By the end of The Crying of Lot 49, Oedipa thinks that she may very well have lost her grip on reality. And with the company she keeps, who can blame her? To paraphrase the Cheshire Cat: they're all mad.
Nuttiness threatens a lot characters in the novel, and many totally fall over the edge into outright insanity. But the novel also suggests that some forms of madness are valid… and that Oedipa's over-the-top paranoia may be justified. After all, it's not paranoia if everyone actually is against you.
Questions About Madness
- Is Oedipa Maas insane?
- Why does every character in the book seem to live on the brink of madness? What makes madness so pervasive?
- Is insanity, and paranoia in particular, portrayed as a bad thing in Lot 49? Can it be used constructively?
- What can we conclude from the fact that Oedipa's therapist is the craziest character in the book (other than that she should maybe look for a new shrink)?
Chew on This
Since it's impossible to distinguish between Oedipa Maas's mind and reality, the only way to read Lot 49 is as a book about Oedipa's descent into insanity.
Oedipa Maas must cultivate paranoia in order to even imagine the scope and complexity of the Tristero conspiracy that is enveloping her life. She has to drive herself mad in order to grasp the world around her.