Gravity's Rainbow - Part 4 - Chapter 1: The Sign of the Cross

Analysis of Gravity's Rainbow, Part 4 - Chapter 1: Slothrop Awakes, Pirate in the P-47, Slothrop as Myth, Slothrop Becomes a Crossroads, the Mandrake, the End of His Journey

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The bomb has finally dropped; it is shortly past August 6th, 1945, the day America destroyed Hiroshima.

Slothrop dreams of a dramatic actress, Bette Davis, and a comic one, Margaret Dumont, paired together in a movie, listening to the kazoo of one of the Marx Brothers. His dream world, representing his subconscious, has now become something similar to what Pynchon has been doing — a blending of the satiric with the realistic, all which call to mind that which is occurring in the real and conscious world. In this instance, the dream representation of the real and conscious is the sound of the kazoo, which happens to be the sound of Pirate Prentice flying a stolen plane (the vehicle which Osbie Feel told Katje that Pirate was trying to procure in 3.24) right over Slothrop as he slept.

Now to Pirate: he is in a plane known as a P-47. The one he has hijacked is the model "with a greenhouse canopy," (619) calling to mind the first moments when we saw him in his bananery (1.1) where he participated in the necessarily exploitive nature of the increasingly capitalist, consumerist, and trade-driven state. Though, remember, his participation in this state was not a criticism of him since his participation was one where he found a means to be a part of a consumerist society without the typical exploitative nature of the fruit trade. It was instead a call to mind that his character was different than the other men working within the intelligence agencies since he was able to make this change, consciously or not. And it pairs nicely here because of his now fully conscious decision to bring that change to the entire world.

Pirate’s plan is to find Slothrop. His thoughts show where each member of the Counterforce is heading: Osbie Feel is seeking out Blodgett Waxwing,¹ Webley Silvernail² is on his way to Zürich,³ and Katje is going to Nordhausen.⁴ Since Slothrop has largely been undetectable, the Counterforce is tracing the many people he has met and the places he has been in order to find him. But why is the Counterforce (a group bent on revolution against the Elites who have put us all in this situation) seeking out this one man? It all goes back to the beginning, where we initially learned that Slothrop was more than just himself (1.4) — he is a representation of what America and the World was and would eventually become. Therefore, he is the one who could potentially know what went wrong, what to fix, and hopefully, how.

As air traffic controllers attempt to tell Pirate he is flying in areas without authorization, he speaks with the ghost of Frans van der Groov, Katje’s dodo killing ancestor (largely written about in the digression in 1.14, though Pirate also briefly recalled him in 3.24 during his own ‘dream’). Van der Groov likely haunts Pirate due to his own reconciliation with the genocide he conducted against the dodoes and his posthumous desire to put an end to future and more wide-scale exterminations of the people of the world he was once a part of. The symbol which van der Groov places in Pirate’s mind is the cross, seen as the four blades of a windmill. The cross represents a number of things, but in the contexts that we will see, it will represent sacrifice (in the sense of Jesus sacrificing himself in order to save humanity) and a ‘crossroads’ (a meeting place of roads or a place where paths diverge). There will also be, eventually, the perversion of this image. Along with the cross/windmill, there is the wind itself: "‘wind’ was a middle term, a convention to express what really moved the cross" (620-621). The wind is the means by which the cross is ‘moved’ — i.e. why one would or would not sacrifice themselves, how and where certain paths will meet or people will depart. Finally, given the ‘cross’ is a viewed as a windmill, the movement of it will thus lead to a finished product, as all windmills do. Pirate does wonder, "who tends the stone?" (621). For, it is important to remember that while the wind moves the blades to grind the wheat, there is always someone there in the Tower who can make the necessary adjustments for a finished product they desire.

