{"id":87,"date":"2009-02-02T21:29:42","date_gmt":"2009-02-03T02:29:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/?p=87"},"modified":"2009-02-02T21:29:42","modified_gmt":"2009-02-03T02:29:42","slug":"significance-of-names-in-the-crying-of-lot-49","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/?p=87","title":{"rendered":"Significance of Names in The Crying of Lot 49"},"content":{"rendered":"

Someone in one of the earlier posts noted Pynchon’s use of names in The Crying of Lot 49<\/span> and I feel that the names are significant to the text.\u00a0 Although I did not necessarily find meaning in all of the names (there is nothing funny about Dr. Hilarius in my opinion) I feel that some of the names are either a big clue, or at least more ways that Pynchon is trying to deliberately confuse.<\/p>\n

The earlier post mentioned that one first thinks of Oedipus<\/em> when they encounter the name Oedipa in the story.\u00a0 I would agree, though I think there is a different reason that Pynchon chose this particular name.\u00a0 As the story progresses and it the question of just what is going on here becomes more prevalent, there are some instances where Oedipa could follow up on certain leads, but decides not to.\u00a0 On page 144 Oedipa is discussing an article that Gengis Cohen (no idea of the significance)\u00a0 shows her with Bortz.\u00a0 Oedipa says it is interesting “if the article is legitimate.”\u00a0 Bortz tells her it would be easy to check up on, but Oedipa never does.\u00a0 I think it is because Oedipa does not want to know the truth, because the truth will be so terrible that it will cause some sort of Oedipus-like reaction (though that was pretty extreme).<\/p>\n

There also is Oedipa’s last name, Maas, which would sound the same as “mass.”\u00a0 I think that the idea of Oedipa as a “mass” would work because a mass would be needed to center an orbit.\u00a0 Oedipa is the center of this orbit of either the Trystero, Inverarity’s practical joke, or her own paranoia.\u00a0 Whichever one is true (if it even matters) is definitely revolving around Oedipa, the “mass” that centers the whole thing.<\/p>\n

On the other side of all this is Pierce Inverarity, another interesting name.\u00a0 First, one notices that the last name is a play on some form of “veritas” or “verite” which means truth.\u00a0 However, his name isn IN-verarity, or un-truth.\u00a0 Therefore we can see this as a clue by Pynchon that Inverarity represents untruth, or that this is all a sham he put together.\u00a0 However, when we take his first name “Pierce,” we now have a name that relatively means “puncturing the untruth,” or getting the real truth.\u00a0 What is the real truth?\u00a0 That he wants Oedipa to play this little game that he set up, that he wants her to see through all of the lies and deceptions that he himself set up before he died?\u00a0 Or maybe he wants Oedipa to uncover the truth about the Trystero? His death was never explained by the way, if this was a detective story it is totally plausible that Trystero “muted his horn” and he left clues to his executor in hopes of being avenged.\u00a0 Or, maybe he wants Oedipa to “pierce the untruth” in the world.\u00a0 To see beyond what she has always taken for granted.\u00a0 To see the alternate reality that a large portion of the population were living in.<\/p>\n

There is also a good chance that the names mean nothing, or are more red herrings thrown in by Pynchon to make us lose sleep over this book.\u00a0 I enjoy it a lot, but if I think about it too much I start to go a little crazy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Someone in one of the earlier posts noted Pynchon’s use of names in The Crying of Lot 49 and I feel that the names are significant to the text.\u00a0 Although I did not necessarily find meaning in all of the names (there is nothing funny about Dr. Hilarius in my opinion) I feel that some … Continue reading Significance of Names in The Crying of Lot 49<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[120,35],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pynchon","tag-pynchon","tag-reality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions\/93"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}