Symbolism is richer in Gravity's Rainbow than in Pynchon's other novels, all of it coming together around the image of the V-2 rocket, which was the German weapon against which there was no defense, just as the American apocalyptic threat was the atomic bomb. All of the themes, characters and episodes of the novel coalesce around the frightening missile which is a symbol simultaneously of science and technology triumphant even while reason has utterly fled, since the device has no purpose but mass destruction. At the end of the book, Pynchon tightens the screw by not merely giving the reader a questing main character to identify with, but also by placing the reader in the novel as part of an audience in a theater waiting while the rocket descends on their helpless heads.

Aside from the central symbol of the V-2, the book is also organized around such...