The Self-Resourceful Identity of Oedipal Maas in Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49
Abushal, Abdulrahman . 2016
Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, a classic postmodern text, features its central character, Oedipa Maas, as she goes through a journey through which she investigates the truth about a conspiracy orchestrated by the Trystero, a secret mail company. During her investigation, she discovers her self-worth as a woman in 1960s. Debra A. Moddelmog summarizes the critical arguments about Oedipa’s journey stating that Oedipa leaves us “at possibilities only.” The text offers no resolution, but Deleuze and Guattari’s schizoanalysis offers a unique perception of the open-endedness of the story as Oedipa goes through a critical identity formation. The analysis portrays Oedipa achieving great potentials defying constructs of identity while pursuing her desires. Oedipa becomes revolutionary by fragmenting her identity, and that changes our perception of the ending of the novel ending with female emancipation. Deleuze’s model offers two ways to perceive the individual’s libidinal investment. Individuals either yield to the social constructs of identity described as “the paranoiac investment,” or continue to keep the flows of desire away from the grasps of capitalist machines to remain free, which is “the schizoid investment.” Oedipa changes from the paranoiac to the schizoid. Her fragmented identity transforms her.
Conspiracy theory is a challenging term. It often describes a form of the irrational belief that conspiracies with nefarious goals exist. However, conspiracy theory can be an epistemological…
For decades, conspiracy theory has always been perceived as an expression of paranoid experience. Because of the analogical connection between paranoia and conspiracy theory, the latter has been…
Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, a classic postmodern text, features its central character, Oedipa Maas, as she goes through a journey through which she investigates the…