In modern secular societies, social order rests primarily on communicative
action and discourse, which together help establish and maintain social
integrity, that is, they act like glue that keeps society together. Any deficiency in this
communicative interaction, however, would baulk at society’s ideals of equilibrium,
justice, and individual development. This article attempts to identify the particular
locutionary system used in Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow from the perspective of
two theories Using Austin’s theories of locution illocution and perlocution allied
with Habermas’s ideas on communication to analyze the novel this study attempts
to show that it is mostly Pynchon’s choice of locution that renders his goal of
showing how much modern life has been torn away from healthy and genuine
communicative actions and been replaced by strategic actions and consequently
creating the system and ruining the lifeworld in Habermas’ terms.

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