“For every They there ought to be a We”: The (Almost) Equivalence of Power and Resistance in Mason & Dixon and Against the Day.

Power and resistance are considered two of Pynchon's principal themes, examined thoroughly by scholars. This presentation will provide an alternative reading of resistance and examine a change in how it is portrayed in Mason & Dixon and Against the Day , where it appears as much more powerful and a potential successor to existent authority, creating a need to reexamine the dichotomy between authority and preterite. In Mason & Dixon there is already a clash between the old and the new regime, religion and science, evident even in the background of the two protagonists; furthermore, the resistance, as is depicted by a nascent movement for American independence, is not a failure; its ideals will metamorphose it into the state tyranny shown in Vineland . In Against the Day , anarchism, albeit ultimately unsuccessful, is presented as an alternative to capitalism and employs similar techniques to those used by the latter, based on the anonymity of its hierarchy and the victimization not only of those outside its network, the never innocent bourgeois, but also the individuals that follow it. The theoretical framework for such an analysis will need to distance itself from an – otherwise useful – marxist approach and move towards Foucault's idea of authority as was expressed in the first volume of The History of Sexuality . Resistance is not external to authority; it is an opponent within the power network, a node through which power can flow. This kind of analysis would not have been possible without Mason & Dixon and Against the Day and the presentation will mostly focus on those two novels.