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A Comparison of Crying of Lot 49 and White Noise
Pynchon's novel The Crying of Lot 49 has much in common with Don DeLillo's book White Noise. Both novels uncannily share certain types of characters, parts of plot structure and themes. The similarities of these two works clearly indicates a cultural conception shared by two influential and respected contemporary authors.
Character similarities in the two novels are found in both the main characters and in some that are tangential to the plots. The two protagonists of the works, Oedipa Maas of Lot 49 and Jack Gladney of White Noise, are characters struggling to make sense of their worlds, and yet, both are afraid to face pure, filtered truth. Oedipa is inadvertently sent on a quest, which she embraces as a possible mechanism of bringing new meaning into world of tupperware parties. On her journey Oedipa is innundated with new and baffling information which she is either a series of clues to a counter culture or Pierce Inverarity's attempt to extend himself beyond his death. This dichotomy sets up the theme of binary opposites in novel. Oedipa's journey does not end in a final choice of one realm or the other, confirming one of the novel's other assertions, that excluded middles are "bad shit" ( J. Kerry Grant eloquently discusses Oedipa's journey in terms of binary opposites and a search for meaning in the introduction to his A Companion to "The Crying of Lot 49" (pp. xv-xvi)).
Jack Gladney also involves himself and his family in a series of journeys, which are searches for safety and understanding, yet share Oedipa's focus on finding a new reason for existence. Jack and his wife Babbette are afraid of dying. Their worries, conversations,...
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...s comfort in bulk, Babette runs the stairs of a football stadium, and both become involved with the intensely neurotic Dylar conspiracy.
The concept of enframing, the reducing of something to a representation which man produces and consumes, is prevalent in both these novels as well. In White Noise the most obvious examples are "The Most Photographed Barn in America" (pp.12-13) and Nature T.V., and in Lot 49 it can be seen in the man made lake, Lake Inverarity. Enframing is an example of both the possibility of a meta-conspiracy, and of mankind's attempt to shield himself from reality. The mass produced and readily consumable objects and ideas that appear in both novels are presented as being the possible result of a conspiracy to homogenize and control people, or an attempt by people to distance themselves from the real world and truth.
works of literature have tremendous amounts of similarity especially in the characters. Each character is usually unique and symbolizes the quality of a person in the real world. But in both stories, each character was alike, they represented honor, loyalty, chivalry, strength and wisdom. Each character is faced with a difficult decision as well as a journey in which they have to determine how to save their own lives. Both these pieces of literatures are exquisite and extremely interesting in their own ways.
Through these voyages certain parallels are drawn concerning Odysseus and Telemachos: the physical journeys, the mental preparations they have produced, and the resulting change in emotional makeup. These play an immense role in the way the story is set up, due to the purpose of each character's journey, their personal challenges, and the difficulties that surround them.
In Oedipus Rex by Sophocles and “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, there is a deception where readers think one thing, but are presented with a different point of view. They are profoundly similar for various reasons regarding structure and theme. They are complementary in establishing the primary conflict of drama during the storyline; however, Oedipus Rex encompasses foreshadowing that divulges drama from past experiences. Additionally, the authors incorporate violence as a key component in the conflict presented. However, the drama differs in plot, as well as symbolism, in which the reader understands it before or amid the story through gradual discovery. The themes and presentation of these dramatic plots are initially compelling, distinctive,
Thesis: The completion and substance of Oedipus Rex allows Oedipus to live grief-stricken throughout his successful search for justice.
Both men had tragic outcomes; however, Oedipus' ending was by far the most heartrending. The tragedy of him being a "son, And a husband, to the woman who bore him; father-killer, And father-s...
Continuing on his way, Oedipus found Thebes plagued by the Sphinx, who put a riddle to all passersby and destroyed those who could not answer. Oedipus solved the riddle, and the Sphinx killed herself. In reward, he received the throne of Thebes and the hand of the widowed queen, his mother, Jocasta. They had four children: Eteocles, Polyneices, Antigone, and Ismene. Later, when the truth became known, Jocasta committed suicide, and Oedipus, after blinding himself, went into exile, leaving his brother-in-law Creon as regent. The central theme in this work is that one cannot control his/her fate, whether the intentions are good or bad. Oedipus, the main character in this play is motivated to find the truth, and his intentions are good. The motivation is always followed by the intentions, just as the truth is followed by goodness. There are three critical parts to Oedipus's motivation. There is the prophecy, the realization, and the revelation. They will be discussed consecutively.
