freudnotes, the paranoid's"delusionsof observation"are"justified,"
since it is the paranoid'sidentificationwith the ego-ideal that enableshim to,
in effect,watch himself (Collected
Papers118).
23. This is perverselyArnoldeanin its suggestionthat culturerepresentstimeless virtue,but it is also directlyantitheticalto the romanticsense of a numinous truth that lurksdeep within the individualimagination.In fact,this view
has more in common with the post-Marxist,postmoderncritiqueof language
as a culturalformation,in which languageis written by culture,not authors.
363
Aaron S. Rosenfeld
24. Shapironotes that the paranoidis unableto give up his or her rigid control
for the spontaneityand playfulnessof laughter(77, 78).JamesHillmanfinds
a similaritybetween humor and poetry in this regard,suggestingthatliterary languageis the antidoteto paranoia.He writes:"Self-contrary,
punning,
aphoristicstatementswould make literalismimpossibleright at its roots,in the
words and lettersthemselves"(23). LaterHillmanagainlinks humor to poetry,
both operatingas potentialdisruptorsof paranoidfixation:"The poetic perplexes meaning as humor transposesit, preventingcaptivityin the revelatory
text" (43).
25. See also Zamiatin'sWe;Zamiatinconcurswith Dostoevsky.
26.The abovepassageis actuallythe plot of 1984 in a nutshell,only there
anxiety about returnis not an exaggeratedpersonalresponse,it is the material out of which the world hasbeen constructed.Theextent to which 1984
standsas fulfillmentof Bowling'sanxiety is strikingin other placesin the text
as well. Here is an example,with elementsfrom 1984 insertedin brackets:
But it isn'tthe war that matters,it'sthe after-war.Theworld we'regoing down into, the kind of hate-world,slogan-world[waris peace].The
coloured shirts,the barbedwire, the rubbertruncheons.The secretcells
where the electric light burnsnight and day [the place where there
is no darkness],and the detectiveswatchingyou while you sleep [the
thought police] and the processionsand posterswith enormous faces,
and the crowdsof a million people all cheering for the leadertill they
deafen themselvesinto thinkingthat they reallyworship him [the twominute hate],and all the time, underneath,they hate him so they really
want to puke.It'sall going to happen.Or isn'tit? Some daysI know it's
impossible,other daysI know it'sinevitable. (176)
27. Freud'ssense of a homosexualetiology for paranoiais significanthere,
though problematic.See Shapiro86-87 for a critique.
28. Severalcriticsdevelopreadingsthatpose 1984 as oedipaljourney.Zwerdling
arguesthat Orwell"reconceptualiz[es]
politicallife" ("Orwell'sPsychopolitics"
within
the
context
of socialpathologyexploredby Fromm
107)
post-Freudian
andArendt.The "incomprehensibleviolence of childhood fantasymeshed all
too well with the bizarreand frighteningrealityof the modern police state,"
Zwerdlingwrites of Orwell (93), indicatingthe extent to which he grasped
how totalitarianregimesreproducethe "politicsof familylife" (94-95). Similarly,MurraySperbersuggeststhat the paranoiaof the novel is Orwell'sresponse to "the irrationaldemandsof the parentalworld"(218), and Marcus
Smith seesWinston"clearlyand carefullydevelopedalong familiaroedipal
364

lines"(423). Smith arguesthatWinston'sprogressis a returnto his mother and
his own unconscious,which is never fully seized.For a comprehensivepsychological approach,see Richard I. Smyer.
29. In his essay"Beforethe Law"JacquesDerridapuns on what it means to
be "before"the law.Speakingof Kafka'sTheTrial,he poses law as an infinitely
we are alrecessivecategorythat takesits authorityfrom its nonappearance;
in
closes
the
to
it.
under
its
Winston, fact,
temporal
sway,yet alwaysprior
ways
disjuncture-he entersthe chamberof the law,Big Brother-but must empty
himselfout to do so.
30.There is a greatwealth of Pynchon criticismthat rendersthis and similar points.The following readingbuildsparticularlyon the readingsof Brian
McHale,MarcRedfield, O'Donnell, and Bersani.McHale in particularfocuses
on Oedipa in The Cryingof Lot 49 as a modernistreaderof her fictive real.
31. Redfield poses a sublimein postmodernismthat relocatesthe romantic
sublime.Shiftingthe locus of the sublimeto the "relationsbetween authorand
text or, more generally,between narrativeand discontinuity"(153), he argues
that Pynchon'sinterminglingof the figurativeand the imaginarypushes"past
the possibilitiesof a representational
language"(159).Accordingto Redfield,
and
to
console
sublime
"the
empowera subjectthreatenedwith deoperates
centering"(159).
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The Scanty Plot: Orwell, Pynchon and The Poetics of Paranoia

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The "Scanty Plot": Orwell, Pynchon, and the Poetics of Paranoia

Author(s): Aaron S. Rosenfeld

In truth the prison,into which we doom

Not least among the prescientaspectsof George Orwell's 1984 is its

Orwell,Pynchon,andthe Poeticsof Paranoia

While Orwellsharedfor much of his careera historicalstagewith various

way around"(255).18 His commitmenthere is to the struggleagainstthe

Orwell,Pynchon,andthe Poeticsof Paranoia

modernismenact a "retroactiveproductionof lost primacyby means of

in modernismthrougha shiftin the

Orwell,Pynchon,andthe Poeticsof Paranoia

Orwell,Pynchon,andthe Poeticsof Paranoia

searchesfor his golden past.GeorgeBowling wins the lotteryand decides

to takea tripto visithischildhoodhome.Bowling'sshameat thisurgeto

Orwell,Pynchon,andthe Poeticsof Paranoia

Orwell,Pynchon,andthe Poeticsof Paranoia

an escape,a fixingof untrammeled

Orwell,Pynchon, and the Poetics of Paranoia

lossat theheartof narrative,

Orwell,Pynchon, and the Poetics of Paranoia

Orwell,Pynchon, and the Poetics of Paranoia

in the formof thislatticework

Orwell,Pynchon, and the Poetics of Paranoia

Orwell,Pynchon, and the Poetics of Paranoia

Orwell, Pynchon, and the Poetics of Paranoia

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