In "Gravity's Rainbow", what is the name of the protagonist?

In “Gravity’s Rainbow,” the protagonist is Tyrone Slothrop.

Thomas Pynchon’s 1973 novel follows Slothrop, an American lieutenant stationed in Europe during the final months of World War II. He works with a fictional military intelligence organization investigating German V-2 rocket attacks. Early in the novel, investigators discover that a map of Slothrop’s sexual encounters appears to correspond with locations later struck by rockets, creating one of the book’s central mysteries.

Slothrop’s search for an explanation leads him through wartime London, France, Germany, and the postwar “Zone.” His investigation gradually becomes entangled with psychological conditioning, corporate power, military technology, and the possibility that forces outside his control have shaped his identity.

“Gravity’s Rainbow” is deliberately fragmented and includes hundreds of characters, songs, jokes, scientific references, and shifting narrative styles. That complexity can make readers mistake another prominent figure—such as Pirate Prentice, Blicero, or Enzian—for the protagonist. Slothrop remains the novel’s central consciousness for much of its journey, although his identity becomes increasingly unstable and dispersed as the story progresses.