Once they have you asking the wrong questions. They don't have to worry about the answers.
Tyrone Slothrop is a major character in Thomas Pynchon's novel Gravity's Rainbow.
Character[]
An American lieutenant and an agent of ACHTUNG, Tyrone is extremely paranoid (with thoughts about "Them") and has some rather racist views - with these being used by SHAEF/PISCES as part of their Schwartzkommando program.[1][2]
He has some knowlegde in chemistry and engineering, and has some experience dating women. Slothrop also has some affinity for "reefer".
Slothrop has the unusual ability to drop V-2 bombs out of the sky by having sex.
Relationships[]
Dr. Pointsman[]
Due to Slothrop's rather unusual ability, Dr. Pointsman becomes obsessed with Slothrop - seeing him as the ultimate Pavlovian experiment. He uses the resources of SHAEF in an attempt to stalk Slothrop throughout Part 2.
Katje Borgesius[]
After saving Katje from the octopus attack, Slothrop becomes friendly with her for a brief moment while in France.
Tantivy Mucker-Maffick[]
As Slothrop's coworker within ACHTUNG, Tantivy is one of Slothrop's few friends. He is actually saddened after learning of Tantivy's death.
Margherita Erdmann[]
After finding the actress, the two bonded - their psychoses clashing together - and live together for some time.
rest to be added
History[]
Early life[]
Slothrop's family were one of the first to settle in America and settled in Massachusetts.[3] As a baby, he was essentially sold by his uncle Lyle Bland to Dr. Laszlo Jamf[4] and psychologically experimented on by Dr. Jamf in an attempt to mirror the Infant Albert experiment with sexual stimuli instead of fear. Though Jamf deconditioned the infant Slothrop, it was speculated by members of SHAEF that Slothrop's ability was made by these experiments.[5] During his childhood, Slothrop considered President Franklin D. Roosevelt to be "his president" - visiting one of his rallies as a kid where he was unable to see the President due to a kid standing in his way.[6]
Due to the bargain between Dr. Jamf and Uncle Bland[4], Slothrop entered into Harvard University alongside Jack Kennedy. Though this was possibly just a hallucinatory vision created by PISCES, Slothrop remembered jumping into a toilet, being visited by "Red Malcolm" (or Malcolm X) while half in the toilet, and falling into the sewer - where he was accidentally defecated on.[7]
Within ACHTUNG[]
The first sight of Slothrop within Gravity's Rainbow is near the beginning of Part One - in which he is working at ACHTUNG (or Allied Clearing House, Technical Units, Northern Germany) alongside his friend Oliver "Tantivy" Mucker-Maffick to investigate V-2 blasts. Unbeknownst to Slothrop, his sexual conquests line up with a map of V-2 blasts created by statistician Roger Mexico. He is captured by PISCES and injected with sodium amytal as a part of their Schwartzkommando Project from within "The White Visitation". Shortly after leaving "The White Visitation", Slothrop lodges with a nurse named Darlene and "sleeps" with her - accidentally dropping a V-2 onto "The White Visitation". After discovering the link between Slothrop and the V-2 bombs, Dr. Pointsman of SHAEF (and ARF) becomes somewhat obsessed with Slothrop due to his Pavlovian leanings and begins using SHAEF's resources to study Slothrop.
In France and Switzerland[]
Shortly after this, Slothrop travels with Tantivy and Teddy Bloat (a friend of Tantivy's, unknowingly working with the mysterious Firm) to the Casino Hermann Goering on the French coast. While on the beach, Slothrop saves a woman named Katje Borgesius from being killed by an octopus. Unbeknownst to Slothrop, this octopus was an assassin trained by a member of ARF. After this, Slothrop becomes paranoid of a conspiracy controlling his life. The day after having sex with Katje, his belongings are stolen and Tantivy vanishes.
Over time, Slothrop becomes more and more aware of the SHAEF conspiracy - largely due to the various figures that begin following him around. Slothrop is able to find out that he is being followed after getting one of his observers drunk. Several days later, Slothrop discovers the "S-Gerät 11/00000" after breaking into a Shell Petroleum office with a Shell employee. Ditching the employee, Slothrop travels to Switzerland - where he becomes a courier for Argentinian refugees and visits the grave of Dr. Jamf. Unbeknowst to Slothrop, Pointsman hired detectives to find Slothrop but these detectives failed at their job miserably.
In "The Zone"[]
Shortly after V-Day, Slothrop rides into "the Zone" (or Germany) on a train - learning of the deal between his uncle and Dr. Jamf. He also meets Major Marvy before Marvy is thrown off of the train by one of the Schwartzkommandoes (black soldiers descended from the Herero inhabitants of German colonies in Africa), Oberst Enzian. Once in the city of Thuringia, Slothrop gets off the train and meets a young woman named Geli Tripping who was a member of the "harem" of the Soviet intelligence agent Tchitcherine. From Geli, Slothrop learns that the SG-00000 rocket is for sale.
After leaving Geli, Slothrop visits a museum about space travel before entering into the tunnels of the Mittelwerke (the V-2's underground production facility) where he finds Marvy's soldiers at work in the tunnels. He is noticed by Marvy, who sends his (rather drunken) soldiers after Slothrop. Slothrop is only able to escape the Mittelwerke with the help of a German mathematician named Glimpf.
While wandering through the Zone, Slothrop reunites with Geli - whom joins into his wanderings - briefly before he meets a hot air balloon merchant and leaves Geli behind to travel with said merchant. While in the air, they are found by Major Marvy's soldiers but are able to get them off their back by throwing pies at their plane.
The balloon lands near Berlin. After recovering from a waterborne illness, Slothrop meets with the Schwartzkommandoes on the outskirts of the city and discovers that they are also looking for the SG-00000. He also meets the safecracker Säure. While in Säure's company, Slothrop gains the mantle "Raketmensch" (or Rocketman) and dons the Raketmensch costume for the first time. Slothrop is then pressured into travelling to the city of Potsdam to reclaim a stash of "reefer" left behind by a crewman on the US ship John E. Badass in the hopes of gaining a million marks. While in Potsdam, Slothrop learns of the death of President Roosevelt before he finds the stash - in a heavily-guarded compound dubbed "the White House". Due to the pseudo-celebrity status the Raketmensch persona gives Slothrop (though possibly because of Tchitcherine's influence), he is allowed to enter into the compound - where he is drugged and dragged away.
rest to be added
Sources[]
| Works of Thomas Pynchon | ||
|
Early works (Collected in Slow Learner) | ||