Reference no: EM133256043

In Pynchon's novel The Crying of Lot 49, characters are typically found in a state of vague and anxious tension, namely they are found in the experience of having to negotiate with the polarities between two opposed forms of energy. In Pynchon's terms, they are: the "energies" of (I) Thanatos, understood as a kind of vague/implicit baseline "death instinct"- entropy, on the one hand and (II) the "energies" of Eros, understood in the ancient Greek sense, as a kind of vague/implicit baseline "life instinct"-- or, reverse entropy, on the other hand.

Isolate, cite and comment on one representation of the above tension between two polarities in Pynchon's novel (Part 1) ; and one representation of the same in Critchley's article (Part 2)