The parabolics of paranoia : a study of paranoia in Thomas Pynchon's 'The crying of lot 49'

Abstract

This dissertation aims to read into Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 and discuss its use of paranoia. Pynchon's paranoia is a grand device, sustained through various other devices that Pynchon employs in order to write a novel conducive to paranoia. In order to better determine the use of paranoia to Pynchon, we shall concern ourselves with three devices he employs in order to best inform us on the necessity of paranoia to his readers. These three devices are namely: conspiracy, entropy and despair. The chapter on conspiracy will discuss the world outside of The Crying of Lot 49 and how the political situation outside the novel influenced it. This will lead us to discuss how Pynchon could be using conspiracy as a way of making them think on the world in a critical manner, meaning that they could start to become people sorting through the mysteries of the then contemporary society. Because of this, the second chapter will concern itself with entropy and how information about the world might be interpreted by both Oedipa Maas as well as the readers, who, in their search for meaning, start mimicking her journey through San Narciso and her pursuit of the solutions to the mysteries of the Trystero. Oedipa Maas's quest for meaning in The Crying of Lot 49 is not conclusive. It is for this reason that, for its final chapter, this dissertation will concern itself with the emotion that the inconclusive nature of the novel tends to leave: despair. Despair comes both as an answer to the novel's inconclusive nature, as well as a response to some of the passages present in the novel. The devices will be read into and analysed so that we can see how and why Thomas Pynchon uses the device of paranoia as often as he does. Once this part of the task is completed, we shall attempt to derive the meaning that the grander device of paranoia gives to The Crying of Lot 49, so that, in this way, we might go about finding the meaning to the novel proper. By the end of this paper, we shall hopefully have discussed The Crying of Lot 49 and discovered how, through paranoia, Pynchon establishes meaning and reason for his readers.