The Importance Of Thanatoids In Vineland

In this essay, the author

• Opines that one would expect to walk into a colorful room with people dressed in miniskirts, tie dye, patent leather, and knee-high white boots. however, one wouldn't expect dea agents, young revolutionaries, drug addicts and policemen.
• Analyzes pynchon's argument in vineland about how media is handpicked so only the unproblematic, quirky, groovy, and "rock ‘n’ roll" parts of history are circulated and remembered while violent movements and government injustice are left to be forgotten.
• Analyzes how pynchon paints a painfully realistic picture of america that goes beyond pop culture and goes into great detail with the personal tolls it took on the people.
• Analyzes how pynchon bluntly points out the "mind control" of the government through the tube, the harsh struggle for civil liberties, repression, and unnecessary federal and police involvement.
• Analyzes how the characters in vineland are addicted to the tube, which is a governmental figure whose main purpose is to distract its viewers while simultaneously controlling what they think.
• Analyzes how hector zuiga's life is ultimately controlled by the tube, as he hums the flinstones to "calm himself down" and references to shows in his speech.
• Analyzes how the tube exhibits control over how viewers define a period of time such as the ‘60s. prairie's perception of reality becomes distorted by the media’s tedious snips and cuts in the fabric of history.
• Analyzes how pynchon finds america's problem with television addiction a more critical problem than drug possession in vineland.
• Analyzes how pynchon distracts the reader from one plot line with another, complementary with how governments provide their people with entertainment to distract from significantly more serious problems.
• Analyzes how zoyd wheeler's televised annual "publicly crazy" demonstration earns his mental-disability check. the more complex reasoning behind it is ambiguous.
• Explains that the annual stunt is part of a shady "mental-disability agreement" between brock vond and zoyd.
• Analyzes how zoyd's backstory on the annual stunt offers a more logical insight into the event.
• Analyzes how pynchon's critique of vineland is on the reagan-era repression, specifically the war on drugs, the attempt to seize civil liberties, and police brutality.
• Analyzes how the government seems to imitate fascist ideals of limiting civil liberties and the abuse of power. vineland implies that the war on drugs is just the beginning.
• Analyzes how violence and brutality are characteristic of the revolutions in vineland and pynchon signifies them as a violation of civil liberties and completely unnecessary.
• Analyzes how pynchon is critical of american values and government in the ‘80s in vineland, particularly the effects of the tube, distraction antics, “mind control,” reagan and nixon era repression, the war on drugs, and the seizure of civil liberties.
• Analyzes how pynchon brings attention to matters that are usually ignored or are too understated to be realized.