Disorder and Misunderstanding The Crying of Lot 49
When reading Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49" one is flooded with a deluge of historical references (dates, places, events) and, unless a historical genius, probably feels confused as to the historical accuracy of such references. As critics have shown, Pynchon blends factual history with fiction and manages, as David Seed writes in "The Fictional Labyrinths of Thomas Pynchon," to "juxtapose(s) historical references with reminders of the novel's status as artefact so that the reader's sense of history and of fiction are brought into maximum confrontation" (128). Pynchon, for example, in "Lot 49" speaks at length about Maxwell's Demon, a machine proposed in 1871 by physicist James Clerk Maxwell which, theoretically, could defy the Second Law of Thermodynamics by producing energy in a system without putting any energy into that system. Although the basic idea of the machine provides a neat metaphor for Oedipa's own project, ironically it is the historical event that Pynchon chooses not to reference that truly illuminates Oedipa's quest. This "unnamed historical reference" is the fact that Maxwell's Demon, and the way it operated, was eventually shown to be a fraud. The scientific explanation for why Maxwell's Demon doesn't work parallels and adumbrates Oedipa's own inability to sort through and make sense of the information she is given.
On a surface level, Maxwell's Demon and Oedipa share, metaphorically, similar projects. As Pynchon explains, "The Demon could sit in a box among air molecules that were moving at all different random speeds, and sort out the fast molecules from the slow ones" (68). Oedipa, similarly, is forced to "sort" the various ...
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... importantly, however, the metaphor of the dysfunctional Demon applies to us as readers when we fail to realize, as was said, that "Lot 49" is one big "red herring." That is, when we as readers choose one "red herring" as the ultimate meaning for "Lot 49" we begin to become dysfunctional in relation to the text, just as Maxwell's Demon does, and instead of finding order and meaning in the text serve only to increase our own disorder and misunderstanding.
Works Cited and Consulted
Dugdale, John. Thomas Pynchon: Allusive Parables of Power. New York: St.Martin, 1990
Mangel, Anne "Maxwell's Demon, Entropy, Information: The Crying of Lot 49" in Mindful Pleasures: Essays on Thomas Pynchon, 1976: Boston.
Seed, David The Fictional Labyrinths of Thomas Pynchon 1988: Iowa City.
Pynchon, Thomas. The Crying Of Lot 49. New York: Harper & Row, 1966
The delegates, also known as the Framers of the Constitution, didn't exactly agree on how to create a new system of government, with two sides emerging both with contrary, but comparable motives on how to keep their country running efficiently. First there were the Federalists, who favored a stronger national g...
Ward, Catherine C. "Linden Hills: A Modern Inferno." Contemporary Literature 28 (1987), 67-81. Rpt. in Gloria Naylor:
Hacking has two primary definitions; the first refers to the enthusiastic and skilful use of computers to solve problems (Techterms, 2013); the second, to “gain unauthorized access to data in a system or computer” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2013). In the context of this essay the second definition is more appropriate and will be the meaning inferred throughout. This definition also more closely aligns with legal terminology used in the UK when describing the hacking of computers. The Computer Misuse Act (1990) introduced three criminal offenses:
There is a fine line between sanity and insanity, a line that can be crossed or purposefully avoided. The books The Things They Carried and Slaughterhouse-Five both explore the space around this line as their characters confront war. While O’Brien and Vonnegut both use repetition to emphasize acceptance of fate, their characters’ psychological and internal responses to war differ significantly. In The Things They Carried, the narrator and Norman Bowker carry guilt as evidence of sanity. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim and the innkeepers carry on with life in order to perpetuate sanity. Both authors develop a distinct theme of responding in the face of the insanity of war.
Mather, C. (2008). From the Wonders of the Invisible World. In N. Baym (Ed.), The Norton Anthology of American Literature Volume 1 (pp. 147). New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Throughout time people have been manipulated and controlled by the devil’s deceitful tricks. In the Gothic story, “Young Goodman Brown”, Hawthorne provided detailed information through the use of characters, setting, and plot. He used imagery and symbolism to create a deeper connection between the reader and the text. He also utilized creative names for the characters that allowed for assumptions to be made about them and their nature. The names of the characters, Young Goodman Brown and his wife “Faith” for example, allowed the reader to know, before reading, that the story had a religious concept. Hawthorne was sending a hidden message about purity and faith, and how the devil could manipulate mankind in order to destroy the goodness
Pizer, Donald. "The Naturalism of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth." Twentieth Century Literature 41.2 (1995): 241-8.
