The Crying of Lot 49

Names in The Crying of Lot 49 Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 is a very deep, complex, and demanding novel, requiring the wide breadth of knowledge. One of the most fascinating aspects of the novel is Pynchon's choice -- or rather, invention -- of the names he gives the characters and organizations described in the novel. These names function as metaphors for the people and things they represent, thus enabling us to understand the hidden …

…begins to pick up on the difference appearances of the existence of Tristero, it seems to be everywhere, and its pervasiveness seems impossible. She has other ties to Oedipus as well. Like him, she originally belonged to the society of which she claims to be a part -- in Oedipus' case, Thebes; in Oedipa's, twentieth-century America. But her discovery makes her an alien, and she comes to doubt her own sanity like Freud's conflicted men.