The Crying of Lot 49 Themes

At the heart of Oedipa Maas's crazy predicament is her inability to tell the difference between her own mind and the world around her. Though she's aware that she (at least partially) creates her o...

The Crying of Lot 49 doesn't exactly present the kind of vision of California that the Golden State would use in its tourism campaigns. Pynchon's view of California history (and, really, all of U.S...

Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 is basically held together by a big ol' metaphor; a figure of speech: the Tristero. But for Oedipa Maas, this "figure of speech" has to do with the nature of the worl...

For a bookworm, Pynchon is surprisingly literate when it comes to modern science, and two scientific concepts—entropy and Maxwell's Demon—are totally central to understanding The Crying of Lot...

Don't read this book looking for hot and tempting sexytimes: sex in Pynchon's work is just another subject of parody. A bunch of characters have super-perverted desires… and the most nearly norm...

Tons of characters in The Crying of Lot 49 use drugs, and a handful of 'em abuse drugs. Oedipa's therapist wants her to start dropping acid, and she ultimately loses her husband because he's on so...

There is very little love or human warmth in The Crying of Lot 49. From the very beginning, Oedipa Maas feels totally isolated and alone. She has a real sense that the void is just beneath her feet...

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 al...