Embodied Vision in Against the Day

Abstract

In this article, I argue that vision in Against the Day is an embodied experience. Drawing upon the work of Merleau-Ponty and Vivian Sobckack, I present a reading of perception in the novel as one that involves a corporeal viewing eye. While critics have focused on the disembodied element of vision in the novel, I suggest that Pynchon grounds all seemingly disembodied encounters, including the scene with the Merle Rideout’s ‘Angels of Death’ and the doubling and bilocation of characters, in the very material, organic body. By doing so, Pynchon eliminates the conventional subject-object divide and gives vision a tactile dimension that reflects phenomenological perspectives on the intrinsic relationship between the eye and the world it perceives.