Gravity's Rainbow

Captain Blicero (also known as Weissmann) is ostensibly the antagonist of Gravity’s Rainbow, though he is only really seen through the narrative past. The debauched, abusive man enslaves, rapes, traumatizes, and inspires his victims. He has a colonial history tied to the psychological turmoil of the early 20th century. He cuts a tyrannical figure, ruling over not only the rocket launch site but also the tortured minds of Enzian, Katje, and Gottfried. With elaborate sexual fantasies that involve fairy tales and violence, he abuses these prisoners, subjecting them to sadomasochistic sexual practices that force them to contravene every moral objection they might once have had. Blicero abuses others so much that they emerge from his captivity traumatized, convinced they love him because he has shaped their minds to his liking. In this sense, Blicero’s character explores the novel’s theme of sex and trauma, leaving behind a trail of destruction that other characters try and fail to explain.

Blicero’s main obsession is death. His interest in sex and violence is more theoretical than physical; he is fascinated by the idea of transgression, but, to Blicero, death is the ultimate obstacle to overcome. His role in the German military puts him in close, regular contact with death. As part of the colonial detachment, he played a role in committing genocide against the Herero people. In World War II, he operated a rocket launch site that killed British civilians daily. But the power to kill is not enough for Blicero: He uses the rockets as a vehicle for his obsession, packing Gottfried inside Rocket 00000 as part of an elaborate ritual conquering of death itself. The rocket is fired into the heavens as a symbolic celebration of the human ability to rise up and conquer the limitations of the body, such as gravity and—most importantly—death itself.

The novel leaves Blicero’s fate ambiguous and “off-stage.” After firing Gottfried into the sky, he disappears into the Zone. Like Slothrop, he becomes scattered and untethered after performing his ritual, and his corrupt idealism fades into the oblivion of the Zone itself. While other Nazi scientists are captured and recruited by the Americans and Russians, who put them to work on domestic rocket programs, Blicero cannot be contained. He cannot be confined by anything as traditional or as formal as an intelligence agency. As a force of nature, he vanishes into the ether, transcending into the role of a haunting, nightmarish figure who has forced so much pain and suffering to so many people.

Enzian is a survivor. He survived the colonial violence of the German military against his people in Africa, he survived the sadistic abuse of Blicero, and now he wants to ensure that his people survive in an uncertain postwar world. His role as a survivor has become something of a burden, as his people look to him with an almost religious reverence. Due to the nature of their adoration and the nature of the threat they face, Enzian is caught in a difficult position where the only way for him to help his people survive is to sacrifice himself. Therefore, his defining trait—his ability to survive—must be given up to the Zone as an act of ritualistic sacrifice.

While traveling through the Zone, Enzian is haunted by the presence of his Russian half-brother, Tchitcherine. Both men share a father and now find themselves on opposite sides of the divide. Enzian’s white father creates a bridge between his Herero heritage and the European theater of war in which the Herero unit finds themselves. Enzian embodies a history of colonial violence, having been fathered by a man who abandoned his mother to a genocide and then ritually abused for years by a German military officer. To the Herero people, Enzian is a physical representation of the rape, torture, and abuse inflicted on them by the European colonial powers. This reputation haunts Enzian and burdens him with responsibility in the same way that Tchitcherine’s presence in the Zone haunts him in a narrative sense.

Unlike many plot points in the novel, the relationship between the two half-brothers has a moment of resolution. Tchitcherine is stranded in the Zone after being cut off by the Russian military. He sees the passing Herero men and stops Enzian to ask him for food. Neither man recognizes the other. The anxiety and the loathing that the two men held toward each other—as well as the violence their bond represented—ultimately comes to nothing. Like so much else in the Zone, the anxiety was misunderstood, misinterpreted, and overexaggerated by people searching for meaning.

Katje is a Dutch woman who wants to atone for her past. Throughout her family history, she tracks her ancestors’ mistakes and objectionable actions. One of her ancestors helped wipe out the dodo birds while sailing on a colonial ship. Katje has made similar mistakes, such as collaborating with the Nazis when the Netherlands was occupied. She may have played a role in the murder of a number of Jewish people while also helping to facilitate the launch of the rockets from the nearby site. These deaths weigh heavily on Katje’s mind. As someone who wants to repay her debts, she searches for a way to unburden herself and decides to work with the British intelligence agencies. Eventually, this same drive pushes her to join the counterforce and then Enzian’s delegation of rocket engineers. She is always searching for a way to compensate for the mistakes of her past, even if she is not necessarily responsible for those mistakes. Katje’s character illustrates the way in which guilt—and the perception of guilt—becomes a threat in an amoral, chaotic world.

Katje’s life has also been shaped by her abusive relationship with Blicero. When she was a prisoner, he offered her the opportunity to become his sex slave. He forced her into many uncomfortable and transgressive situations, along with Gottfried, leading to her traumatization. After leaving Blicero, she alienates herself from romantic love. The British intelligence agencies use her to seduce and control Slothrop, but afterward, she feels guilty and tries (unsuccessfully) to save him. Katje feels no romantic interest in Slothrop. After Blicero, she may be incapable of doing so. However, she feels burdened by her responsibilities and her guilt, so she tries her best to help him anyway.