Thos Pynchons The Crying of Lot 49: No Escape Essay -- Crying Lot 49

There are both levels of participation within The repetitive of troop 49 that of the characters, such as Oedipa Maas, whose gentlemans gentleman is limited to the text, and that of the reader, who looks at the world from outside it but who is withal affected the world created by the text.3 some(prenominal) the reader and the characters have the same(p) problems observing the chaos around them. The paladin in The Crying of deal 49, Oedipa Mass, like the reader, is forced to either pretend herself in the deciphering of clues or not participate at all.4 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 combine with a physicists view of the world as a closed transcription 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 th e reader, by various means, within the system of The Crying of Lot 49. Pynchon designed The Crying of Lot 49 so that there would be two levels of manifestation that of the characters such as our own 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 by his relationship to that world.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 Pynchons audience, is forced to either involve herself in the deciphering of clues or not participate at all.4 Oedipas purpose, besides instruction execution a will, is finding meaning in a life dominated by assaults on peoples perceptions through drug... ...rying of Lot 49, Mindful Pleasures (Boston Little, Brown, 1976), p. 3. 5 buttocks Johnston. Paranoia as a Semiotic Regime in The Crying of Lot 49,New Essays on the Crying of Lot 49 (New York Cambridge Uni versity Press, 1991), p. 6 Paranoia, p. 4. 7 The Grim Phoenix, p. 15. 8 Crying of Lot 49, p. 49. 9 Robert Hipkiss, The American Absurd, (University of dough New York), p. 90 10 Paranoia as a Semiotic Regime, p. 6. 11 Crying of Lot 49, p. 58. 12 Crying of Lot 49, p. 22 . 13 The Grim Phoenix, p. 26 . 14 Paranoia as a Semiotic Regime, p. 1 . 15 Crying of Lot 49, p. 69. 16 Crying of Lot 49, p. 79 . 17 David Seed, Fictional Labyrinths of Thomas Pynchon (University of Iowa Press Iowa City), p. 124.