"The Crying of Lot 49" Chapter 5

This chapter was jam-packed full of events and information leading up to the purpose and meaning of the muted post horn.  The chapter begins with Oedipa going to Berkeley to try to determine the reason behind the four different versions of the play, but the professor who wrote the preface has moved to San Narciso College.  On her way back, she stops to get tested to see if she’s a “sensitive” at John Nefastis’s residence.  Once she found out that she couldn’t mentally force the Demon to sort the molecules, thus confirming that she indeed was not a “sensitive,” John Nefastis asked Oedipa to go have sex with him.  Although she ran out of his house screaming, this event represents a reoccurring representation in this novel.  Instead of sex being based on love, passion, and sensuality, this novel suggests that it is purely a way to relieve boredom.  Oedipa has an affair with Metzger only because she was bored with her own marriage and this reckless act would spice up her life a little bit.  However, Metzger was the only man she engaged in infidelity with, rejecting all the other men’s sexual advances toward her, regardless of how small.

As the novel continues, we find Oedipa being flocked into a gay bar.  During her time there, we see another image of isolation as she sits there as the only female amongst drunken homosexuals.  This image is maintained as Oedipa begins to hallucinate.  She begins to see the muted post horn or references to it on the bus, then at the Laundromat, in the bathroom at the airport, and overhears a mother tell her son to write to her using the W.A.S.T.E. postal system.  Upon leaving, she sees a garbage can with these letters on it, so she sticks around to follow the letter carrier, which ends up going to John Nefastis’s residence.  Back at her hotel, she ends up dancing near perfectly for half an hour at a deaf-mute convention to no music at all.

From there, she decides to return home, heading straight to Dr. Hilarius in hopes of being assured that this whole ordeal is simply a figment of her imagination.  Upon her arrival, she is greeted by gunshots and soon learns that Dr. Hilarius has gone crazy. Oedipa is pulled into his hide-out room, and he confesses that he worked at a concentration camp for the Jews.  She eventually seizes the opportunity to turn the gun around on him so that the police can come take him away.  Outside, she gives a live account of the encounter over her husband’s radio station.  She then discovers that he is tripping on LSD, claiming that he doesn’t have nightmares about the empty car lot when he takes it.  Oedipa heads back to San Narciso, feeling as though she no longer knows her husband.  This is the ultimate image of isolation as Oedipa is left alone with all these pieces to this massive puzzle. 

"The Crying of Lot 49" by Thomas Pynchon

            This first chapter of The Crying of Lot 49 was not at all what I expected when first cracking open the book.  Each scenario and thought involved with Oedipa Maas seemed to have an underlying irony that was hard to ignore.  In the first few pages, Oedipa receives a letter informing her that her wealthy ex-boyfriend, Pierce Inverarity, has died left her in charge of handling his estate.  The series of thoughts following this occurrence seem random to me.  At first, she thinks she is getting really sick, and then immediately jumps into a recollection of her ex-boyfriend impersonating celebrities and talking in various voices.

            When Oedipa vows to herself to handle Pierce’s unresolved business, she begins to think of her husband, Mucho Maas, because she knows he, along with herself, has no idea how to go about carrying out wills.  Mucho, a radio DJ, was once a used car salesman that, according to Oedipa, “had believed too much in the lot.’  This is another ironic point, considering the title of this novel.  Also, the radio station KCUF where Mucho works can be spelled backwards to propose a negative feeling towards his workplace.

            It was also ironic that her doctor called in the middle of the night to recruit Oedipa in participating in an experience involving LSD.  With the name Dr. Hilarius, it all seems to be a big joke that continues into the next day whenever she goes to see Roseman, her lawyer.  Roseman asks Oedipa to run away with him, though he does not have a plan where.  In later conjecture, she remembers always wanting an escape when she was dating Pierce and imagines Pierce trying to climb up her Rapunzel hair, but falling down whenever her hair ended up being a wig.

            While Oedipa suggested earlier in the chapter that her husband’s mental state may be unstable, I can only assume she, as well, may not have all of her marbles from the progression of this novel.

"The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams

The last two scenes of “The Glass Menagerie” were very predictable, in my opinion.  It was very apparent throughout the play that Tom was unhappy with his life by his frequent visits to the fire escape, which made his departure in the end unsurprising. However, Tom could not truly escape his past, for he was haunted by the thought of leaving his sister behind, causing him to hold an intense emotional connection to her.

Laura’s glass figurines were a reoccurring symbol throughout the play.  Just as Jim accidently broke the horn off the unicorn, he broke Laura’s heart by admitting that he had to go pick up his soon-to-be wife.  It also symbolized how fragile all of the Wingfield family is.  While reading, I would get an overwhelming sense of doom for all the characters.  Each felt hopeless about important aspects of their lives:  Tom felt like he was going to work in a coffin instead of pursuing what he was passionate about, while Amanda felt like her golden days were over and her children would never fulfill what she thought would bring them happiness and success.  Laura felt helpless, as well, which was evident through by her complex during Jim’s visit.

