59 pages • 1 hour read
Thomas PynchonVineland
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1990A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Presidents
In Vineland, the Presidents of the United States mark the passage of time and form an important motif. The depiction of the 1960s largely occurs under the Nixon administration (1969-74) while the sections of the novel set in 1984 take place under the Reagan administration. References to the then-current president signify the passage of time that takes place across the two eras.
For the characters living in the 1960s and 1970s, the figure of Richard Nixon looms large. The Nixon era coincides with the end of the counterculture movement: A giant sculpture of Nixon towers over the campus where the People’s Republic of Rock and Roll comes to life and then collapses in short order. This collapse, fueled by conspiracies and paranoia, is indicative of the era itself. President Nixon symbolizes this pervasive paranoia, with his statue watching over the students as their movement collapses.
Ronald Reagan took office in 1981. Notably, he was Governor of California before taking office, as well as the President of the Screen Actors Guild. In both these roles, he oversaw the undermining of union power in favor of big businesses. The novel depicts Reagan’s era as one of authoritarian policies such as the anti-drug agenda, and constant budget cuts. He is a continuation of the Nixonian culture of subjugation and control and the crushing of radical politics. Furthermore, his career as an actor adds a sense of superficiality to the presidency: In the 1970s, Zoyd jokes about the absurd idea of former actor Ronald Reagan becoming the President.
Drugs
Drugs are an ever-present motif in Vineland. Marijuana, LSD, and cocaine all play significant roles, but the broader notion of “drugs” as an abstract ideal has a more significant role, with characters arranging themselves as those in favor or in opposition to the consumption of illegal substances. In the novel, characters who are anti-drugs are largely those who are in favor of authoritarian government. Those who are pro-drugs are against the government, typically as members of the counterculture movement.
Zoyd smokes marijuana as an act of nostalgia, a way to transport himself away from 1984 to a time when he and his fellow hippies believed that social change was not only possible, but inevitable. Each of Zoyd’s marijuana joints is both an expression of countercultural ideals and a tacit admission that his movement failed. Furthermore, Zoyd drops LSD during Prairie’s birth. This psychedelic experience lingers with him but, gradually, is supplanted in significance by more mundane acts, such as changing a diaper. As he grows older, he comes to realize that sincere emotional connections to others can be just as mind-altering as drugs.
For many characters, substances are a way to alleviate alienation. Zoyd smokes marijuana, Takeshi consumes amphetamines, and Mucho Mass develops a substance misuse disorder with cocaine. They all do so to disengage from an alienating and often hostile world. The government deliberately uses substances as a form of social control. Vast government operations are undertaken to burn fields of marijuana crops, and Brock Vond arranges for marijuana to be deposited in Zoyd’s house to frame him for a crime, thus making him easier to coerce. In the novel, the War on Drugs is not a war against drugs, but a war against drug users, in which drug users stand in for political radicals who refuse to conform.
Thanatoids
Asked to describe the nature of the Thanatoids, Ortho Bob Dulang (a Thanatoid himself) says that it is “like death, only different” (170). The deathlike Thanatoids symbolize the crushing psychological effects of the various social ills of the era. In particular, they represent the traumatic experiences suffered by many people during the Vietnam War. After fighting in the war, the soldiers return home as Thanatoids, so traumatized by what they have done and seen that they exist in a perpetual deathlike state of alienation and numbness. Unable to ascend into an afterlife or move on from their experiences, they endure as paragons of pain, symbols of the social ills wrought on the general populace which are largely ignored.
A defining characteristic of the Thanatoids is their television addiction. Each Thanatoid watches several hours of television each day, watching the Tube for at least a part of every waking hour. The comfort they find in watching television symbolizes the numbing effects of mass media on the broader population. Rather than go out into the world to seek revenge for whatever karmic imbalance caused their Thanatoid status, the Thanatoids sit in front of the television and allow it to consume their lives. The plight of the Thanatoids symbolizes the broader social ill of mass entertainment as a numbing agent in American society as a whole.
Related Titles
By Thomas Pynchon
