Life is Pointless, Just Accept It

A stamp collection is the least likely suspect for instigating a downward spiral into an abyss of paranoia. Yet The Crying of Lot 49 proves otherwise. Inspired by a fascination with the estate left behind by a deceased former lover, Oedipa’s investigative expertise is put to the test. Despite her obsession, efforts to uncover the secrets of Trystero are executed in vain. Within his novel, Thomas Pynchon explores the bleak reality that attempting to grasp an understanding of the world is pointless. Rather than seek profound answers or escape via hallucinatory substances, one must embrace the harsh truth that life itself is void of meaning.  

Pynchon’s depiction of the world is marked by its apathetic, systematic functioning. The author utilizes the initial sexual encounter between Oedipa and Metzger as a metaphor for the mechanized organization of society. Indicating the female protagonist’s lack of control, Pynchon describes Oedipa as being “so weak she couldn’t help him undress her...as if...he were some scaled-up, short-haired, poker-faced little girl with a Barbie doll,” eventually awaking “to find herself getting laid...like a cut to a scene where the camera’s already moving”(Pynchon 42). Rendered defenseless from excessive alcohol consumption, she is involuntarily subdued by Metzger. Though he radiates charm and intrigue, the lawyer symbolizes the oppressive and misleading nature of the society in which each character is engrossed. This particular incidence of rape and dehumanization of the lovers allows the author to capture the indifference society displays towards the human condition. As impotent subjects to a mechanized and unsympathetic world, Pynchon implies, acceptance of inferiority is imperative.

Despite resistance from individuals who reject societal conditions, industrialized structures and their influences remain inescapable. Although members of the Peter Pinguid Society believe the underground Yoyodyne mail system to be “a calculated withdrawal, from the life of the Republic, from its machinery...unpublicized, private”(Pynchon 124), such behavior merely perpetuates an overarching obedience to systematic functioning. Blind ignorance compels them to place the entirety of their focus upon the physical act of their resistance to authority, rather than the intention behind it. The absence of meaning contained within the letters furthers this counterintuitive agenda, as the members become enslaved to the system they themselves have created. Thus, Pynchon projects a despairing worldview, embodied through the hollow state of the characters’ existence.

Yet as Pynchon implies, those who question the authority to which they have been subjected face the threat of insanity. Yearning to partake in the pyramid of knowledge offered by the W.A.S.T.E. organization, Oedipa wishes to identify as a “sensitive.” However, she dreads that “the central truth itself” is unattainable, since it “must somehow each time be too bright for her memory to hold”(Pynchon 95). Pynchon suggests that the free will she believes she is capable of exercising under the label of “sensitive” is futile in accessing the knowledge she pursues. Her inferiority is only magnified by the system she aspires to unravel; rather, it is her own sanity that is gradually unraveled. Oedipa claims that “the true sensitive is the one that can share in the man’s hallucinations”(Pynchon 107), reiterating the idea that comprehending the organization will result not in enlightenment, but distorted reflections of the real world. The futility of Oedipa’s efforts are made evident as Pynchon highlights the absurdity of their expected outcome.

Dwelling upon the impenetrable course of life, however, leads many to embrace drugs as a outlet for the monotony of their lives. This response allows Pynchon to offer a despondent outlook towards societal conditions maintained by those who choose to resist, rather than submit to, the inevitability of their fate. After Oedipa offers money to a forlorn sailor, he expresses his intention to “spend it on booze” (Pynchon 128). Reflected by his anguish, “years of uselessness” have resulted in a “sure decay of hope”(Pynchon 128). In the eyes of the sailor, an existence dominated by intoxication is preferable to one of astute awareness of its futility. Similarly, after acquiring an addiction to LSD, Oedipa’s husband, who “used to hunch his shoulders and have a rapid eyeblink rate” reports relief from each ailment (Pynchon 141). Pynchon includes Mucho Maas’ psychosis as an extension of the sailor’s condition; both men treat their coping mechanisms as substitutes for life itself, as they struggle to tolerate the burdens of a meaningless world.

Ironically, a slightly optimistic worldview is offered to those who accept the futility of life. Although “always just that little percent on the wrong side of breaking even,” a poker player Oedipa encounters continues to gamble, despite acknowledging that he will “never get ahead of it”(Pynchon 122). By embracing the emptiness of life, he opts for taking risks, recognizing that he has nothing to lose. Similarly, peace of mind becomes a possibility for Oedipa if she admits that the series of coincidences with which she is obsessed are “all a hoax, maybe something Inverarity set up before he died”(Pynchon 167). In fact, she goes so far as to wish that “she [i]s mentally ill”(Pynchon 171) in order to avoid the notion of a deeply problematic world. Through the reasoning of these characters, Pynchon offers a positive world view, attributing complications to the individual rather than society itself.

Exemplified by Pynchon within The Crying of Lot 49, the world bears no inherent meaning. Sprinkled throughout the novel, the motif of the Trystero muted post horn is a symbol of the characters’ inability to voice discontent with the futility of existence, or redirect the course of the world. As one of Bortz’s grad students states, even the “historical Shakespeare...the historical Marx. [and] The historical Jesus” ultimately face death, no matter the extent of their societal accomplishments (Pynchon 151). Those who choose methods of resistance in reaction against their despairing worldview are ultimately consumed by self-destructive attempts to seek truth and purpose. However, as Pynchon suggests, succumbing to the mechanized functioning of the world provides freedom from insanity.

Word Count: 997