I was not shocked to discover that Jim was involved with another woman.  Although Laura did warm up to him when left alone, Jim was a completely different caliber than she was.  The pressure that was placed on their meeting to begin with was enough to assume it would not work out.  This was not a fairy tale ending by no means, but instead a very realistic one.  It left me with the feeling that that’s life, and life is rarely fair at all.  

"Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin

In the beginning of this piece of literature, Baldwin dives right into a sense of brotherly love.  While the narrator cannot change his brother’s decisions, he also cannot let the feelings of anguish go after reading about his arrest in the newspaper.  He obviously cares deeply for his brother, but is only able to grasp how hard his life has been after walking with one of Sonny’s friends on the very day Sonny had been arrested.  After observing the lifestyle of this heroin addict, the narrator is able to see first-hand what Sonny was put through.

The narrator doesn’t write to Sonny right away.  It took his daughter, Grace, dying for him to realize that he needs his brother, and Sonny needs him.  I feel like this happens a lot within relationships.  Often times we find ourselves confiding in the ones we love the most only when we need them the most, and this can be seen throughout this story.  From there, they stay in constant contact until Sonny gets out of jail and comes to stay with his brother and his family in Harlem.

Throughout the story, several flashbacks occurred that allowed us, as the readers, to see the background behind these characters.  A conversation with his mother before her death stuck with the narrator throughout the story, urging him to watch out for Sonny and be there whenever he needs him.  After her death, Sonny moved in with Isabel’s family, and eventually began to skip school in order to pursue a career in music.  Once Isabel’s family found out, he saw what a burden he had been, and decided to join the navy.  It was at this point that Sonny and his brother were the most far away from each other, and it continued this way until Grace died, sparking the narrator to reach out to his brother.

While Sonny and his brother definitely had their ups and downs, the narrator finally saw the reasoning behind Sonny’s love for playing the piano after taking up his offer to go see him play.  The narrator stated, “Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did.”  Sonny wasn’t only playing for himself, he was playing for everyone of Harlem.  He was expressing all of the pain, the anguish, and the suffering associated with their lives, and through these blues, his brother finally understood.

"Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid

When I first began to read this piece, I immediately thought of the lessons my grandmother taught me as a child on how to be ladylike.  However, as I really began to get into the meat of the selection, I was shocked at the reference, "To prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming."  This reoccurring phrase was something that would have never been said to me as a child, which is why I found it so interesting and alarming.  

I was also intrigued by some of what the writer was telling the girl.  She was taught how to "spit up in the air if you feel like it" and "move quick so it doesn't fall on you."  Both of these are quite the opposite of being the lady I was taught to be, and the lady I though the author was molding at the very beginning of the selection.

I feel as though this is almost an intentional stab at how women are suppose to act.  It seems to me as though the author is trying to get the point across that women are not expected to act as they once were with the changing times.

"The Flowers" by Alice Walker

As I began to read this piece by Alice Walker, I was overcome with a sense of déjà vu.  Growing up in Ruby, South Carolina, Myop's activities paralleled with the after-school adventures my older brother and I would take when we were younger.  We loved playing outside and wandering in the woods near our house.  Just as Myop walked to the stream, we always found ourselves fascinated by the creek that ran between our neighbor's home and ours.


The wording chosen by Walker created an image of serenity.  The woods seemed to be such a peaceful place that welcomed her ten-year-old curiosities. In the last sentence in paragraph three, Walker wrote, "Myop watched the tiny white bubbles disrupt the thin black scale of soil and the water that silently rose and slid away down the stream."  I feel that this sentence contained a hidden sense of foreshadowing.  Just as the white bubbles disrupted the thin black scale of soil, Myop's happiness and summer was disrupted by what she stepped on as she began to head home.


The ending came to be a huge surprise to me, as it immediately twisted the mood of tranquility to suspense.  The descriptions of the body rotting away led to the notion that the body had been there a good, long while without anyone missing the person.  This shifted the feelings of being one with nature to being completely alone, which was reinforced by the noose found circling a limb.  Suicide is the ultimate display of loneliness, and Myop realized this as she walked into this horrific discovery.  At ten years old, Myop was not mentally prepared to deal with this, which is represented by her actions thereafter.  She laid down the flowers that she had worked so hard to pick and prepare, and the story ends with the line, "And summer was over."


I found this story to be extremely interesting.  The sentence stating, "It was only when she saw his naked grin that she gave a little yelp of surprise," threw a curveball into the situation Myop had gotten in to.  It seems as though the man had finally found his own happiness letting go of life, while Myop had found happiness exploring the life around her.