Pirate flies above Säure Bummer’s place — the same one which Slothrop stayed at before going out to Potsdam to get Bodine’s hashish (3.6), and then again for a bit after he returned and met Erdmann (3.12). During Pirate’s second visit, he witnessed Säure and a man named Gustav argue over the superiority of either Beethoven or Rossini, the former of whom Gustav argued for, and the latter of whom Säure argued for. As our perspective descends from Pirate down to Säure’s place, we see that a similar argument is still being held. Recall that the argument was for either Beethoven, who expressed the darker mindset of a "life filled with tragedy" (3.12, pg. 440), versus Rossini, whose music evoked the fulfilling of one’s desires — or to put both in allegorical terms, arguing for accepting the darkness of the world versus seeking individual fulfillment despite it. The issue with it, as Slothrop saw when he witnessed this, was the black and white nature of the argument, ignoring the vast realms between acceptance and ignorance. Their argument (still in 3.12) moved on towards types of marijuana allegorizing the same ideas. Now here (back in 4.1) it seems to be reoccurring in the intricacies of a game of chess. The descriptions of the land and the creatures highlight the absurdity of the argument: "villages abandoned during the Great Dying, fields behind cottages whose dwellers were scythed down" and "Cryptozoa of many kinds scurry through crumbs, pubic hairs, wine-splashes, tobacco ash and shreds, a litter of dram cocaine vials" (621). These arguments of black and white — acceptance or ignorance — in a world plagued by death, decay, and destruction, hold little to no importance. And yet men among ashes of destroyed cities will have them for weeks at a time as if nothing else truly matters.

The story moves back to Slothrop after he was awakened by Pirate flying above. Slothrop goes "to a mountain stream where he’s left his [harmonica] to soak all night" (622) — the exact same harmonic which he dropped down the toilet of the Roseland Ballroom, leading him to chase after it and witness the ‘shit’ that makes up the world (1.10). He found his harmonica up in these mountains just a few days before the chapter’s events. But how did it reach these mountains of Germany from the toilet of an American ballroom? Well, the Roseland Ballroom is truly where Slothrop’s self-driven journey began. That journey down the toilet was, once again, him moving from his typical Harvard graduate view of the world to one in which he was coming to the many realizations of the world’s built power structures and all that stems from it: racism, genocide, economic manipulation, rocket cartels, pedophilia, and on and on. His reclamation of this harmonica means that his journey ‘down the toilet’ is done. With the holocaust having occurred, and now with the first nuclear bomb having been dropped, what else could he possibly learn? He has discovered what it is that makes up our world, all of the shit and refuse and garbage, and now he cleans that harmonica off and plays it once again.

If Slothrop is America, then his journey of self-discovery is over. No, he never found the Schwarzgerät nor did he figure out what it was. He did not discover if he called the rockets down to him, or if he acted as a lightning rod for them. And he did not discover why what happened to him as a child happened, but again, it does not matter. For there is no specific answer, nor is there one specific event or revelation, that can answer what has come of this world, what has made it up, and what controls it. The truth lies in seeking out that answer as Slothrop has done and discovering the real answers in the process. So, what is there to do but for him to take on one last disguise.

No, it is not the disguise which "Bodine liberated for him from the laundry of the John E. Badass" (623). It is his body, fully nude — just itself. And it is different than when his clothes were stolen from him, leading him to run around the Casino Hermann Goering in search of something to wear (2.1). Because this, back then, was a moment when he was not fully aware of himself and thus was also not fully willing to reveal or understand his true nature. Now, however, he understands. He has accepted the fact of what he is, independent of the experiments forced upon him or the mistakes he has made. But there is more. He is more than himself, more than an American, and more than the Western World. He is becoming one with the spiritual and natural earth itself.

Despite this, he still holds hope for America. Yes, he realizes its evil and realizes how that evil has spread its way across the globe, working its way into the fascia of every structure that was originally designed to benefit humanity. So, he does not know why he holds hope; perhaps he sees some glimmer that can be saved, a similar view to what the Counterforce themselves may be striving to achieve. There may be a day when it is too far gone where "he might be able finally to say sorry, sure and leave her. . . but not just yet" (623). He finds it still worth fighting for.

