Law, History and the Subversion of Postwar America ...

[Dave Monroe]

Oklahoma City University Law Review
Volume 24, Number 3 (1999)

LAW, HISTORY, AND THE SUBVERSION OF POSTWAR AMERICA IN THOMAS
PYNCHON'S THE CRYING OF LOT 49

ROBERT J. HANSEN*

       In this Article, the Author examines the relationship between
legal and social inequities in postwar America and historical
narratives that help legitimize and sustain those inequities in Thomas
Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49. Pynchon's satirical history of rival
postal delivery systems challenges this pernicious relationship by
revealing the subversive presence of history's "Other." The Presence
of this Other--most often in the form of subcultures either excluded
or co-opted by official or mainstream histories-- belies the fiction
of an ideal historical development that supplies the foundation for
the legal and social structures of postwar America.

http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/okla/hansen24.htm