Theme Of Chaos And Complexity In Richard Power's 'The Gold Bug Variations'

The fractal pattern begins to show itself in the beginning of the novel when Jayne tells Pepper that she learned that all of the victims had died within six months of each other, and later she goes on to say “But these deaths are connected. And if you accept that, it follows that evidence of that connection exists” (pg.8). This is reminiscent to just a few pages prior, when she explains to Pepper that nothing in Fractals is random; that it is all deliberately irregular pattern. Her explanation was this: “each point on a coastline is linked with the points next door. If it were truly random, one point would have no relationship to the next” (pg.4). Before, she explicitly states that all the previous investigators closed the case with the declaration

As we know, chaos emerges through fractals. Originally, it possessed negative connotations, and then later it became perceived as something in which order could be found in the midst of chaos, and vice versa. As is said in Chaos and Complexity in Richard Power’s ‘The Gold Bug Variations’ by Scott Hermanson, at the very heart of chaos theory is something called “the butterfly effect”. It is a theme that is often very prominent in literature and in the real world as well, such as history. It is the suggestion that “a flap of insect wings in one part of the world can cause hurricanes in another”, or in other words, it brings the common imagery of a small pebble, or a drop of water causing ripples in a lake. In that concept, it explains the ‘cause and effect’. There is also a term called ‘edge of chaos’, in which it is believed that nothing new usually will be able to emerge or be created from a system or a stable pattern of order. So the butterfly effect takes place at the edge of chaos, with extreme sensitivity to conditions-- to the point that anything could trigger a cause-and-effect.Fractal, chaos, order,