The philosophy behind The Crying of Lot 49 seems to lie in the synthesis of philosophers and modern physicists. Ludwig Wittgenstein viewed the world as a "totality of facts, not of things."1 This idea can be combined with a physicist's view of the world as a closed system that tends towards chaos. Pynchon asserts that the measure of the world is its entropy.2 He extends this metaphor to his fictional world. He envelops the reader, through various means, within the system of The Crying of Lot 49.
Stories have an opportunity to leave the reader with many different impressions. When you look a different characters within the stories the ones that leave the greatest impressions are the ones that tend to scare us. The figures in Bob Dylar’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have you been?”, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”, and Stephen King’s “The Man in the Black Suite” all instill a bit of fear in the reader. They are symbols that represent the devil or devil like attributes in people and the uncertainties of human nature.
The themes of love, supernatural, and tragedy in Macbeth make this tale loved by many. The supernatural ideas are most noteworthy and dramatic. Witches, apparitions, and hallucinations give the play the sense of the unknown. Shakespeare used the supernatural occurrences and witches to show humans wickedness and depravity. The characters in this play were not at all hesitant to do evil acts once prophecies had been given showing their innermost desires come true. In the end, while the prophecies may have come to fruition, it was not how the characters had anticipated.
Furthermore, Hawthorne uses the snake, staff, and the devil as symbols to depict Brown’s descent into corruption. When his acquaintance states that his snake-like staff will “help him along” (5), it foreshadows what will happen to Brown. Once he has a revelation of the true nature of mankind, Brown calls out for the Devil (6), knowing that there is no longer any good in the world. Hawthorne strategically incorporates the snake, staff, and devil. These symbols are generally associated with evil, which further enhance the corruption within the story. As such, Brown’s once-naive viewpoint towards people is now tainted with cynicism; Brown rapidly develops a pessimistic view of his wife, colleagues, and humanity in general. Due to his horrific
In any text wither it be a short story or a book you will find many hidden literary component throughout the text. These devices can range from symbolism to foreshowing, but understanding text is not just bound to these devices, but it is also important to understand narrative perspective or if the text is referring to a bigger picture. A great example of a text that exemplifies all of these literary devices is the story “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorn. In this story the main character Goodman Brown leaves his wife Faith in the middle of the night to go on a walk to ponder about life and his own faith. Upon the walk he comes to meet a stranger, who appears to be the devil and has been waiting for Goodman the whole time. As the story progress Goodman is led by the devil and is shown what people are doing, which makes Goodman’s faith and innocence falter. However, this is the whole story and I have chosen the first page of “Young Goodman Brown” to further analyze.
In the English Renaissance, there was a strong belief in the existence of the supernatural. Thus, the supernatural is a recurring aspect in William Shakespeare 's Macbeth and is an integral and important part of the plot. The role of the supernatural in Macbeth is to bring out emotional reactions within Macbeth that cloud his judgement, affecting his actions which ultimately leads to his downfall. This is demonstrated through the ambiguous prophecies of the witches, the supernatural phenomenon that Macbeth sees, and the apparitions that foreshadow how he will meet his end.
...he supernatural is one element in Macbeth that was used cleverly by Shakespeare to get various messages across to the audience. The messages are brought across between the lines of the plays which requires audiences to reflect critically to get the underlying meaning of his play. Shakespeare did not merely show ghosts and witches in the supernatural as a thriller, but also tied in the political and religious aspects of the society during his time.
In a story as confusing and ambiguous as Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, it is difficult to connect any aspect of the book to a piece of modern culture. However, Oedipa's quest, her search for the truth, and the paranoia therein, are inherent in the plots of today's most-watched television and movies. Though many themes from the story can be tied to modern culture, perhaps the most prominent is the theme of a quest for truth. Oedipa's quest is best represented via a popular FOX television show called The X-Files. At first sight, the comparison is almost too obvious. Agent Fox Mulder, played by David Duchovny, seeks the truth behind the apparent mystery of alien abduction and the supernatural, a quest that he dubs "the X-Files". Oedipa, too, is looking for the truth underneath her mystery: WASTE. Both characters yearn for the truth behind events, a truth that may or may not exist, in mysteries that fold plots upon themselves endlessly. Beyond the obvious similarities, however, lie more, almost uncanny, parallels. Though both Mulder and Oedipa claim to seek the truth, what they both seek is resolution to the questions within themselves. For example, it is understood by fans of The X-Files that Mulder began his search for extraterrestrial life with the supposed alien abduction of his sister. The quest for the truth, then, is personalized for Agent Mulder, as he himself claims that he would not work as an FBI agent if his sister had not been [supposedly] abducted.