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In the tinfoil light she’s very sleek and convex, her bristles look
smooth as down. Lustful thoughts come filtering into Slothrop’s
mind, little peculiarity here you know, hehheh, nothing he can’t
handle … [T]hey fall asleep under the decorated trees, the pig
a wandering eastern magus, Slothrop in his costume a gaudy
present waiting for morning and a child to claim him. (585)
Tyrone recognizes he is under the protection of his totem animal, and
even has passing lustful thoughts about her. His feelings for her grow into
absurd thoughts of marrying her, which is more emotional investment
than he gives any other woman in Gravity’s Rainbow—she is not just
another woman for Slothrop to tag on his map.
Although Hurley does credit more symbolism to the pig in Gravity’s
Rainbow by recognizing it as “Slothrop’s personal totem” (208), as
opposed to Orban’s simplified allegorical status, it is still only a onedimensional
reading of its significance to the novel as a whole. To restrict
the swine to parallels with Slothrop implies that the symbol only serves to
benefit a character analysis of the text’s protagonist. This is not so. In fact,
the pig motif maintains its symbolic significance without its connection
to Slothrop. For example, Andre Le Vot studies the relationship between
the pig and the rocket in his essay, “The Rocket and the Pig: Thomas
Pynchon and Science Fiction.” Le Vot argues that Gravity’s Rainbow is
“informed by the awareness of a fundamental dichotomy between living
nature and the technological urge to use it, degrade it, [and] kill it”
(115), and attributes this conceptual enmity to more tangible symbols:
“emphasis is on the destructive aspect of science through the Rocket,
whereas the life force . . . is symbolized by the Pig” (115). What Le Vot
has done here is elevate the allegorical status of the pig to something
more substantial than merely being Slothrop’s totem animal; he places
the pig level with the rocket, reinforcing the notion of the pig and rocket
dichotomy. In this sense, those who succumb to the rocket’s Thanatos are
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metaphorical pigs: nature’s sacrifices that feed its destroyer. Along with le
Vot’s observation of the pig and rocket dichotomy, he briefly mentions
the recurring pig motif via Slothrop’s encounters with swine, including
the pig-hero costume he adorns, his time spent with Frieda, and his
ancestor William Slothrop’s affinity to pigs in colonial America.
Settling in Berkshire around 1635, William Slothrop ran a pig
operation that required him to travel the road to Boston with his pigs,
and on the road he grew to love them: “They were good company. Despite
the folklore and the injunctions in his own Bible, William came to love
their nobility and personal freedom” (564)—therefore, he was dismayed
by the slaughter that concluded the journey and the lonely trek home.
William Slothrop was “content to live a life of simple pastoral pleasures
in the company of his pigs” (Le Vot 114), just as Tyrone enjoyed comfort
with Frieda. Nature, however, is ultimately exploited and the pigs are
slaughtered—literally and figuratively. Furthermore, like Tyrone fitting
perfectly into the pig-suit, William’s pigs trust him “as another variety of
pig” (Pynchon 565), demonstrating his own pig-congruency. Through
William, the pig gains yet another symbolic meaning, one that elevates
it to syncretism—containing multiple, if not contradictory philosophical
and religious ideologies.
As incongruous as Norse mythology and Christianity appear to
be, Pynchon syncretizes them in the pig. William Slothrop interprets
the unfortunate fate of his swine as a parable for the treatment of the
Preterite: “the many God passes over when he chooses a few for salvation”
(565), and argues for the holiness of both the Elect and the Preterite. He
(blasphemously) breaks down the puritanical hierarchy of Elect at the top
and Preterite at the bottom, reconstructing it as a binary wherein both
entities are equal. Through the pig, William inferred that “Everything in
the Creation has its equal and opposite counterpart” (565), and centuries
later the pig is the equal and opposite counterpart to the rocket. William
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