There are two levels of participation within The Crying of Lot 49: that of the characters, such as Oedipa Maas, whose world is limited to the text, and that of the reader, who looks at the world from outside it but who is also affected the world created by the text.3 Both the reader and the characters have the same problems observing the chaos around them. The protagonist in The Crying of Lot 49, Oedipa Mass, like the reader, is forced to either involve herself in the deciphering of clues or not participate at all.4
The play "Oedipus Rex" is a very full and lively one to say the least. Everything a reader could ask for is included in this play. There is excitement, suspense, happiness, sorrow, and much more. Truth is the main theme of the play. Oedipus cannot accept the truth as it comes to him or even where it comes from. He is blinded in his own life, trying to ignore the truth of his life. Oedipus will find out that truth is rock solid. The story is mainly about a young man named Oedipus who is trying to find out more knowledge than he can handle. The story starts off by telling us that Oedipus has seen his moira, his fate, and finds out that in the future he will end up killing his father and marrying his mother. Thinking that his mother and father were Polybos and Merope, the only parents he knew, he ran away from home and went far away so he could change his fate and not end up harming his family. Oedipus will later find out that he cannot change fate because he has no control over it, only the God's can control what happens. Oedipus is a very healthy person with a strong willed mind who will never give up until he gets what he wants. Unfortunately, in this story these will not be good trait to have.
Oedipus’ situation is commonly thought to be rare at first glance. But noted psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud wrote many papers on the actual commonality of the condition. At first, this is a proof of the existence of common humanity in the work. Delving deeper, it can be seen that Oedipus represents any part of ourselves that disagrees with our parents, sometimes wishing them dead, or even the part that takes things for granted, without thinking.
We all know what it is like to wake up in the morning, with our head aching, and our body feeling like it was just hit by a train. College students world wide know this feeling. These are the results of binge drinking. The question of why college students continue to submit themselves to alcohol is unknown. While many reasons are given, the cause generally falls into one of three categories, peer pressure, insecurity, or to help solve there problems. But the one thing students don’t realize are the consequences and effects that binge drinking can have, health and social problems are just a few.
Oedipa Mass is the protagonist of Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, who looks into her ex-boyfriend Pierce Inverarity’s life and legacy after she is named executor of his estate upon his death. As she examines Pierce’s life, she begins to discover details about herself that she was never sure existed before. The only th...
Researchers have suspected for years that chronic alcohol abuse and alcoholism can change the programming within a human brain, particularly in the regions involving judgment, and making decisions. Throughout the years we have become susceptible to alcohol, everybody in the past decades and centuries drank. As to how much they drank we don't know. Within this study of the alcohol that affects our brains scientists have stated, " Cell and animal studies have consistently indicated that changes in gene expression in the brain appear to be responsible for the...
In this paper I plan to include different aspects of alcoholism. I plan to cover the different approached people have towards it and how it affects people’s daily life. Alcoholics do not realize that their actions not only affect them in a bad way, their body and their mind, but also that they affect the people around them and what a huge impact that has on their loved ones. I will include stories that my friends and relatives have provided me with about their experience with alcohol and alcoholics that they had to deal with and the impact that it had on their lives and their surroundings, as well as factual data and statistics that I have found in my research about this topic. Coming to the U.S. from Poland, where the legal age to purchase and consume alcohol is eighteen, things are quite a lot different. I was twelve when I had moved here and I had older cousins which were of the legal...
“Oedipus is, as it were, only a tragic analysis. Everything is already in existence, and has only to be unraveled.” Throughout the history of literature, there has been perhaps no other character quite as complex and convoluted as Oedipus. Whether it be the reality of his parents abandoning him to die or the mere fact that he married his own mother Jocasta, Oedipus has been continually analyzed and processed by scholars in an attempt to discover the means by which Oedipus arrived at his eventual outcome. To summarize, Oedipus, being originally from Corinth, travels to Thebes in search of his true heritage. After a series of events, Oedipus becomes the king of Thebes and soon discovers the truth. Once thorough deliberation has been given to
The Grand Inquisitor is based on the idea of freedom and human nature. According to the Grand Inquisitor, the notion of freedom does not exist. Essentially the Grand Inquisitor observes that people are inherently selfish, and because of this the Grand Inquisitor believes that the people will benefit of this. This is significant because he argues that the needs of individuals and to the notion that freedom of “Free will” simply does not exist complement each other. On this basis, the freedom that Jesus brings to the world is not freedom but slavery. This aspect is denoted in the poem when the Grand Inquisitor tells Jesus that by coming again, he is destroying the church. He further tells Jesus that the devil tempted him with three items, food,