Slothrop has continued walking around this countryside. He is becoming more ‘natural’ as he "spends whole days naked, ants crawling up his legs" as well as becoming more magical and a part of the Earth’s mythos when he sees "patterns in the ashes of his fire," and when "he reads the guts of the trout he’s caught and cleaned" (623). Slothrop has been logically minded up to this point, always seeing the symbolic nature in things such as the parabolic rainbow of the rocket or the architecture of buildings through the lens of calculus. This logical symbolism began breaking down in Northern Germany toward a ‘zero’ of sorts, and here we see him arrive beyond that Zero where he interprets things in a more spiritual or magical sense. His change from the logical intelligence man to the spiritual hermit is tracked in that he has now forgone the journey that was based on individual intellectual discovery, to now where his journey is to become a part of the mythos of the Zone itself — from America attempting to understand itself to others seeking meaning out of the story of his discoveries. We see this as one of his avatars is written about on a random wall: "ROCKETMAN WAS HERE" (624). Whoever they may be, Rocketman has become an icon to them. A pagan God-like figure.

Next to this writing, he carves a symbol. It was a subconscious drawing of "the A4 rocket, seen from below" (624). Though he did not realize what he was drawing, he begins to see that this icon holds numerous symbols within it. One of these numerous symbols is Frans van der Groov’s windmill, thus also rendering it Jesus’ cross. He sees that it is the swastika itself, whether that be the swastika used in Hinduism, or the perversion used by the Nazis. And, though he doesn’t mention it, the circle within a circle (sans the five letters: K V H E Z) is the same mandala which was worn by the Germans upon their invasion and genocide of Südwest Africa and subsequently reclaimed by the Zone Herero as a symbol for their fight back against this genocidal force.⁵ So, Slothrop’s symbol pairs the various forces of good in the world with that of evil: the windmill being control and the cross being sacrifice, the Hindu swastika representing peace and the Nazi swastika representing death, the German mandala bringing death upon the Herero and the reclaimed mandala giving back life. All of this symbolism surrounds the initial drawing of the rocket, a bringer of death, but hopefully one we will never have to see the nose of.

Slothrop comes across a final cross — this time, a real crossroads. Like Jesus, he lays down upon the cross, arms spread out and becomes the crossroads. Not symbolically this time, no; Slothrop, who has been fragmenting since the Anubis, completes his fragmentation. He literally becomes the crossroads and thus becomes a part of the new Zone. We will only ever see him again through his scattered consciousness.

The crossroads is a place where things meet and depart, where trade occurs, where societies help one another prosper. There is no one interpretation of what Slothrop becoming this crossroads means just as there is no one interpretation of the cross. However, the thing that should come to mind is the branching point of a train tracks, the thing which a ‘pointsman’⁶ controls. While people such as Pointsman himself used their power and influence to ‘switch the tracks’ of history to their own liking (Slothrop being one of those who were controlled as such), Slothrop is now becoming that branching point. Could this mean that Slothrop, a Preterite, is taking the helm? Or could it mean he is sacrificing himself for our salvation? More important than his fragmentation on this cross is what happens after, which we will look at below.

The spot upon which Slothrop ‘dissolved onto the cross’ becomes the site for a future hanging. This hanging specifically leads to the myth of the ‘mandrake which very closely follow the actual myth of the mandrake, the major difference being that it 1) occurs on top of Slothrop’s scattered body, and 2) what happens afterward. But the original myth goes as such. A man is killed, and he ejaculates upon death, allowing his seed to sink beneath the soil which thus grows a mandrake root. A magician uses his dog to extract the root, killing his dog in the process. The root is brought home, and through its magical properties is able to grant wealth and prosperity to those who care for it, even multiplying coin which is left near it overnight. That is where the myth ends, so let us look at what occurs after it in this context, and then what it means that this myth occurred atop Slothrop’s disintegrated body.

When the magician within Gravity’s Rainbow returns and attempts to multiply his wealth, "A delegate from the Committee on Idiopathic Archetypes comes to visit" (625). The name itself, before delving into the acronym, holds its own importance. If we look at definitions: this is an oversight group (committee) which looks at the unexplainable nature (idiopathic) of objects that are representative of an original type of object (archetype). Thus, this committee who is coming to oversee a man attempting to multiply his wealth outside of the normal means of a capitalist system is ensuring that the archetype of standard wealth accumulation does not lead to idiopathic (unexplainable) means of attaining this wealth. The Capitalist system is set out to ensure, definitionally, that wealth can be obtained through a strict series of highly explainable phenomena, those being: generational wealth, ‘hard work,’ investments, ownership, entrepreneurship, and occasional luck. If the value of money were thus seen to be a purely symbolic value system which could be achieved through unexplainable means, then the whole system would crumble. It is similar to how the traditional and mystical nature of the Plechazunga in the town outside of Wismar was attempted to be stopped for good — because tradition and magic only served to dismantle the capitalist system, not work for it.

