Topic: Code as a vehicle for metaphor in Postmodern Literature/code as a rhetorical device to convey meaning.

Thesis: In my paper I will discuss the use of code and cryptography as a vehicle for metaphor, both helping to convey and veil meaning in postmodern literature. In any stories coding is used by the characters as an act to expose meaning to further the plot of the story, while in others code is used by the author to literally convey meaning to the audience. My goal is to compare these strategies in order to shed light on coding in postmodern literature.

I’ll have to start off with some discussion of metaphor and its role in a story to give depth to writing, the use of code and signs to convey meaning, and the literal use of computing code, 1’s and 0’s, to transfer meaning in programming. This will all be very fun and thought provoking, but I will quickly segue into its use in the literature we have been discussing in class.

Programming code in postmodern literature is used in many different ways. The characters allude to the creation of source code that will carry out desired actions, the encryption of information to elude surveillance, as well as the decryption of information for all the world to see. The idea of open and closed source code is important to many writers, and to the ideology of hactivism, that is the direct technological action to further the freedom of information, as well as free speech. Decoding is used in the stories to gain knowledge that was intended to be kept secret in order to further the plot of the story, as well as just the main motivation of a character to achieve a goal, a la William Gibson's "Burning Chrome.”

Cryptography is also used in varying degrees. The example of Poe's "The Goldbug," the decryption of the treasure map leads the characters to literally finding treasure in the story. While in Thomas Pynchon’s “The Crying of Lot 49,” Oedipa’s inability to decrypt leads her on an endless journey. On the other hand, ciphers in Danielewski's work give greater meaning to what is being read to the reader, the more that is decoded, as well as random information that does nothing to further the plot.

This paper will explore the many uses of code in postmodern literature and, hopefully, shed some light on its use by the author, the characters and the reader.

Tentative Bibliography:

Doctorow, Cory. Little Brother. Macmillan, 2008.
2007
Danielewski, Mark Z.. Only Revolutions. Pantheon Books, 2007.

Danielewski, Mark Z.. Mark Z. Danielewski's House of leaves. Random House, Inc., 2000.

Singh, Simon. The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography. Reprint ed. Anchor, 2000.

Poe, Edgar Allan. The gold bug. Routledge, 1891.

Gibson, William. Burning Chrome. New York: Arbor House, 1986.

Pynchon, Thomas. Crying of Lot 49... 1966

//Also, my big blue Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism is at //home, I'll probably have some fun with that. Thanks Wally