Names in AtD - Frank

[Mark Kohut]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_(given_name)


From: Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es>
To: "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Monday, May 6, 2013 4:50 AM
Subject: Names in AtD - Frank


We know that the names that TP uses are anything but inconsequential, they point to something if only we take the time to think about what. In AtD most of the Traverses have names that are less than common and would seem to have some greater value than a mere label for a character (Webb, Lake, Reef, etc) but then there is Frank, a very common name. Why?

I can't claim to have THE answer but I have an idea. First, we know that the book is composed in large part by drawing on a wide range of genres (what have been deemed "narrative clusters") and that these literary echoes are important for the book. Clearly one theme is the working class family and the social literature it belongs to.
So I looked at Raymond Williams' Writing in Society, specifically The Ragged Arsed Philanthropists. It's about the novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, written by an Irishman and rejected by publishers for its ideological content, whose protagonist is named... you guessed it, Frank.

Does anybody want to add to this? Any other ideas for the name Frank?


ciao
mc otis
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