page_title: Gravity's Rainbow
section_title: Plot
hierarchical_section_title: Gravity's Rainbow / Plot
caption_attribution_description: English: U.S. soldier, Walter Dornberger, Herbert Axter, Wernher von Braun, Hans Lindenberg, and Bernhard Tessmann (partially cropped) after the scientists surrendered to the Allies in 1945
context_page_description: Gravity's Rainbow is a 1973 novel by American writer Thomas Pynchon. The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II, and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military. In particular, it features the quest undertaken by several characters to uncover the secret of a mysterious device named the "Schwarzgerät", slated to be installed in a rocket with the serial number "00000".
  Traversing a wide range of knowledge, Gravity's Rainbow transgresses boundaries between high and low culture, between literary propriety and profanity, and between science and speculative metaphysics. It shared the 1974 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction with A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Although selected by the Pulitzer Prize jury on fiction for the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the Pulitzer Advisory Board was offended by its content, some of which was described as "'unreadable,' 'turgid,' 'overwritten' and in parts 'obscene'". No Pulitzer Prize was awarded for fiction that year. The novel was nominated for the 1973 Nebula Award for Best Novel.
context_section_description: The opening pages of the novel follow Pirate Prentice, an employee of the Special Operations Executive, first in his dreams, and later around his house in wartime London. Pirate's associate Teddy Bloat photographs a map depicting the sexual encounters of U.S. Army Lt. Tyrone Slothrop, an employee of a fictional technical intelligence unit called ACHTUNG. Each of Slothrop's sexual encounters in London appears to precede a V-2 rocket strike in the same place by several days. Employees of a fictional top secret psychological warfare agency called PISCES, headquartered at a former insane asylum known as "The White Visitation" investigate Slothrop's apparent precognition, including statistician Roger Mexico and Pavlovian behavioral psychologist Edward W. Pointsman, among others. Slothrop's encounters and the rocket sites match the Poisson Distributions calculated by Roger Mexico, leading to reflections on topics as broad as Determinism, the reverse flow of time, and the sexuality of the rocket itself. 
  Many characters not significant until later are introduced in "Beyond the Zero", including Franz and Leni Pökler, while others who appear significant in Part One, such as Thomas Gwenhidwy and Jessica Swanlake, vanish from the narrative and don't re-appear until the closing pages of the novel. Indeed, most of the 400 named characters only make single appearances, serving merely to demonstrate the sheer scope of Pynchon's universe. Slothrop is also submitted to various psychological tests, many involving the drug sodium amytal. Flashbacks reveal the story of Katje Borgesius, a Dutch double agent who infiltrated a V-2 rocket-launching battery commanded by a sadistic SS officer named Captain Blicero, who kept Katje and a young soldier named Gottfried as sex slaves. Pavlovian conditioning is a recurring topic, mostly explored through the character of Pavlovian researcher Pointsman. One of the more bizarre Pavlovian episodes involves the conditioning of octopus Grigori to attack Katje. Early in part two, the octopus attacks Katje on the beach in France, and Slothrop is "conveniently" at hand to rescue her.
  In part two, "Un Perm' au Casino Hermann Goering", Slothrop is sent away by his superiors in mysterious circumstances to a casino on the recently liberated French Riviera, in which almost the entirety of Part Two takes place. He is in fact being monitored by associates of Pointsman, including Katje and a linguist named Sir Stephen Dodson-Truck. Katje and Slothrop have sex after Slothrop rescues her from the octopus. At the Casino, he learns of a rocket, with the irregular serial number 00000 (Slothrop comments that the numbering system doesn't allow for four zeroes in one serial, let alone five), which features a mysterious component called the S-Gerät (short for Schwarzgerät, 'black device'), made out of the hitherto unknown plastic Imipolex G. It is hinted at that Slothrop's prescience of rocket hits is due to being conditioned as an infant by the creator of Imipolex G, Laszlo Jamf. 
  Later, the reality of this story is called into question, as is the very existence of Slothrop's original sexual exploits. Slothrop becomes increasingly paranoid, and begins to suspect he is being monitored. He escapes from the casino into the coalescing post-war wasteland of Europe, "The Zone", searching for the 00000 and S-Gerät. In the closing of Part Two, Katje is revealed to be safe in England, enjoying a day at the beach with Roger Mexico and Jessica, as well as Pointsman, who is in charge of Slothrop's furtive supervision. While unable to contact Slothrop (or prohibited from contacting him), Katje continues to follow his actions through Pointsman.
  Slothrop's quest continues for some time in Part Three, "In The Zone", as he is chased by other characters. These include the sadistic American Major Duane Marvy and a drug-addled Soviet intelligence colonel named Vaslav Tchitcherine. Slothrop meets members of the Schwarzkommando, a fictional cadre of African rocket technicians, descended from survivors of the Herero genocide of 1904 who were brought
caption: This image of Wernher von Braun is referred to in the narrative, giving a quite exact timeframe for some events in the book.
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