The Crying of Lot 49: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Crying of Lot 49" is a novella by Thomas Pynchon that explores themes of communication, paranoia, and the search for meaning through its major characters. The protagonist, Oedipa Maas, is a young suburban housewife who inherits the complicated estate of her deceased lover, Pierce Inverarity. As she embarks on a quest to uncover the nature of his legacy, she becomes entangled in the mystery of the Tristero, a secret postal system that symbolizes alternative culture and resistance. Oedipa's intelligence and skills in interpretation paradoxically lead her to confusion and deepening paranoia, ultimately questioning her own reality and identity.
Pierce Inverarity, the enigmatic dead mogul, embodies the complexities of American capitalism and serves as a haunting figure in Oedipa's journey. His legacy is riddled with contradictions, representing both power and entrapment. Oedipa's husband, Wendell "Mucho" Maas, further illustrates the theme of disconnection; his sensitivity contrasts with his inability to maintain integrity as he succumbs to societal pressures. Another key figure, Metzger, contributes to the exploration of identity and superficiality, showcasing how external expectations can shape personal character. Together, these characters create a rich tapestry that examines the intersection of individual desires and the overwhelming forces of modern society.
The Crying of Lot 49: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Thomas Pynchon
First published: 1966
Genre: Novel
Locale: Primarily San Francisco, California
Plot: Satire
Time: The early 1960's
Oedipa Maas, a suburban California housewife and Young Republican who is the coexecutrix of the huge estate of Pierce Inverarity, her former lover. An attractive woman of twenty-eight with long hair, she is intelligent and dissatisfied. Feeling imprisoned even before she got married, she looked for liberation through Pierce, but he died, leaving her the job of sorting out his legacy and character. This challenge becomes a mock religious quest. She is a whiz at interpreting texts, but in this case the more information she accumulates, the more difficult it all is to evaluate and the more paranoid she becomes. The focus of her quest for information is The Tristero, or Trystero, a secret countercultural postal system whose symbol is a muted post horn. Every access she discovers to the Trystero can be traced to the Inverarity estate, so it appears that the dead capitalist owned even the counterculture and controlled Trystero. In the course of her quest, Oedipa insulates and desensitizes herself against a predatory environment. Consequently, she is not sensitive enough to communicate with Maxwell's Demon, a spirit in a box, and is overcome by the entropy she discovers in herself and in America. She sees life as a void, becomes suicidal, loses her bearings, and takes a man's name, Arnold Snarb, imposed on her by a stranger. At the end, in paranoia she hopes for a saving revelation at an auction of Inverarity's stamp collection.
Pierce Inverarity, a dead real estate mogul with headquarters in San Narcisco, somewhere in Southern California. A “founding father,” he seems to possess all of America. He does many impersonations, including The Shadow, and becomes a haunting, ambiguous, demonic god figure to Oedipa. His manipulations are represented by his defense plant, Yoyodyne, and his values by his tacky new housing development, Fangoso Lagoons, which features an artificial lake called Inverarity, with real human skeletons at the bottom. Oedipa fell in love with Pierce, though she may have meant no more to him than another stamp in his collection.
Wendell “Mucho” Maas, Oedipa's husband, a disc jockey for teenagers at radio station KCUF. Mucho is not macho, calls his wife Oed, and is very sensitive. He had to quit his former job as a used-car salesman because he felt sorry for the customers. As he and Oedipa become less able to communicate, he seduces teenage girls and takes drugs. Gradually, he loses his integrity, his ego dissipates, and he merges with the masses and becomes generic.
Metzger, a coexecutor of Inverarity's will, a lawyer and former child motion picture star who performed under the name of Baby Igor. Now thirty-five years old, he is so good-looking that Oedipa promptly sleeps with him after a game of Strip Botticelli. He is too artificial to be sure of his sexual orientation and blames his lack of character on a domineering mother and a cowardly father. Oedipa strikes him as one of “these lib, overeducated broads with the soft heads and bleeding hearts.” He leaves her to run off with the very young girlfriend of a member of a rock band called the Paranoids.