Oedipa Mass In Thomas Pynchon's The Crying Of Lot 49

Alkalay-Gut, Karen. "Jury of Her Peers: The Importance of Trifles." Studies in Short Fiction 21 (Winter 1984): 1-9.

"It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father." - Sigmund Freud(Clark, 122)

When you think of blindness you think of sight and when you think of ignorance you think of knowledge. Throughout the play Oedipus, sight and blindness imagery is very noticeable, along with ignorance and knowledge. Sophocles creates Oedipus as a character of ignorance, confidence, and good insight. The story starts out as Oedipus is the son of King Laius and Queen Jocasta. The oracle told the parents that their son would kill his father and marry his mother. The parents refused to let this happen and sent the servant to pin Oedipus’s feet together and leave him on the mountain to die. The messenger knew this was not right and stepped in immediately to help the poor child. As Oedipus grew older he found out the truth about his life and why certain things happened. Over time, Oedipus's blindness shows him the lack of knowledge he knew about his true life story.

According to Walter Mosley, “Humans are fascinated with crime stories, real or imagined.” One literary work that proves this true is Oedipus the King by Sophocles. From this imagined crime story I learned that humans can be fascinated by imagined crime stories and that it helps us escape reality and go through a fantasy where there’s no problems or stress to worry about.

“The third stage of narrative development was characterized by the appearance of rogues… relying on cleverness more than force, and motivated more by profits than by passion” (Williams 14). Rogues defied whatever came in between their pursuit, whether it be law or authority (Williams 14). In the third stage of criminal literature, the protagonists were all rogues despite of their unlawfully ways, they “aroused reader sympathy” (Williams 16). Williams described these rogues as “outsiders, existing apart from the social structure either by choice or by fate” (William 16). He also described these rogues as “individualistic, opportunistic, self-reliant” as well as “defiant of authority and entirely free” (Williams 16). William argues that the evolution of these narratives took place in three stages: the first being the “early execution sermons and final confessions”, the second being “the incomplete narratives of life and, finally the full length rogue narrative” (Williams 17). Williams’ article describes how criminal literature changed from “promoting obedience, [to] encouraged defiance” (Williams

The patented murder mystery, in all its addictive predictability, presents the audience with numerous cliches: a stormy night, a shadowy figure, a sinister butler, and a mysterious phone call. Susan Glaspell's Trifles does not fit this mold. Glaspell's mysterious inquiry into the murder of John Wright presents the reader with only one suspect, Mrs. Wright. Even though the court examiner and sheriff cannot find evidence against Mrs. Wright, the reader can plausibly argue the case against the neglected wife. Glaspell's use of descriptive language and subtle hints established the mood, presents the motive, and uncovers the evidence needed to solve this murder mystery.

Tannen, D. “There Is No Unmarked Woman” English 102 Reader. Bedford/St. Martin’s. Boston: 2013. pages 376-381. Print

The despoliation of Woolworths occurred last night. Multiple depredators spoliated the emporium, ravaging the aggregate edifice. The law enforcing officers are indubitably obfuscated due to the dearth of evidence, despite a beholder’s iterative testimonial. The law-enforcing force deem the eyewitness to be mendacious; because his attestation uses ambiguous words, the constituents of the civil troop liable for preserving public order deduce that the testifier is equivocating. The bystander attests that he himself beheld a grotesque gargantuan garbanzo rampaging and ransacking the emporium. The law-enforcing troops’ inquisition continues.

Thesis Statement: While the major texts of Agamemnon, Hamlet, and John F. Kennedy’s Secret Society Speech were written and performed at different eras and serve different purposes, they possess the common element of peripeteia since each main character in these texts become vulnerable as their inherently good fortune reverses.

The following days, the press got more information about the gruesome murder of Rossetti. His body had been separated from his head with a weapon the cops could not identify. His head had been found in the empty fireplace with one word written in blood on the fireplace, “Cerberus”. The press had a field day in finding out who this Cerberus person was, but all it

Decker arranged a sting operation to catch this culprit. Caught in this operation, Oluwatosin “dropped the paperwork he had just received” in terror and was taken to the Los Angeles Country Superior Court, where he received an appropriate punishment of “ten years in prison” under charges of identity theft (O’Harrow, Mimoso). Similarly, Dante’s Inferno forces the “naked and terrified” thieves to run from venomous snakes with their “hands behind their backs,” “without a hope of hiding” (Alighieri 251). The thieves who once were concealing themselves are now exposed. Moreover, with Oluwatosin’s numerous stolen identities, his crimes resemble the “chelydri and jaculi, phareans, cenchres, and head-tailed amphisbenes” of Libya (251). Oluwatosin assumed these identities to camouflage himself, much as snakes do in their environment. However, once apprehended, both the thieves of Dante’s fourteenth century Italy and today’s society must endure punishment. As the United States court system sentenced Oluwatosin to ten years in prison, Dante Alighieri arranges a more extreme punishment, where snakes “thrust” between the legs of sinners and form a “knot” in the groin (253). This punishment illustrates the idea of contrapasso, or a fitting punishment. Oluwatosin’s life of crime tied a knot of confinement since his former self could never be restored and his rights were limited in prison. Furthermore, the punishment reveals the

A Symbol can be specified as an experience, from both a perceptive point of view as well as a creative one. The specific use of the term “Symbolism” relates to the cultured movement; of different styles of writing, that began in the nineteenth century which has a major role in literary arts. Susan Glaspell uses symbolism in Trifles as a literary device to highlight the theme of feminine identity. Here, Glaspell provides women with a numerous amount of symbols to justify their feelings and making it easy for them to hinder the investigation. In this drama, details are thoroughly thought out and selectively placed to give the reader more ambition to find their own explanation of the symbols. Glaspell’s symbolism helps paint a picture that is

The Crying of Lot 49 groups these separate alienated persons together, by positing the existence of an organization which unites those who have withdrawn from `the machinery of the Republic’. It focuses on the contribution to the extension of the public domain of the state and capitalist control of information and communication. In the fable of the Tristero postal network, it figures this monopoly through the `official government delivery system’ which seeks to eliminate the `private carriers’, those who communicate in an

"Oedipus the King" is a tragic play showing a shift from the belief of fate to freedom of choice. Therefore, Oedipus the king is a great example of those who run from fate ends up fulfilling their fate

Oedipus did not have a fair start in life. His father, Laius, heard prophecy that Oedipus would one day kill his father and sleep with his mother. In order to prevent this, Laius gave Oedipus to a shepherd to be killed. Fortunately, through a string of events, Oedipus's life was saved, and he even went on to become the honored king of Thebes. Despite this feat, Oedipus still managed to make several decisions that ultimately fulfilled the original prophecy told to Laius, and inevitably sealed Oedipus?s fate.