And so, the Committee on Idiopathic Archetypes, is also the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) that we know. As we have seen throughout the novel, there have been no real mentions of this group, for the CIA was not formed in name until 1947. Previous to that, it was known as the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), which we have seen in relation to Allen Dulles as the OSS’s director in the Swiss Branch (Dulles being one of the major players in the purveyance of maintaining the Western Capitalist bloc, Elite power structures, and the transference of fascism from an explicit realm to one that, while less obvious, was still present). But anyway, now with the war ending, the CIA can be seen beginning its job which the OSS and Dulles began. Dulles would helm the CIA not as a member of a foreign branch, but as a leader himself. They would ensure to send their agents to any corner of the Earth that may be a threat to the Elite capitalist class and ensure that no ‘magic’ took root.

So then secondly, what is the significance of this mandrake root myth occurring on the body of Slothrop? Slothrop, a man who has represented all of us, dissolved upon the crossroads, possibly as a symbol that he, a Preterite, had the ability to take the position of the ‘pointsman.’ The difference between him and many of us is that he, through his journey, has come to a full and final understanding of what he is, what America is, what the World is, and what the literal and metaphorical ‘shit’ is that makes it all up. Without this self-realization, there is no hope that one would be able to take that position let alone know that the position even existed in the first place. So the myth growing out of him shows that a full realization of the exploitation that we live under — whether that be 1940s-style fascism, modern day hyper-capitalism, the foreign interventionism of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, the domestic interventionism of the FBI, and so on — could lead to our ability to become the ‘pointsmen’ as opposed to the ‘riders of the train,’ and bring back the spiritual and ‘magical’ means of prosperity and wealth as opposed to those based on pure wealth accumulation (or, for most people, the desire for wealth accumulation). And this realization poses a threat to Them and Their underlings.

This is the end of Slothrop. The last bit of non-fragmented consciousness he will have.⁷ He contemplates the cross, the swastika, and the mandala — the many sides to a single symbol. To him, they are as the Rocket was: something that he attracted, but that was also attracted to him, for he was America, he was the West. He was born and conditioned to desire the Rocket — brought up in a world which would bombard him with propaganda and lead to a desensitization toward death and violence. He was, like we all were, brainwashed to accept the system for what it was, even becoming a part of the system and attempting, sinfully, to rise to its highest ranks. But he achieved something many do not; he went where They do not want you to go, for They want you to stay on the parabola. If you are there, whether you are thinking on the ends or high up at the apex, you are still within the bounds of Their control. What Slothrop has achieved is the ultraparadoxical. He reached the apex, and like "a stout rainbow cock," (626) shot into the ground, past the x-axis —the normal realm of understanding — and came out the other side, Beyond the Zero.

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Up Next: Part 4, Chapter 2

1. Waxwing, at Perlimpinpin’s party, gave Slothrop the Zoot Suit and the address for the place he should go to in Nice, France (2.6). When in Nice, Slothrop used the card to attain his fake identification which he went by for a while, even into the Zone: Ian Scuffling (2.7). Slothrop later, via Waxwing’s instructions once again, went to the Hotel Nimbus in Zürich (2.7).

2. Silvernail was the man who showed Grigori the videos of Katje in order to condition the octopus. This is the first instance where we have heard that he has joined the Counterforce.

3. See Footnote 1; but also, this is just another place where Slothrop spent a good amount of his time. Pretty much the entirety of 2.7. And it was also the final location he was ever known to be at by Pointsman, and the final location he was at before he entered the Zone.

4. The town where the Mittelwerke was — i.e. the factory which was used to produce the V-2 rocket using slave labor from the Dora concentration camp which Slothrop explored (3.2) and which Pökler worked at after being transferred there from Peenemünde (3.11).

5. Drawing on pg. 361.

6. Pointsman: not as in the character (though he is named that for a reason), but as the railroad worker who pulls the lever to switch the train track pathway from one path to another.

7. We will see his consciousness one last time (4.6), but it will not be the Slothrop we know.