English Major Assignment | Writing Theory

Yet another research paper, a final project for a course taught solely on the infamous Gravity's Rainbow. This was a tricky one to write mainly due to my being perplexed by the novel. Gravity's Rainbow is widely know for its density and its divergence from typical writing conventions, but also for its complexity and intricacy. I opted to combine this assignment with some of the things we'd been learning about in a writing theory class that I took at the same time.

Performativity is a concept which revealed itself within the many folds of Gravity's Rainbow, it is a work which presents as a novel but which acts as anything but. This idea grew when we discussed Lyotard's concept of language games in the class, a notion which argues language has an agenda of its own. 

By the end, I meld the concept of performativty as found in social media with Lyotard's concept of "Language Games" and reveal that writing itself is performative, one of the key themes that've addressed in many writing courses since my time in the minor.