Gravity's Rainbow - Part 1 - Chapter 12: The Death Drive

Analysis of Gravity's Rainbow, Part 1 - Chapter 12: The White Visitation

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We have seen The White Visitation, but now we must learn of its implications — picture it covered in sheets of ice both thick and thin, pale blue highlights over the white façade. It is a cold palace emanating something evil. Twenty years ago, before being home to PISCES and all its workforce, it was a mental institution which, along with many others, held one Reg Le Froyd. The translation of his name means King of Ice, though Froyd also calls Freud to mind. One day at night, he escapes to look out over the sea, is told not to jump by a constable, and not even having thought of jumping before, jumps.

The White Visitation’s history is built of Freud’s Death Drive — the realization and seeking of the return to nothingness: a place where things can mellow out for a moment, where worries no longer exist and where the horrors of the world are gone for good. But, is The White Visitation built on the release —death — itself or whatever led to the desire for release? Well at some point after the fall of Poland and of Paris in WWII, “a radio transmitting station was set up on the cliff, antennas aimed at the Continent,” attempting to spread the same thoughts as the Constable did about “the deep, the scarcely seen” (74). The White Visitation, and whatever experiments regarding conditioning and control are, is now being equated with helping create a world in which fear is always present and death is often preferable to life (though, like the Constable himself, they may not even know what they are about to do will lead to, though They certainly know. For, as the constable is simply going about his job perhaps trying to do some good, each word he speaks leads to further demise). This death drive will weave its way down through the chapter. Let’s follow it.

Myron Grunton, BBC employee with connections to The White Visitation, is a key figure in a scheme known as Operation Black Wing — a plot to instill fear in the Western man, saying that not only are we trying to kill you, but now “real Africans, Hereros, ex-colonials from South-West Africa [are] somehow active in the secret-weapons program” (74). The Herero population was colonized and slaughtered (see Thomas Pynchon’s V. for a more descriptive passage on what happened here), only to then be brought back to Europe, used to further the evil plots here on this continent, and are now being used as propaganda to tell the people: look over here, this is who you need to be afraid of. And Slothrop’s mentioning calls to mind the parallel between this Schwarzkommando and American racial tensions at the time Pynchon was writing this — the African population being colonized, taken from their home, enslaved, and then used as bait to instill fear in Americans.

In comes Brigadier Pudding — a higher up at The White Visitation, but one who doesn’t seem wholly as power-hungry or brainwashed as the rest. He is introduced as a bit of a klutz and a scatterbrain; one of the American military’s old guard brought back for a final job, though even he wonders why he was brought back to a position such as this — one so convoluted that the lines run between him, the OSS (the CIA’s precursor), Warfare Councils, the president of the US, and UK propaganda coordinators. All he knows is simple warfare, not this new wave of information that the war really runs on. The Old Guard can no longer understand the intricacies of war (that’s for Them to understand), and perhaps that is why, after becoming bored with retirement, he has been invited back as a leader. For he was “brought up to believe in a literal Chain of Command” (77), one that led from one link to the next until it reached the top, not this absurd web of secrets.

(A quick detour to the ARF wing where we see Pointsman’s dogs again — Dog Vanya now complacent with its final place in the world, hooked up to a tube, dripping saliva drop by drop as a metronome beats on in the distance. There is no change anymore. Vanya has reached the transmarginal, where stimulus is stimulus no matter the strength. One can picture the unaffected, numb expression of a creature that no longer has its will to live.)

Back to Pudding where “On he goes, gabbing, gabbing” (80) about random nonsense from his pulpit as The White Visitation listens on in their briefings — he speaks of conspiracies, webs, falling objects, vegetables and recipes. He may be the only true person left at this site — one who has interests outside of the industry, who finds fascination in the little things in life and the surprises that may come out of thin air (or a gourd, perhaps). But one man who is watching him, Dr. Rozsavolgyi, has quite the opposite point of view. He is fascinated “by abstractions of power” and “corporations” (81) and is quite invested in the scheme involving Lieutenant Slothrop. His scheme is based on the abstraction of Slothrop’s mind, using certain stimuli to reflect his desires and fantasies — things which we could not see otherwise. And these responses are something that can not be hidden no matter how much he tries to consciously or unconsciously repress them — Slothrop is no longer in control. Rozsavolgyi is like a vampire — like Dracula “crawling headfirst down the […] facade” (82) — and Slothrop is his prey. The stimulus is the German rocket, the V2.

The ceiling of The White Visitation comes into view to close us out. It is filled with intimations of death: gargoyles, Salome with John’s head on a platter, lions with lambs. All this calls to mind that one thing — death — and no person who looks “see[s] quite the same building in that orgy of self-expression” (83) for the building itself is as incomprehensible as whatever goes on inside of it. Its emanation of the death drive goes out to all it touches. Some of the effects it has had, such as those on the Schwarzkommando and Pudding, will not be revealed until later, but it will have its effect nonetheless. Some, as on the dogs, are right in front of your eyes. As for now though, its guards stand watch as the snow begins to fall, and the ice begins to cover it over once again.

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Up Next: Part 1, Chapter 13