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
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. Pynchon uses many different techniques which all serves to unite the reader's quest for a literary meaning with Oedipa's quest for self-discovery in the end. Oedipa's self-discovery then leads to our own self-discovery. One major link that combines the readers with Oedipa, as mentioned before, is the state of paranoia. Throughout the novel, we will reach many conclusions which we might later realize to be false. Our inability to decipher symbols relates to Oedipa's inability to decipher the truth amongst chaos. In both cases, we need to increase the communicative entropy of our world. Nonetheless , The Crying of Lot 49 succeeds in actively involving the reader within the mystery of the text, thus we can learn something about ourselves as we discover what Oedipa learns of herself. One aspect that unites Oedipa and the audience is the state of paranoia. Unlike the Maxwell's Demon, inside a closed system, the reader and Oedipa are exposed to pynchon's fictional system, which is constantly expanding to include more and more aspects of contemporary America. Being inefficient sorters, both the reader and Oedipa are in a state of confusion, or paranoia. Paranoia, not defined to mean a type of mental illness, refers to the tendency to find meaning in symbols which may or may not have any meaning. At the climax, Oedipa sees the muted post horn everywhere she goes. "In the lapel of which she spied, wrought exquisitely in some pale, glimmer
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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