Character Analysis
Tremaine works in a government surplus store located in the same lot as Zapf's Used Book Store. After Oedipa learns that Zapf's has burned down, she wanders into Tremaine's store. He tells her that Zapf burned down the Used Book Store for insurance money. A moment later, Tremaine reveals himself as a racist and a nut. He tells Oedipa that he is doing great business selling swastika armbands and hopes to have some full Nazi uniforms ready for a "back-to-school campaign" (6.15). Oedipa later learns that Mike Fallopian has done business with Tremaine.
Tremaine's name is probably a combination of the names John Winthrop and John Tremaine. Winthrop was a Puritan who came to America in the seventeenth century and promised to turn the country into a model of Christian charity, a "city upon a hill." He was also the founder of Massachusetts. Tremaine was a fictional hero of a children's book from 1943 about the American Revolution. In the minor character of Winthrop Tremaine, we get an instance of Pynchon's most biting satire: the enormous discrepancy between what America claims to be and the crazy people who actually populate its streets (and government surplus stores).