Crying of lot 49
There are two levels of apprehension to The Crying of Lot 49: that of the characters in the book, whose perception is limited to the text, and that of the reader, who has the ability to look at the world from outside of it. A recurring theme in the novel is the phenomenon of chaos, also called entropy. Both the reader and Oedipa have the same problems of facing the chaos around them. Through various methods, Pynchon imposes a fictional world of chaos on the world of the reader, a world already full of confusions. As readers, we are faced with the same uncertainty and complication of the mystery that the characters are involved in. As the mysteries unfold, an understanding of the characters leads to the understanding of ourselves. Oedipa Mass, just like us, is forced to either involve herself in the deciphering of clues or not to participate at all in what she suspects to be a conspiracy. Her role is comparable to the role of Maxwell's Demon. "As the Demon sat and sorted his molecules into hot and cold, the system was said to lose entropy. But somehow the loss was offset by the information the Demon gained about what molecules were where" (p.105). Oedipa's purpose in the novel, besides executing a will, is to find meanin
There are hints of warnings to the reader and Oedipa of the addictive nature of their respective searches. "You guys, you're like the Puritans about the Bible. So hung up with words" (p. 79). With Oedipa's inability to separate her play from its author, editor or producer, her search for the original version of ĄThe Courier's Tragedy' is a metaphor of the reader's troubles in making sense of the novel. Our attempt to draw meaning out of a possibly meaningless novel parallels Oedipa's suspicions of conspiracies when it could have been just in her imagination. The most inventive method that Pynchon uses for involving the reader in the novel in The Crying of Lot 49 is the mock-Jacobean drama ĄThe Courier's Tragedy'. Oedipa's witnessing the play is comparable to our apprehending of the novel. "While a battle rages in the streets outside the palace, Pasquale is locked up in his patrician hothouse, holding an orgy" (p. 69). We can see from this example that Pynchon's switching from Jacobean vocabulary to modern phrases distances the reader form the play, similar to Oedipa's role as a confused spectator on Pierce's estate. One of the most effective techniques that Pychon uses to involve the reader in his fictional world is his use of details. His mixing of the specific history of Thurn and Taxis in his plot serves to overburden the reader with details that seems to have no relation to the story at hand. " From the same plastic folder he now tweezed what looked like an old Ferman stamp, with the figures 1/4 in the centre, the word Freimarke at the top, and along the right-hand margin the legend Thurn und Taxis" (p.96). These specific details of history unite the reader's real world with the fictional one created by Pynchon, thus luring the reader into the character's search for the meaning of life. We may find in the end that, just like Oedipa, we ended up in our search at where we started. Furthurmore, this alternation of reality with fiction, such as the description of the "Peter Pinguid Society
Some common words found in the essay are:
Maxwell's Demon, Pierce Inverarity, Oedipa Mass, Courier's Tragedy', Thurn Taxis, , Tragedy' Oedipa's, Demon Demon, Pinguid Societyp49, Puritans Bible, pierce inverarity, reader oedipa, crying 49, maxwell's demon, Ąthe courier's tragedy', meaning life, fictional world, oedipa mass, leads own, involving reader, post horn,
Approximate Word count = 1363
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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