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In the 1960 s the American society faced many difficulties and important, sometimes, tragic events, such as Vietnam War, usage of the drugs, especially by youth, problems of communication in the society etc. Exactly these problems are vividly described in the novel The Crying of Lot 49 written by Thomas Pynchon. Many people consider this book to be the best work from those written by the author. There is also the opposite side of readers who do not think like that. However, no one can argue that the book The Crying of Lot 49 is very deep in its meaning, has a lot of humor and at the same time instructive moments throughout the whole book that makes a reader look deeper into his or her own inner world. The author depicts the American society with its bad and good sides of reality.
The book The Crying of Lot 49 mainly tells about cultural chaos and communication as it is seen through the eyes of a young woman who is surrounded by mystic events, strange people in a hallucinogenic world (Newman, Robert D. , Understanding Thomas Pynchon, p. 86). Thomas Pynchon shows different levels of society, such as college students, hippies, rich people, medical workers, poor people etc. It is really very difficult to unite all these people and events happening with them into one single novel, however, the author did it very well. Thomas Pynchon did not leave without attention any parts of the society and human inner world. He expressed all hidden parts of the human soul and mind while facing difficult events in life, what people think at that moment, how they react, in which way hidden, still unknown features of their personality are explored. The author treats this world as the chaotic one where there are no stable values, friends or opinions.
The main hero of this novel Oedipa Maas faces herself in the network of strange events, which she cannot totally control. Oedipa has a husband, lives in a good house and has a good job. She is a very typical figure of the 20 th century, living at the center of chaotic life and trying to put all things "in order" or at least make sense of the world in which she must live (Hite, Molly. Ideas of Order in the Novels of Thomas Pynchon, pp. 68 - 70). Her life is rather normal and stable until one event happens: she receives the letter that says that her ex-boyfriend died leaving her some property and she should go to another city in order to fulfill his will. Later on, she faced a lot of mystic things that made her wonder and sometimes even afraid.
Suddenly, everything she used to believe or to follow stop existing. It seems that she was put to totally different world without rules or logical explanations. In Chapter 5 the author showed that the single person could be alone even if there are many other people living nearby. Oedipa became isolated from other people when errors in communication and understanding others occur. One more theme in the novel makes the reader think deeper about values - sexual liberation. It can be vividly seen early in the novel when Oedipa started sexual relations with the person whom she hardly knows.
What is really interesting and at the same time awful is that she did it in order to escape from the relations with her husband, because they were boring and without hot or extreme emotions. New relations were only for physical satisfaction, however, even these new relations stop making her happy after while. All this shows that people stop treating sex as something personal where love and deep feelings should be present. Sex became as the mean of fulfilling physical, even animal needs.
Hidden erotic fantasies of people came to the surface spoiling and ruining the society and its values step by step (Poirer, Richard. , Review of The Crying of Lot 49, p. 102). One more awful thing that damages the society is drugs. This theme is found during the whole book, especially in chapters 5 and 6. One of the most popular drugs at that time, LSD, was a particular type of hallucinogen known for inducing wild hallucinatory visions. Many people that surround Oedipa use drugs, one of them, Dr. Hilarious, even lost his mind.
Perhaps, sometimes craziness is just the way to escape the reality, hopelessness of vicious society that seems to suppress your personality. Because of the drugs reality and imagined things are mixed. People loose control over their own lives and help themselves to ruin their inner world, values and dreams. The final part of chapter five shows the separation of Oedipa from the surrounding world, even from her own husband who became a victim of LSD.
In the last chapter 6 of the novel the author tells us about the whole system of Tristero that Oedipa was trying to understand during the whole book. She feels no more strength to struggle. Oedipa has two opposite wishes towards her life. First one is to return back to her life that was before her ex-boyfriend died and when she was rather happy with her husband living a calm life. However, this calm life does not exist anymore and Oedipa is so tired after long searches of what or who Tristero is.
Now she is separated even from that way of life she used before and cannot return back to her previous life, the same as move forward to future life full of unknown and sometimes horrible things. Oedipa finds herself in hopeless situation, which she cannot escape from (Sherard, Tracey. , "The Birth of the Female Subject in The Crying of Lot 49. ", p. 83). There is no clear exit from the strange life cycle - you cannot control it or move away from it. All our life is the constant way of searching and exploring and understanding that a person is just a little part of the huge society. The story ends up with uncertainly where the author wants to show that when you get to know some information it leads you only to more information rather than to answers you want to get. With more information life becomes even more mystic and knotty.
Bibliography: 1) Pynchon, Thomas. The Crying of Lot 49. New York: Perennial Library, 1965. 2) Newman, Robert D. Understanding Thomas Pynchon. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1986. 3) Hite, Molly. Ideas of Order in the Novels of Thomas Pynchon.
Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1983. 4) Poirer, Richard. Review of The Crying of Lot 49. New York Times Book Review, May 1, 1966. 43. 5) Pynchon, Thomas. "A Journey into the Mind of Watts. " New York Times Magazine June 12, 1966. 34 - 36, 80 - 83. 6) Sherard, Tracey. "The Birth of the Female Subject in The Crying of Lot 49. " Pynchon Notes 30 - 31 (Spring/Fall 1993): 60 - 74
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Research essay sample on Crying Of Lot 49 Thomas Pynchon
