RHE The Crying of Lot 49

The main plot of The Crying of Lot 49 is the journey of Oedipa. The journey starts off with a simple task of executing a will for her ex-boyfriend Pierce Inverarity. However, on the first night of performing this task, things go awry. The affair Oedipa has with Metzger marks the beginning of the change that will continue to develop throughout the novel. Oedipa finds herself in this mystery, driven by her own curiosity to find out about W.A.S.T.E., human bones, Thurn and Taxis, and Trystero. Each time, it seems, as she gets closer to “solving the mystery”, more questions emerge, and she becomes even more confused. In the end, when she was no closer to finding the answer, she found “her isolation complete.”

This draws a parallel to when America first entered the Vietnam War. When American government first sent soldiers over to Vietnam, they had a simple goal in mind; to not allow the Domino Effect to occur, or more simply, stop communism from spreading all over Southeast Asia. What started out as aid to South Vietnam turned out to be a full-pledged war with over a million casualties. As Oedipa was driven by her curiosity, America was driven by the need to maintain democracy. Each time a new American president is elected, promises of an end to the war are made, yet each president only seems to involve America with the Vietnam War even further. It isn’t until Nixon and his idea of “Vietnamization” did the American soldiers finally pulled out of Vietnam. Arguably, Oedipa never finds out the mysterious bidder on Lot 49, while the Vietnam War saw its end. However, war still occurred in the minds of the Vietnam veterans. The Vietnam veterans had the same mental state as Oedipa; they were completely isolated. Their minds are filled with knowledge and sights that they have never been exposed to before. No one is able to understand their mentality of seeing their comrades lying dead on the ground or attempt to unveil an illegal mailing service. Their world crashes down on them and they are left with nothing to hold onto, nothing to believe.

The ending really strikes me. It explicitly brings the thought of “ignorant bliss or educated hardship” to mind. Both Oedipa and the Vietnam veterans chose educated hardship, and their lives are much more different because of it.